You have to hide

"

Montaigne wisely says. In Spain, right now, it is necessary advice. You have to hide, as far as possible. You have to escape, even if you do not move from your place. The months of forced confinement educated us in patience and caution; They taught us to remain still, to keep our distance, to nourish ourselves better from what is intimate and close, from our own reserves, like hibernating animals, from our imaginative capacities. Each one was able to learn on their own what was really worthwhile and what was only accessory. Forced austerity suspended the consumerist delusion of unlimited possibilities. In Spain, where environmentalist thought provokes unusual aggressiveness among intellectuals converted to libertarianism,any hint of reflection on other possible forms of organization of life received the required dose of mockery: what good guys, how cheesy were those who celebrated the return of clean air and birds to the sky of the cities. At that time, one was still surprised by the coincidence between such high-voltage minds and the president of the Community of Madrid, already famous then for vindicating the traffic jams on Friday nights as attractions of Madrid, and for ensuring that the pollution has no harmful effects on health.At that time, one was still surprised by the coincidence between such high-voltage minds and the president of the Community of Madrid, already famous then for vindicating the traffic jams on Friday nights as attractions of Madrid, and for ensuring that the pollution has no harmful effects on health.At that time, one was still surprised by the coincidence between such high-voltage minds and the president of the Community of Madrid, already famous then for vindicating the traffic jams on Friday nights as attractions of Madrid, and for ensuring that the pollution has no harmful effects on health.

Another Spanish lesson that we have learned, or that we should not have forgotten, is that the will of denial and demolition can be much more powerful than that of preserving the valuable or raising something new and better. In order not to leave a truce for the Government of Pedro Sánchez, the right-wing was willing six months ago that such a fundamental tool against the pandemic as the state of alarm should not come forward. With a shamelessness that leaves you breathless, that defies credulity, these same subjects who last year accused the Government of curtailing freedoms and ruining the economy now accuse it of having left without effect what they reviled, and obscenely charge beforehand on their backs the death toll that may increase.In no other country in Europe is the methodical determination to bring down the government as soon as possible by sabotaging the already difficult tasks that lie ahead, literal tasks of life and death, of survival or of life, is placed so blatantly above the common good in a time of crisis. ruin.

The spectacle of the Spanish vehemence in destroying and of the joy for the failure of others rather than for its own success gives me chills. It makes me want to leave, to flee, to seclude myself in an internal exile, now that it is so difficult to cross borders again. I was walking down the street at midnight on Saturday, passing by crowded terraces and passing irresponsible and drunken crowds and I felt like a hopeless foreigner. I had been surprised by the fervor with which some colleagues seemed to have agreed, during the electoral campaign in Madrid, to ridicule and make fun of those of us who had signed a manifesto requesting the vote for the leftist options: posh gentlemen all of us, gangsters , useful fools, more or less feeble-minded,hypocrites or well-thought-out that by earning a decent living for our work we have no right to demand social justice or equality among people. But I was even more surprised by the immodest joy with which some of those same colleagues later celebrated not so much the victory of the right and the extreme right in the elections, but the defeat of the left, and above all the disgust that we would have been "down signers ”. Laughing at those who have lost is a gesture of great moral nobility.and above all the annoyance that "the undersigned" would have had us. Laughing at those who have lost is a gesture of great moral nobility.and above all the annoyance that "the undersigned" would have had us. Laughing at those who have lost is a gesture of great moral nobility.

In no other country in Europe is the methodical determination to bring down the government as soon as possible, in a time of crisis, is so blatantly placed above the common good.

For once the laughter has passed, I would like to ask, those people who are so good at denial and sarcasm, what are their affirmations, what things are there that do not seem despicable, or worthy of those strokes of bilious wit that arouse laughter. We are all too clever, and we are very good at laughing at the nonsense of others, and seeing in them a ridicule from which we ourselves are mysteriously exempt. The one who has laughed the most and the least, all of us have laughed at Pablo Iglesias' ponytail or bow: but when a fascist says at a rally, encouraged by a rowdy mob, that Pablo Iglesias is going to cut off both his ears and his bow , and that they are going to throw him out of Spain, laughter freezes us, and we become embarrassed and our own.It is very easy to laugh at the nonsense and ridiculousness of the left. The problem begins when that mockery no longer extends to the nonsense and ridiculousness of the right, and especially when the mockery and dislike of the painful thing on the left distracts you to one of the things that really matter.

You define yourself by what you affirm, not by what you deny. Something is denied because something is affirmed. Racism and homophobia are denied because equality between people and the right of each to a free and dignified life are affirmed. The freedom of the privilege of money and of social position cannot be exercised at the cost of the universal right to health, education, clean air, clean water, personal safety, equality before the law. The OECD has just denounced that Spain is the country in Europe in which there are the most ghetto schools, because the children of the poorest and of immigrants go only to overflowing public schools with few resources and not to private or concerted schools , which are financed with everyone's money.

During all the years that the right wing has been ruling Madrid, its constant effort has been to reduce the scope of public education, as well as that of public health. Two goods as sacred as education and health offer succulent possibilities for private business. I signed a manifesto and cast a vote in defense of a few concrete ideals that fit on a sheet of paper, and that are so unrevolutionary that they have founded the consensus of the best European policy for almost three-quarters of a century. A certain degree of internal exile does not seem to me an excessive price for continuing to defend them, even if it is accompanied by the sarcasm of the brilliant minds gathered around Isabel Díaz Ayuso.

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