"When we do not comply, they begin
to very compromising situations"
Lucia Topolansky
If the municipal, Catalan, and state governments have established democracy and transparency as their guiding principles and driving forces, perhaps it's time to remember the potential dangers they face. Starting with the Ábalos case, who isn't just anyone, nor the last councilor of the second-to-last town, but a former minister. apparatchik, promoter of Sanchismo and all-powerful former secretary of organization of the PSOE. And ending with Leire of Spain, with its stellar appearance of Celtiberian vaudeville, including the Madrid farce scene with the appearance of Víctor de Aldama: like so many years ago the stellar appearance of Juan Guerra or the "I'll hit you, milk" by Ruiz-Mateos with Boyer. From this perspective, the Poland gag Last Thursday's episode is the most lucid summary, a laugh track to keep you from crying, of a paradoxical panorama, so interchangeable and inverse that the PP and PSOE exchange the same accusations, without distinction and in both senses. They accuse each other of the same thing, and yet we're talking about quite different scales, dimensions, and intensities, which don't diminish any seriousness. And yet, if we've known anything from the start, it's that these plots, quagmires, and pottery works take a much heavier toll on the left than the right—and that's why the right is pushing so hard. That the demonstration called by the mafia this Sunday invokes precisely the fight against the mafia, in the name of democracy, is nothing less than an iconic mirror of time. If this government is a mafia, how would we describe the previous one? Chinese mirrors without magic: if some have Villarejo, we must remember that the infiltrators in social movements are the exclusive courtesy of Grande-Marlaska. And that both used Pegasus equally. After all, the practical joke of the week is that Blanca Serra is not allowed to consult, in the National Archives of Catalonia, the files that document the details of her complaint about torture under Franco. The macabre joke is that those files are hers, and it was she herself who gave them many years ago to the institution that preserves memory and today prevents it. One after another, without interruption.
In a similar vein, if the municipal, Catalan, and state governments have focused on housing as the number one problem in a socially insecure society—to use the title of the latest Foessa Report—it will be necessary to pass the reality test as a litmus test. Not without acknowledging the indisputable and essential reason for doing so, even if it's late. And without ceasing to attribute credit, from the bottom up, to social movements that, hoarsely, have been raising their voices for a decade. But general words are never concrete facts, and I can think of some enormous blots that undermine the official proclamation. Catalonia, for yet another year, continues to lead, uninterruptedly and since 2009, the ranking of the daily eviction drain: 7,381 in 2024, at a rate of 20 per day. Last Wednesday, on the Sants road, 80-year-old Pepi was evicted by 114 Mossos d'Esquadra officers—85 of them riot police—for being unable to afford a monthly rent of 800 euros. 114 to one woman, an exact ratio. A government for everyone; but not for Pepi. It's worth clarifying that Pedro Sánchez has been governing for seven years: that is, he can no longer resort to the argumentative excuse of attributing the mess to previous governments. At the same time, the Catalan government, as is well known, has announced the construction of 50,000 new apartments by 2040. Before 2040, we will have lost—zero sum—50,000 in the province of Barcelona alone: subsidized apartments that will become unsubsidized and move to the open market. Perhaps that's why, amidst the most absolute silence, the dignified tenant strike at La Caixa, the private housing bank with the largest number of apartments in Catalonia, has gone unnoticed: 62 families from Sitges, Banyoles, and Sentmenat who oppose the announced end of privatization. The Tenants' Union and the Coop57 Foundation They promote a solidarity campaign, if they want and can lend a hand. More of the same. What's been happening under the Vallcarca Bridge in recent months also undermines what the City Council has been proclaiming loudly and clearly: you can't proclaim the right to housing as a priority with one hand and then, using expeditious and authoritarian means, expel, evict, and segregate people with the other.
And, finally, in the same parsimony and so as not to cease delving into the contradictions that will lead us to complete disarray or complete indolence, if the municipal, Catalan, and state governments have focused the genocide on Gaza as the central geopolitical axis for an agenda of peace and resolution, we will still have to speak of a universal transfer of . Of the 46 military contracts, worth €1.044 billion, that the Spanish government formalized with the Israeli military industry since the fateful October 2023, only one has been announced for now—and we have yet to see how it will be canceled. It is already curious that Pedro Sánchez wanted to question these data in Parliament, known through the impeccable and tireless work of the Delàs Center for Peace Studies. Because by questioning them, he only contradicted himself: the only source is the official data provided by the State itself. Because if anyone is vague in the always murky and opaque business of death, it's the State itself. Because we mustn't forget that the Kingdom of Spain is the world's seventh-largest arms exporter. And because a massive public injection of €10.471 billion into the Spanish military-industrial complex has just been announced, which brings us back to the familiar dead end: the most progressive government in history remains the most militaristic government in history—and that affects, directly and indirectly, all the parties that support the "nice guy."
The other day, an Andalusian lawyer, as sharp as a fiddle and as committed as a fiddle, suggested to me that this government—whether municipal, Catalan, or state—looks like it's about to become a chloroformed mess that neither does nor lets others do anything. It orders us to look the other way in order to block the rise of the far right, while simultaneously sighing and plotting, hoping that the shortcomings of others will give it permanence. Just yesterday, Ayuso—the explosion of the third Aznar-ness—left upon hearing the country's official language spoken in her capital—and with what finesse 20 years ago Vázquez Montalbán spoke about the "separators." Pepe Mujica, Lucía Topolansky's partner in love and utopia, who dialogued like no one else with defeat, frustration, and failure by never ceasing to rebel, leads me to a memorable maxim from the Huertas Claveria case: "The traditional left does nothing. That's why it's traditional." It seems to me that strict reality and a rabid everyday life confirm it again.
