Foreshadowing

In this week's Camino a Ìtaca I use a word that I never thought I would in the newspaper. Click over to read the originally published piece in Spanish in the HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo).

I often wonder just how many times Maria Guardiola plays that crucial time in her life over and over in her mind. That moment where overnight she went from being a small fringe figure on the national political scene to becoming headline national news for speaking, at least what we believed at the time, her mind.

Do those vigorously communicated words that supposedly demonstrated her values and what she believed in play on a continuous loop in her dreams. Or does she need to recur to the help of a pharmacist just to get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep? This after she was so unceremoniously forced to swallow her words and go against everything she had promised and accept the line mandated from Madrid? Did getting into bed with the new blue shirts make for difficult nights?

Does seeing those who deny gender violence every day in her government make her a bit queasy, like riding on a ship on a stormy sea? When she thinks of the word ‘dehumanize’ does she think of all of those who have recently been settled in the region from the Canaries and the vile rhetoric the ultra-right party has slandered against them?

What about all those cultural battles that she swore had been overcome? Do they come to haunt her like Dicken’s ghost of Christmas past every time her partners open their mouths? Does she cringe on each occasion that her coalition partners give a press conference, worrying just how many of her damning words they make come true?

Then there are the rights that women have fought long and hard for that she once claimed were inalienable, like the right to abortion. Did she really mean what she said about red lines or are they too going to be placed on the table when she needs the fascists’ support?

A recent event in Caceres might shed some light on what could happen in the future. It all took place when the ultra-right party led by Eduardo Gutiérrez managed to push through a motion with an obvious ideological bias against abortion in a plenary session. As the mayor Rafa Mateos needs the green party’s support so that they will vote in favor of the 2024 budget, the PP chose not to abstain, but to actually vote in favor of a measure that looked as if it had been plucked from anti-abortionist publicity moldering in the entranceways to churches.

In the motion it called for “support for life through specific information provided by experts in the field, promoting a specific area of dissemination on the reality of abortion and its after-effects, with lectures and talks in high schools and focused on adolescents.”

Which begs the question if those who fervently believe that you’ll anger an all-powerful sky god by placing a latex sheath over a penis or that a Bedouin girl was miraculously impregnated by a pigeon so many years ago could actually be considered experts in the area of reproductive health.

 Thankfully the townhall has little if any control over education but this intrusion of such caveman-like ideology foreshadows what could happen at the regional level. Que Darwin nos coja confesados (Darwin have mercy!).

Already?

'Tis the season on the Camino a Ìtaca or at least the streets are starting to look like it and it comes earlier every year. Click over on the Christmas lights to read the original piece in Spanish published in el HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

Once upon a time in the not-so-distant past it didn’t begin until after the megapuente in December. Then as Amazon insidiously wormed its way into all our homes, it started to appear with Black Friday. Which is in effect the secular harvest celebration of Thanksgiving in America, now converted into a global orgiastic carnival of consumerism.

But that wasn’t enough. Now it has moved up the calendar and appears after Halloween, the tuned-up Dia de Todos los Santos celebration that the ofendiditos so love to hate. Look up and you’ll see them strung between lampposts, the harbinger of the longest season here in Spain, Christmas lights.

Ah, Christmas lights. Those twinkling, gaudy, and garish displays that punctuate our long, dark winter nights, like the flashing neon signs of the seedy roadside houses of ill repute that line the motorways across the country. These ostentatious displays of luminosity, meant to invoke a sense of wonder and joy, have become a hallmark of the holiday season.

However, when one examines the origins of these illuminations, it becomes clear that their early iterations were more about extravagance and opulence than any genuine spirit of Christmas.

In the late 19th century, as the world was undergoing rapid industrialization, inventors and entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to harness the power of electricity for commercial gain. It is here that the story of Christmas lights begins, not in a manger, but in the drawing rooms of capitalists.

One must acknowledge the genius of those early pioneers like Thomas Edison and Edward Johnson, who, in the 1880s, strung the first known electric lights as decorations for the holiday season. Edison's display at his Menlo Park laboratory was indeed a spectacle to behold, with its 80 red, white, and blue bulbs, illuminating a giant Christmas tree. Yet, while these technological marvels were undoubtedly impressive, their humble origins soon took a back seat to the commercialization of Christmas.

The embrace of electric lights as a holiday tradition was not merely a symbol of ingenuity but also a reflection of a burgeoning consumer culture. The more lights one could afford, the more opulent their display would be. The Christmas lights of today resemble more of a carnival than a solemn commemoration of a religious holiday. It’s now a spectacle, a distraction, and a testament to the power of consumerism.

We now see an arms race of sorts, as cities around the country compete to outshine one another with the most extravagant light displays. The extravagance of Vigo for example makes the headlines every year.

The idea of modesty and the true spirit of Christmas seems to fade into the shadows, replaced by the glamour and grandiosity of electric light. Christmas has become not a time for reflection, charity, and goodwill but a time for excess, conspicuous consumption, and one-upmanship.

The early pioneers of Christmas lights may have marveled at the magic of electric illumination, but it is important to consider the trajectory of this tradition. What started as a testament to human ingenuity and a nod to the festive spirit of Christmas has, over time, morphed into a glaring testament to our excesses and our obsession with appearances and, of course, shopping.