A walk through Madrid with Juan Luis Arsuaga: "I want politicians to inflate themselves by eating children's snot"

Juan Luis Arsuaga, 68, is one of the most renowned scientists in Spain.

He is a doctor in Biological Sciences and Professor of Paleoanthropology at the Complutense University of Madrid, where he teaches.

He is also scientific director of the Museum of Human Evolution in Burgos and co-director of the Atapuerca sites.

He grew up in Bilbao, but since he was 17 years old he has lived in Madrid.

EL PAÍS travels with him to various points in the capital, a walk in which Arsuaga analyzes human behavior in the city.

The appointment was set on a terrace in Plaza Juan de Malasaña, in the district of Villa de Vallecas, late on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 15.

Just landed from Oviedo, where he has ruled the next Princess of Asturias awards as part of its jury - he was awarded in 1997 - and in the middle of the first heat wave of the summer, when at eight in the afternoon the thermometer still pointed 39 °.

"It is surely the worst hot day of the year, note that I am here with you," Arsuaga starts.

“Of course I appreciate it.

Keep the tape recorder in your pants.

"Do it if you want."

"I just don't want to touch his ass."

- What else will give!

Speaking of asses: I'm trying to take Millás to a nudist beach to observe the human body, but I don't know if I'm going to take a shit.

It would be very literary, but it's not what I'm looking for.

He refers to the writer Juan José Millas, with whom he has set up a narrative tandem and what is already seen as a non-fiction saga.

Their second collaboration together,

was published in February.

Twenty minutes later, the conversation manages to land on the search for socialization traits in the summer Madrid of 2022.

―In Madrid there are 116 mobile lines for every 100 inhabitants.

Do we still need spaces like this terrace to socialize?

-Definitely.

Aggregation has many purposes, one of them is to find a partner, and where do you find it.

It's not going to be on the street, going to work.

Of all life, the most traditional are the festivals: the pilgrimage of all life.

I met my wife at the festivals in the town of La Granja de San Ildefonso.

She was the little sister of my friends.

"But now they meet on Tinder..."

“Well, it's supposed to.

[Does not have WhatsApp].

What I was missing.

I don't have time or desire.

I claim the SMS: they arrive less and are shorter.

overwhelms me

It's all bullshit.

I only care about my children.

There he does make an exception and uses the messaging system on his wife's terminal.

He acknowledges that networks and video conferencing possibilities have made it possible for families who no longer live together to stay connected.

He knows what he is talking about.

Of his three children, two live abroad, in Brussels and London.

“But be careful with this, it's pure biology.

The priority of finding a partner goes above eating.

Human beings have designed models designed by parents for their children to find a mate.

Even in the so-called PAU (Urban Action Program)

such as Las Tablas or Sanchinarro, with their immense avenues, there are swimming pools for that.

Teenagers will go down there to meet.

There you live inside.

Juan Luis Arsuaga, sitting on the terrace of the El Campanario bar, in Villa de Vallecas. DAVID EXPÓSITO

At the next table, they listen.

With several thirds of empty beer, which far exceeds the three phones with a black screen.

Vane, Sergio and Yolanda have been at the table since five o'clock.

“At least”, assures the latter.

“We are the example of what you are saying.

At least once a week, we sit here and they give us so many”.

Arsuaga smiles, knowing he was right.

Five minutes later and around the corner, he will be left with his mouth open, discovering the parish of San Pedro Ad Vincula, pride of the neighborhood: “Come on!

What a beautiful church, how curious, I had never been before”.

And he checks the internet with his phone: “The tower is by Ventura Rodríquez and the 17th century church by Juan Herrera (architect of the El Escorial monastery).

How interesting, I'll be back!"

The hunted sage avenges quickly.

"I'm going to tell you something that will leave you stunned, he looks", he goes to the wall of the building.

“Madrid is the only city in the world with flint walls, not rock.

And it is that in Madrid, there is no rock: everything is sand, look at the next sinkhole of works that you see.

It is built on streams.”

Half an hour later he gets pissed off on a hill that was an old olive grove, from sector two of the Cañada Real, when he learns that the 2011 Law disaffected the land in order to undertake the restructuring of the area: “The glens belong to everyone! , it is state heritage!”.

―I have brought you here to talk about the lack of empathy in the society that we are in Madrid.

Why does it seem that we do not care that thousands of families live in conditions, and without light? -.

Well, they haven't asked me.

I am a scientist, give me data: what is the income of these families, what do they work for, how much do they earn?

