The arrival of the 'wogs'

I don't remember if that winter was cold;

feverish with rumors, yes, and that at that time the two juan friends, Benet and García Hortelano, had not yet created what they themselves would call Rúmor SL, a limited agency for the dissemination of hoaxes in jest and teasing in general.

The political rumor mill, which, naturally, is not another of the (supposed) evils brought about by the Transition, became red-hot in Spain since the PSOE won the general elections with an absolute majority at the end of October 1982, which it allowed to form a socialist ministerial team almost 50 years after the last governments of the left.

I also have no memory of what we did to celebrate December 2 of that year, 1982, the day of the photo of Felipe González's new Cabinet.

What, however,

The list of names shuffled was not short, but the Minister of Culture

, or at least in the chest of the wounded letters, was a socialist militant with a more radical past within the opposition to Francoism, with a leafy tree of cultural science and of great intellectual solvency.

A man of publishing, of literary criticism, of essays and even of the

in his less misguided facet, he had already successfully performed functions as a spokesman for Culture within the PS0E, but he was also a knowingly homosexual man and not at all inclined to hide that character or personality.

On December 2, 1982 the

they had failed, and the first Minister of Culture of the renewed PSOE of Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra was Javier Solana, who, despite being a career physicist, entered his office with very good chemistry and was, I dare say, the Minister of most effective branch we have had in the intervening 40 years.

So we will focus on two very relevant details of that inaugural photo of the González caliphate, his rampant masculinity and the absence on the small staircase of the Moncloa Palace of the

who did not become a minister because he was gay, Salvador Clotas, still today indomitable and feisty but in recent times somewhat distant from the government PSOE.

The other somatic feature of the aforementioned photo draws a lot of attention at this moment in history: its 17 magnificent (and more than one was in the performance of his portfolio) all men, although only four with period beards and mustaches.

I am not going to dwell on the obvious changes that have taken place in our country;

changes of situation, of physiognomies, of roles, of a certain visibility of what was previously prohibited or hidden, of the end of gender imbalances and the start of freedoms long prohibited.

Only the embittered, that is, those expropriated from their rural, labor, patriarchal oligarchies, yearn for the situation prior to the revolution of customs and the challenge to the preserves of power.

Which does not mean that

women have ceased to be second-class citizens, depending on what places and what jobs, nor that the color of their skin, the denomination of ethnic origin or dissenting sexual identities escape opprobrium, contempt, aggression, death.

In this attack on the sacrosanct redoubts of the most stale virility, novelties are noticed, some fundamental and others just showy: the firefighters, the tank drivers of the last war, the presidents of multinationals and the husbands who wait in a corridor for the departure of their ladies wives gathered in a meeting of the highest level, the formidable directors of a macho cinema like the

, and lately, those who know about these things tell me, women's football, with its own league and

less fired up.

Those changes and those metamorphoses still annoy many, making others impatient.

Those who are upset think that egalitarian and self-determined have gone too far, while many others, in the antipodes, feel beggars of the superficial and forgotten by the transcendental.

Not a few of the controversial issues have to do with sex, and in that our world is not different from the old one.

For example, the rejection that the option of aborting or changing sex still generates, as if these decisions, generally very arduous and not at all frivolous, were impositions on the citizenry and not sacrifices or their own will in which no bishop, no one pro-life association, no political party, should interfere, dictating what other beings, without causing harm to anyone, carry out within themselves.

The worst thing about this discrepancy that turns into interference is not its ideology, which could be reconciled with dialogue, but its selfishness.

His supremacy.

Majorities that want to legislate on minorities taking advantage of them and prohibiting what is a human jurisdiction or a particular right that has cost a lot to conquer as a possibility.

In short: frighten, make people pay the guilt of being of another color, of coming from another land, of loving in another way.

Living in England years ago, while Our Lord Francisco Franco was still alive, I was struck by a strange word that I heard when I thought I had enough vocabulary to read the local press and novels by Ernest Hemingway, to insult with genuine tacos and flirt without putting the oar.

The strange word had been pronounced in front of me, in a pub, by an older gentleman with an impeccable accent and clear vocalization: "wog", and I saw two younger customers turn their faces when they heard it and leave, with their freshly served pints of beer, at the other end of the premises.

Would they be

?

The fall of Boris Johnson is one of those pieces of news that can alleviate a torrid day if one follows with special attention, as is my case, the news of a country that saw me reborn.

Half a week after his fall, Johnson appeared first on the news, crowned with shaggy blond hair that I, I don't know why, call imperial.

The report focused on the candidates in contention to succeed him as head of the party and the conservative government;

Out of the six highest placed MPs in the bookmakers the British are so fond of, four, if certain things had not changed drastically in Britain, might have been insulted, they or their Indian or African parents, in that pub in London. my youth from which I went to look for the meaning of the unknown term,

, “native of the Near East;

Foreign".

Eliminated Nadhim Zahawi, a former Iraqi refugee who came to the United Kingdom at the age of ten and did not know English, and another favorite of the

, Kemi Badenoch, of Nigerian origin and education, are now facing each other as rivals throughout the month of August a former minister of Foreign Affairs, Liz Truss, and the outgoing Minister of Economy, Rishi Sunak, from a Hindu family through and through;

It seems that Sunak has the upper hand, but these predictions should not always be trusted.

And if not, tell Salvador Clotas.

Will we one day have a Sudanese woman, born on a boat near Gran Canaria, as vice president, or a Moroccan

, an expert in the field, in charge of the internal affairs of emigration?

Vicente Molina Foix

is ​​a writer.

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