Exit the eye of the hurricane

Adventure books and good meteorologists explain that in the eye of the hurricane there is a certain calm. The eye is the central and calmest region of cyclones, where pressure drops and winds are gentle. It is surrounded by vertical storm towers. More or less like holidays. When the summer period is over, it will start to rain cats and dogs, and the idea that life is a slow, cozy place where ice cream is eaten will be denied. The course promises strong emotions and various hurricane storms.

In Catalonia, President Illa's government begins the course with the same problems it ended with and with its partners in Moncloa weakened. The main obstacle, the most immediate one, is the labor tension in the education sector, in a country where school results are very bad. And when we have them! This week, the minister will present her plan for returning to classrooms and the results of the internal investigation into the PISA test fiasco. We will see if there is any explanation other than neglect and incompetence. But above all, we need to know how it will be avoided from happening again and what truly transformative measures will be applied to prepare the school for the future. Catalonia has reached the limit of well-intentioned proposals that do not yield results. If we want adults to have critical thinking skills, they will have to know how to read, add, and languages. If we want newcomers to integrate, they will have to understand the language and have teachers to help them. And if we want an inclusive system, there must be sufficient resources and they must be dedicated to students in an environment that respects and adapts to complexity without penalizing some and others. Without sufficient resources, inclusive schooling is just an empty concept doomed to failure. We will also need responsible unions that understand that the competition for their March elections cannot burden another year of students who are losing training time.

If education is the most urgent and concrete issue before an overstretched health system awakens, the underlying political movement will be seen at the ballot box. Municipal and general elections will reveal society's mood, or rather, its bad mood. Polls indicate that neither Catalonia nor Spain will be immune to the wave of the far-right, which feeds on a lack of management, confusion caused by rapid technological and labor transformation, inflation, and systematic manipulation and disinformation. Hatred of the different is being fueled relentlessly and unashamedly, making it difficult to implement measured policies based on historical knowledge. No one will be able to say they didn't know that certain actions lead to repugnant results. But here we are. 

This course, Pedro Sánchez will call elections, and the future of everyone will depend on the regrouping of the left and the strength of Vox. Salvador Illa will predictably become the social democratic reserve of the West and will be able to toughen his demands on the State. But the credibility of these demands will depend on the credibility previously earned by the PSOE and the strength with which it has committed to approving the financing system, investment in the still third-world Rodalies, or the application of the amnesty. 

Europe will continue in damage control mode for its miseries. The war in Ukraine requires a greater common commitment to defeat Putin, a spy with imperial ambitions and no scruples, who does not stop his personal enrichment and the impoverishment of a people who have never known democracy. 

Putin shares this disdainful view of liberal democracy with Trump and Xi, the rest of the leaders shaping global geopolitics. 

But if there is one thing that will transform us rapidly and unstoppably, it is the application, almost the inundation, of artificial intelligence in all areas of our lives. We explain the situation of a changing era in this Sunday's dossier. In journalism, it would be advisable not to be Luddites or naive; AI will improve our capacity to produce information and will also give wings to manipulators. For citizens, never before will it be so important to choose wisely which partners we want to entrust with our confidence to form an opinion about the reality that surrounds us. If we want to have an opinion and not surrender without resistance to the drowsiness of imbecility. This is our true hurricane.