Take for example that a married couple living here only enter a minimum salary: 1,000 euros.

With that it is impossible to maintain a family with children, it is true.

If both work, it's something else.

But, how many families live here in bad conditions?

―Less than 2,000.

The official census spoke of some 7,283 people, some 1,500 minors.

"But that's not enough, isn't it?"

It is not a very large economic volume.

And all the administrations are involved, right?

I am always with the worker, it is that it seems to me the most sacred.

If he works and can't support himself, you have to help him.

Or if you can't work for medical or other reasons, that's what we're here for.

But how much does a flat cost here?

I would like to know-.

Artificial intelligence comes to the rescue: "I believe in algorithms, for example, for customer service there is nothing better."

Several rental prices in the area appear on the mobile screen, just a few meters away in the municipality of Rivas Vaciamadrid, thanks to the geolocation of a real estate portal.

The figures are not very compatible with the minimum interprofessional salary: 950 euros for three rooms with a garage, 850 without extras.

Arsuaga walks through a market in the Chamartín district, where there are hardly any open stalls. DAVID EXPÓSITO

He is interested in politics, but not in Madrid.

“Our dear rulers do not ask us anything.

Our system is partitocratic, in which we do not even elect our mayor.

You cast a vote in the ballot box and see who comes out.

Maybe your party has gotten more votes and then someone else governs.

I have witnessed this: in a remote town in Montana, the governor and the opposition candidate show up at parties, because every vote counts.

They are filled with children's snot.

I want politicians in Madrid to inflate themselves to eat snot like that”.

It claims a system of representation, at least locally, directly, by constituency, like the Anglo-Saxon or French.

Years ago, in the early nineties,

“In a meeting a foreign neighbor told us [imitates German accent]: 'This is very easy.

We tell him that if he does it, in the

elections his motherfucker is going to vote

.

We explained that this is not the case here.

That's what I want to be able to say and find my councilor in the bar I go to.

Here we have even had women mayors who did not live in the city [referring to Ana Botella].

They would have more respect for us.”

The next day, the interview continues at eleven in the morning, with 30° threatening to dilute the brains, under one of the few shades of the Cuatro Torres business park in Castellana: “I have been stumbling since seven, it is good to know I'm running out of gasoline."

“Let's go fast.

What are we seeing here?

This is a point of productivity, hunting.

-Yes.

I don't particularly like it, because all this development to the north, towards the mountains, can be seen from outside.

But it's where everyone wants to be.

A group of young people takes shelter in the same area.

They look like interns from the big companies located in the skyscrapers.

“Look, the orange pendant they wear is a symbol, as if it were a status.

They are telling us: 'I work'.

They produce tenderness in me, they remind me of my children, ”she points out.

"Have you been an intern?"

“I have been an intern, and a precarious one.

When I was teaching at a center in San Blas, which already had a son, they closed and I went to the street, and there I did not sleep thinking about what was going to happen.

That's why I think I don't like the

of Madrid eating up the north, but I also want my children to get high.

In Spain you win the lottery when your children are placed.

Human behavior is nepotistic.

First, our family.

This is so-.

in the shopping arcade

It is time to look for the collection point of the tribe, crossing the Paseo de la Castellana to a shopping arcade in the San Cristóbal railway neighborhood in the Chamartín district, built in the 1940s.

Along the way, the mercury is already at 34° and it is necessary to stop to hydrate and, incidentally, remember that you have been living in the capital for 50 years.

Arapiles was his neighborhood in the eighties, in full swing.

When they were little, his children shared a playground with Enrique Urquijo's daughter.

“I've had enough of going to Penta to drink beer and listen to Antonio Vega sing.

I witnessed all of that and I didn't even realize it,” she says.

But nothing makes him feel as nostalgic as the loss of the municipal markets in Madrid.

When you arrive you are greeted with closed stalls and no customers in sight.

A woman,

“The markets are dead”, he repeats up to six times, desolate.

“Everything is courier, but where are the stores?

It is a phenomenon that must be studied, I tell you that I care to look at them.

At home we are a lot of the market, go, we go every Sunday.

We buy fruit, vegetables at good prices and I buy underpants”, he says.

―For you, a market will be a ball park...―.

―In various parts I have serious problems, it's just that I'm a voyeur.

Since my children were little they told me 'dad, don't look!', but of course, it fascinates me.

It is very varied and there is a lot of human interaction.

They are like a caravanserai, a souk.

Look, yes: we have to go to the market to do a report.

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