12 November 2020
Nothing Worse Than A Loser?
Yes – a bad loser.
By Neil Tidmarsh
Arturo Pérez-Reverte – war correspondent, excellent historical novelist, brilliant columnist – writes a weekly comment piece for the Spanish daily ABC. It appears in the paper’s Sunday supplement, XL Semanal, and takes a piratical, swashbuckling and combative view of modern Spain and the contemporary world, under the very appropriate title Patente de Corso (‘Letter of Marque’).
Last week he launched a blistering attack on the admiral in charge of Spain’s newly re-opened National Naval Museum in Madrid. The renovated museum would be a triumph, Señor Pérez-Reverte wrote, but for one shameful omission: a dramatic, panoramic and vivid painting of the warship El Glorioso is no longer on display, even though it has been one of the most popular and well-known exhibits since it was unveiled in the museum in the presence of King Felipe in 2014.
El Glorioso battled its way across the Atlantic in over three days of combat in 1747, during the War of the Austrian Succession. It was attacked by British privateers and warships almost as soon as it left Cuba, carrying four million silver dollars. But it fought bravely and fiercely, all on its own, dismasting one of the privateers and sinking one of the Royal Naval warships. Heavily outnumbered and badly damaged, it nevertheless managed to unload its cargo in a Spanish port before a final encounter with the ever-growing British squadron off the coast of Portugal. After hours of fighting, El Glorioso ran out of ammunition. Only then – dismasted and with 33 of its crew killed and 130 wounded – did its captain surrender.
The admiral in charge of the remodelled Naval Museum has blown the painting out of the water because it shows a Spanish defeat. He wants the museum to commemorate Spanish victories only. Winners, not losers. The painting (by el pintor de batallas Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau) shows El Glorioso just before its surrender – battered, outnumbered, surrounded by enemy ships but still defiantly afloat. The admiral says that its captain “would not have liked to be remembered like this” and has replaced it with a less visceral and more anodyne painting of El Glorioso sinking HMS Dartmouth in a one-on-one combat.
Arturo Pérez-Reverte condemns the decision. Not only is its clumsy attempt to edit history dangerous, but it misses the most important point of El Glorioso’s story – that exemplary and glorious behaviour such as heroic courage and fighting spirit should be honoured and celebrated irrespective of whether it ended in victory or defeat. In fact, exemplary behaviour in defeat is more worthy of honour and respect than it is in victory, a point which was well understood by El Glorioso’s enemies. The British were amazed and impressed by the skill and courage of her captain and crew, and ready to express admiration and praise. “Never did Spaniards, nor indeed [any] men, fight a ship better than they did this” said the commander of the British privateers, George Walker.
Arturo Pérez-Reverte (although no Anglophile, I suspect) titled his piece Los Ingleses lo respetaron más (‘The English had more respect for it’). In his piece this week, Dunkerque a la española, he explores further this theme of victory and defeat, winners and losers, and how the right behaviour in defeat can turn it into a kind of victory. He holds up the evacuation of Dunkirk as the classic example of how, if you can find something admirable in a defeat, you can render a disaster as praiseworthy and glorious as a triumph in the eyes of history. (He admits that the English are past masters at this – “en eso los ingleses son viejos maestros” – they tend to look for the silver lining even in a disaster, he says, whereas the Spanish tend to look for the dark cloud even in a triumph.)
If only Donald Trump had read Pérez-Reverte. The Donald refuses to accept that he’s lost the election because he thinks there’s nothing worse than a loser. Well, Mr Trump, there is – it’s a bad loser. At the moment he’s looking more like the admiral in charge of that naval museum (a bad loser) than the captain of El Glorioso (a praiseworthy and heroic loser). His reaction to defeat – undignified, embarrassing, arrogant, mean-spirited and self-deluding – has only compounded the humiliation. It could have been different. Even in defeat he had a lot going for him; as Biden’s victory loomed, it was quite noticeable how commentators – over here in the UK media at least – were beginning to hum a fresh new tune which had two surprising melodies to it; one which castigated the self-righteousness of the Democrat followers, media and political establishment who demonised all Republican voters; and another which suggested that history (taking a more objective view of Trump’s presidency than we can, put off as we are by the less than seductive personality) might be kinder to his time and endeavours in office than we could expect.
If only he could present himself as a ‘good’ loser – in other words, summon enough dignity and humility and grandeur of spirit to accept the Democrat’s victory and congratulate Biden on his achievement – then he would be on his way to a kind of moral victory. Not only that, but he would be paving the way towards the possibility of political victory as well. He might have retained the Republican party’s support, which his churlishness has almost certainly forfeited. Together with that push-back against the self-righteousness of hard-core Democrats, that potential legacy of achievement in office, that record number of votes (plus the uncertainty that Democratic sophistication will achieve more for the USA and its problems over the next four years than his own crude weapons did), it could well have given him a formidable platform to go for the presidency again in 2024.
But, as it is, he’s refused to join the good losers of El Glorioso whose qualities in defeat propelled them to moral victory, or the good losers of Dunkirk whose qualities in defeat ultimately propelled them to actual victory. Instead he’s chosen to align himself with bad losers and political pariahs such as Cristina Kirchner of Argentina and Yahya Jammeh of Gambia.
In 2016, outgoing president of Argentina Cristina Kirchner really didn’t want to leave the Casa Rosales presidential residence when her party lost the election. The president-elect Mauricio Macri had to get a High Court ruling to confirm the exact hour when her administration was to end and a legal injunction to tell her when she had to quit the palace. She refused to hand the presidential baton and sash over at the palace, but only at the Congress building. She refused to attend Macri’s inauguration. She even walked off with the Presidential twitter account, so Macri had to set up a new one. And where is she now? Hiding from charges of treason and corruption behind a fragile and fraying senatorial immunity.
Also in 2016, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia refused to accept defeat in the presidential election and defied a UN resolution demanding that he step down. In the end, an Ecowas (the Economic Community of Western African States) army of 7000 troops supported by the Nigerian air force persuaded him to go. Where is he now? In exile in Equatorial Guinea, with charges of corruption and human rights abuses snapping at his heels.
So yet again Donald Trump finds himself in bad company. El Glorioso in defeat? No, inglorious to the last.
