Open season on D. Duck

Press, 3 December 1985, Page 20

Open season on D. Duck

The hunting season in Spain has just opened, and a lot of guns are already pointed at the noisy American duck which is hovering off the Atlantic coast.

Spain is competing with France to be the site of Disneyland’s projected European leisure park. Some widely read Spanish journalists disapprove. They are, as one of them puts it, “waging war on Donald Duck to prevent the colonisation of the Mediterranean by General. Disney’s troops.” During this month, Donald has been a favourite target of contributors to the leading Madrid daily, “El Pais,” who present him as public enemy number one of all those attached to “a Christian and European culture.”

Most of the attacks could have been written by the late General Franco’s propagandists, who enjoyed denouncing sinister Ameri-

can inventions such as Coca-Cola, jazz and bikinis. But this time the thunder is on the Left. Donald isnot the only target. The Government’s television service even boycotts “Dallas” (although, dubbed in Catalan and Basque, the programme attracts the biggest audiences on the autonomous channels of Catalonia and Euskadi). This cultural xenophobia is linked with the argument over

Spanish membership of N.A.T.O. The Prime Minister, Mr Felipe Gonzalez, who wants Spain to remain in the alliance, has promised to hold a referendum on the issue next year. Now Donald has become part of the anti-N.A.T.O. campaign. One Madrid columnist went so far as to assert that “Donald, Mickey and Daisy are the visible heads of America’s nuclear missiles in Europe.” Donald does, however, have many friends in Spain, especially in Catalonia and Valencia, which are eager to accommodate Disneyland if the company decides to invest in Spain. Officials of these two regions are appalled by the down-with-Donald campaign. They claim it is a Franco-Castilian plot to ensure that Disneyland goes to France. Copyright—The Economist.