Salvador Giner analyses the transformation of Spanish society

In an interview conducted by Carles Geli, the Spanish sociologist Salvador Giner, who has just been given the 2006 National Award for Sociology and Political Science, analyses the social and political evolution of Spain. "What took 120 years in the North of Europe has taken 30 years here. Everybody is talking about a political transition, but it is on a cultural level that this has been most extraordinary. Spain was a country that burned churches down and where the Catholics killed Freemasons. Forty years on, the churches are empty. The conflagration of churches has been replaced by an indifference to them. This is a brutal leap. Conversely, the ethnic-cultural leap has not been very big: 'Catalanism' and 'Andalousianism' have been reinforced. Collective Spanish identities have been intensified. This may be the result of a compensatory process stemming from the loss of this personality. We have no more beliefs left: we are proving as indifferent to the Church as we are to the Communist Party."

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