Zapatero: "Borges cared more about men than the government of men"

“I think I am the first president of democracy to write a book like this,” José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero comments with some shyness.

Adolfo Suárez was circulated the evil that he had never read a book.

The rest of the heads of the Government did divulge their readings and published works with their memoirs or their political reflections.

Zapatero himself wrote his vision of the great economic collapse that ruined the end of his term.

But none had dared with what the former socialist president recognized as "an act of intrusion": a literary essay dedicated to one of the great loves of his life, Jorge Luis Borges.

The editors proposed it to him when the pandemic was in full swing and he thought about it for a few days. "I accepted with a certain point of daring, although I have had some in life," he smiles. "The experience was exciting and when I finished it I had a very, very intense satisfaction, different from that of all the relevant moments of my life." The result is

a booklet of a hundred pages that has just been released by the Huso publishing house, in which Zapatero passionately comments on stories and poems, analyzes the writer's often traitorous political opinions or compares his art with Bach's music.

In the small office that he now occupies at the headquarters of the Pablo Iglesias Foundation, in Madrid, the same framed photo that accompanied him in his years at La Moncloa shows again: the author of

and his inseparable Bioy Casares in a Buenos Aires bookstore. A long blue row stands out on one of the office's shelves, that of the Alianza Editorial pocket copies with the works of the “genius”. Zapatero has been an "unrepentant Borgiano" since his early youth. He has traveled the corners of the writer in Buenos Aires, has visited collections of his objects and even now, in the middle of the conversation, he gets excited when reciting phrases from the end of

, his most famous story, which he says he has read "15 or 20 times", or the dazzling Borgian adjectives - "unanimous night", "imperious agony", he repeats with emphasis - which for him have been "a source of happiness".

Even to some disgust, the former socialist leader faces the political opinions of those who came to excuse the Argentine and Chilean dictatorships or dared to pronounce that democracy "is an abuse of statistics."

“That phrase is brilliant, but in Borges the taste for form and for the ingenious phrase prevailed over any other dimension.

They must be admitted with relativism.

He cared more about men than the government of men, "he says.

The former president clarifies that Borges' political positions are too conditioned by an "anti-Peronist obsession" and defends that, despite everything, he always had an "ethical attitude." In fact, one of the great political banners of the former president, dialogue, has its Borgian inspiration: “Borges says that 'doubt is the name of intelligence'. If there is doubt, there is dialogue, you have to listen. That has influenced me extraordinarily ”. His "Borgian interpretation" - "mine", he emphasizes - goes far beyond politics. And again he resorts to that “sublime final moment” of

, when Borges places himself in the story to show his love for the late Beatriz Viterbo: “Only love imposes itself on infinity. The only thing that made Borges seem human was love ”.

Zapatero says that when he attends talks on political leadership and they ask him for advice, the first thing he says is: "Read everything you can." He points out that he has always done so, except during the years of the presidency, although at that time he entrusted his department of Culture to keep him informed weekly of the literary news. He is enthusiastic about Irene Vallejo and that book “with a very Borgian title”,

: “It is one of the best tributes that world literature has paid to books. And we are proud that it is Spanish ”.

Art in general and reading have given the former president "serenity." “Serenity and calm in the face of the anguish of living, which is inherent to the imperative of living. Life is a fight against the anguish that living produces, and music and literature help you to understand the limitations of the human being, to value happiness ”. Also to relativize politics somewhat: “Politics is a teaching, it is one of the most intense manifestations of life. But wondering about our origin and our destiny is more sublime and more important to each of us than politics. Politics is a compromise and you have to take it with a certain relativism ”.

Completed, last month, the 61 years, Zapatero recognizes "a lucky person for having been president." “That is to say thank you every day,” he declares, without letting an iota of nostalgia for power escape: “For me, this stage of ex-president is extraordinarily comforting. I participate in forums and debates, I read without rest, I try to interpret the technological revolution that lies ahead. I'm still in public life, although with a certain distance ”. He explains that he gives his opinion to those who ask for it, many people from his party, but also from Podemos and the nationalists. “With the PP, with very few; I am not very attractive to them, ”he jokes. “I try to stimulate those who are now. I don't think any past time was better, not even in politics. When you start to think that, it is that your decadence is there.And for my own sake I think that what comes after each of us has to be better. Because we have worked to make a better country. And because the important thing in life is not that they recognize you, it is that you recognize others ”.