Agusti Centelles Library in Barcelona.©Consuelo Bautista
A few months ago I live in Barcelona.
Coming from Bogotá, the presence of the public in everyday life is appreciated.
In Colombia, “going out” is usually synonymous with “spending”.
In Barcelona we go to the Parque de la Ciudadela, we read stories in the library, we visit one of the museums that have free admission on Sundays, or we go to one of the many neighborhood fairs.
The legacy of European countries has been this notion of a community where the public interest is above the individual.
In practice, this translates into quality public health and education, affordable housing, and unemployment insurance for the unemployed.
But also, and above all, it is about an attitude towards life.
Knowing the best place is the one with open doors, the one where they do not ask you for a membership card to enter, there is no "bouncer" at the entrance,
you do not need to be a “VIP” client to have access.
It is this daily life where you are not more or less than the other depending on the amount of money you have in your bank account that leads us to value life from another place.
Because it is very different to live in a country where rights have a price, to one where they are guaranteed for everyone.
The sad thing is that this "American" way of conceiving humanity is devouring the world.
At least since the rise of liberal democracy, there has never been a concentration of wealth as grotesque as it is now.
Never have so few accumulated so much with the sole idea of continuing to accumulate more.
I remember a joke they told at school: What does Pablo Escobar's son ask the Child of God?
The answer was: Nothing, the son tells him "Children God, ask me what you want."
He used to make me laugh, despite the fact that the jokes about the Escobar surname have fed me up (they also affect me personally for sharing a surname).
But I think the joke is a good illustration of a narco planet that, like a cancer, has metastasized in politics, the economy, and ways of life and coexistence between people.
This treasure trove of public goods in abundance, which is still possible to experience in some countries, began to be built in Enlightenment Europe.
This social and cultural spring is once again in danger.
Beyond speculating if Putin is about to start the Third World War, I am interested in thinking about how humanity that rose in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries from the darkness of horror is today under threat.
Because after demonstrating that in people knowledge and reason triumph over superstition and fear, after dreaming of building collective confidence during the Age of Enlightenment in what we can achieve as thinking beings, an authoritarian leader reappears and crazy to put so much in check.
Unfortunately, the Russian case is no exception.
Authoritarian regimes range from Myanmar to Venezuela, from Hungary to Nicaragua, from China to Syria.
And as Hannah Arendt rightly says in
The Origin of Totalitarianism,
propaganda was an indispensable tool in Nazi Germany.
Today social networks fulfill the same objective of manipulating mass thought.
The icing on the cake of discord, then, is the purchase of Twitter by the richest man on the planet according to
Forbes
magazine .
Elon Musk is one of many villains of our era.
Along with Putin, Bolsonaro or Trump, he represents the irascible, megalomaniac and capricious male who is better not to contradict for fear of having our heads cut off.
Will Musk use the social network as a revolver to harass his enemies?
Is this the spread of fake news?
Or will it also be his platform to make friends with China, as it suits Tesla?
Does it mean that he has ceased to rule the age of human reason?
And Europe?
We Latin Americans are stone guests in this feast of barbarism.
Or am I wrong?
What do you have to tell us about this?
@melbaes
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