By Raul Diaz -
GIBRALTAR - For 300 years, the people on this rock at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula — Spanish, Portuguese, Italians and some Britons — have been subjects of a monarch in London.
Colonies the world over have shrugged off faraway masters, but on Wednesday the people of Gibraltar made clear they like things as they are, celebrating the anniversary of British rule in a festive linking of hands.
The annoyance of neighboring Spain appeared to be of less concern than the benefits of life in a sunny, laid-back Mediterranean tax haven.
"Everything except the bars are closed" for Wednesday's national holiday, said Dominique Searle, a reporter for the Gibraltar Chronicle.
Captured by British forces on Aug. 4, 1704, and formally ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Gibraltar is unmistakably British, apart from regular sunshine and low taxes.
Pubs dot the colony, bobbies walk the streets and red telephone booths stand on street corners in the town at the foot of a 1,400 feet cliff rising from the Mediterranean Sea near the narrow strait that separates Europe from Africa.
Street signs are in English, though colonial officials, in a nod to geographic realities, have also included Spanish and Portuguese on the signs.
"Gibraltar's like ... Britain in the 1950s," said historian Charles Powell. "It's like a time warp."
But like contemporary Britain, Gibraltar with its population of 28,000 is also a melting pot, home to people of Maltese descent, Indians, Pakistanis, Jews and Moroccans, to name a few.
The economic mainstays of the colony are tourism, offshore banking, and fees from services to ships. In a good year, more than 5 million people visit Gibraltar, most of them British citizens driving over from vacation homes on Spain's Mediterranean coast.
The mix of people — and money — has turned what was once a heavily fortified British military outpost into a buzzing corner of cafes, shops, banks and restaurants from which one can spot North Africa's Rif Mountains on a clear day.
The rich benefit from private banking, the middle class from low taxes — possibly neither of which would be allowed if Gibraltar were Spanish.
Thousands of people turned out Wednesday morning to kick off the day's celebrations by linking hands to form a giant human chain around the colony. Many sported red T-shirts with British flags.
"We are going to prove to the world that nobody can take Gibraltar from us," said Lilian Carroll, a 60-year-old resident. "We've been here 300 years. We own 'the Rock,'"
Later, the House of the Assembly, Gibraltar's parliament, presented the Freedom of the City award to the Royal Navy, which deployed the frigate HMS Grafton to Gibraltar for the celebrations. Some 300 British sailors also paraded through the city's streets for British Defense Minister Geoff Hoon and other dignitaries.
The presence of Hoon and British soldiers and sailors irked the recently elected Spanish government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Spain has long sought to recover Gibraltar, and Spanish officials called the heavy British presence at the anniversary celebrations an unfriendly gesture from an ally.
But the latest war of words between Spain and Britain over Gibraltar is just "more of the same," Powell said. "As far as the future of Gibraltar is concerned, this is of no great significance."
In a 2002 referendum, 99 percent of Gibraltarians voted against any move toward Spanish sovereignty, and Britain has said it won't force a solution that residents oppose, leaving Spain powerless to do much about Gibraltar but fume.
That's a well-worn tradition — the Spanish government even complained in 1981 when Britain's Prince Charles and Lady Diana started their honeymoon in the colony.
Despite official squabbles, relations between Gibraltarians and their Spanish neighbors remain cordial.
"We get along with the Spanish and have nothing against them," Carroll said. But she insisted that neither she nor her neighbors would give up their British identity.
Source: Yahoo News
