The Great Silence

In this week's Camino a Ítaca there is silence. A great silence that seems to have been purchased at an extreme and dangerous cost. If the Emperor isn't wearing any clothes, he must be told...even if he is from your political party. And if they are guilty of crimes...let them pay. Click over to read the originally published version in Spanish in El Hoy or read the English version below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

Can you hear that silence? Deafening, isn’t it? It’s a silence that has gone on far too long and in the process has become convention. Its presence now seems immutable and is here to stay.

It’s a silence that first emerged when there was simply no recourse to it. Back then, breaking that silence meant risking your life. This forced gag order briefly disappeared close to fifty years ago with the jubilance that freedom can bring. But since then, it has slowly and insidiously recrudesced, reestablishing itself in the cities and dehesas of these lands.

It’s a hush born out of a cynical indifference that has metastasized among the general public over the ensuing decades. This begrudging apathy among us has been fueled by the incessant scandals that plague this otherwise wonderful country. Ongoing outrages which give rise to self-fulfilling aphorisms like ‘the rich never lose’ and ‘the powerful never concede’. Phrases that try to put into words the glaring unaccountability that the political classes enjoy.

This unaccountability didn’t just suddenly appear. It has been purposely created and then safeguarded by the very people who make the rules, thanks in large part to that very Spanish institution, aforamientos (inviolablility). Look up the word in other languages and you won’t find it. It simply doesn’t exist. In 2019 the Gonsejo de Gobierno resolved that they would begin a process to eliminate it, but close to 3 years later and, surprise surprise, no progress.

Yet another silence falls over the manmade island of Valdecañas while it awaits its definitive fate. A corrupting hush that was even heard in the pages of the New York Times. It’s the sound of what might turn out to be one of the most expensive calamities in the long and tragic history of Spanish city planning. One that may end up costing the taxpayers of this region up to 200 million Euros. To put that in some sort of perspective, more than twice what the second phase of the new hospital in Caceres will cost.

Yet where is the accountability? The only anger that seems to be heard is directed towards the ecologists that denounced the project 48 hours after both main parties approved the project in 2006. But one thing is to question whether a manmade island, created by the constant damming of a river, can be considered ‘natural’, while it’s a completely different matter to break the law simply because it is inconvenient.

Who is really to blame for this? The ecologists for whistleblowing? The owners for buying something they thought legal? The promoters who were allowed to continue building, even after a sentence from the TSJEX declared the plan illegal in 2011? While they all may share some of the blame, it’s abundantly clear that the people in power are directly responsible. These elected representatives who not only allowed this to happen but who openly encouraged it are responsible.

Yet where is the raucous call for some sort of accountability, for some sort of fairness?

There’s no need for revolution. The only thing required is responsibility and justice. A call to modify the refrain quien hace la ley hace la trampa (those who make the laws, make the loopholes) to the much more just quien rompe la ley, sin importar quien es, paga (who breaks the law, no matter who, pays).

When Woke Went Weird

This week's Camino a Ítaca explores how woke went from being a genuine movement for peoples to recuperate their dignity to some catch all phrase of every pet concern out there. Time to reset the word and bring it back to its original specs. Click over to read the original piece in Spanish in El Hoy or read the English version below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

Don’t look up. And I mean this seriously, at least if you’re walking along the excrement splattered street of the Arco del Cristo in Caceres. The main access to the UNESCO core of Caceres should have a warning sign at the entrance that reads: Enter at your own risk.

If you do choose to take the risk along the defile, perhaps wanting to catch a better glimpse of the belltower of Santa Maria or perhaps take a selfie before the irregular Arco de la Estrella, take my advice and walk in the middle. If not, consider that you, your hair and the shoulders of your jacket have been forewarned. Caceres, like many other cities around the world, has a serious problem with pigeons.

And I’m confused.

Something happened to us. Some sociological twist took place over the course of this new millennium that has turned the world as I had come to know it upside down. It’s a phenomenon that reaches far beyond our borders or perhaps it is one that has reached us from afar. Sure, the goddesses Ishtar, Venus, and Aphrodite may have all been represented by doves and in Christian iconography the dove is said to represent the Holy Spirit, but these are all myths. Since when have pigeons gone beyond this and have acquired the status of a protected species? In fact, in a broader context, since when did animals become more important than fellow members of our own species?

One of the most egregious instances of this growing trend recently took place in the ravaged and betrayed lands of Afghanistan as the Taliban waltzed into the capital and easily retook control of the country after twenty years of war. Multitudes of Afghani families whose members had worked with the forces braved just about everything you can imagine to get to the airport before it was too late. A desperate and dangerous attempt to flee the country before they were assassinated as traitors by the incoming maniacal messiahs. Imagine their horror as they shivered in the freezing cold and looked through the chain link fence only to see that the British had fleeted airplanes to repatriate dogs ahead of them.

Animals ahead of people.

People, I might add, who had risked their lives to work for the coalition. By saying this, I have nothing against animals. But this movement has reached a point where it raises questions as to what it means to be human.

Closer to home in Caceres, the town hall has had to go to extreme lengths in trying to solve this avian plague and not provoke this power lobby. It was finally decided that an enormous cage would be built to trap and house the birds until they could be then set free. Imagine a Disney-like avian Free Willy. But where is the wild for them? Do they think some North African country can be persuaded to take them in? Then there’s the fact that pigeons are incredible navigators. Some birds can find their way home from nearly 1,000 km away.

In these times of such alarming narcissism, I wonder if somewhere along the way we forgot what it means to be human.