Pigeons, wild boars and barbarians
There are people who believe that life is shit. Metaphorically. But there are also those who believe it is a literal pile of dung. Let us travel through the geography of massive droppings. In many cities, the pigeon plague is an obligatory open buffet. In Balaguer, where life is very good, the pigeons do not want to leave even with turpentine. The problem has moved from the sky to the earth.
For some time now, there has been a citizens' platform. And now all the municipal opposition groups are presenting a motion to the Paeria. Because the idea of 'flying pigeons' with the pigeons themselves does not work. More precision is requested: more cages, more mass captures, more census control… More of everything, because in the end, we will go from the traditional dish of pigeon à la catalane to the new cuisine of Catalan in the dovecote. But, of course, not everyone thinks the same. Because for some, we step in shit and others want a lot of shit!
A good pile is that of the wild boars of Collserola. Let's step on it. November 2025: African swine fever breaks out in Bellaterra. Consequences: closure of the Collserola park and areas of Sant Cugat. Progressive elimination of beasts (here and throughout Catalonia). A big rural mess believed to be distant, in the heart close to the mentality and urban vein despite the green color. It is no wonder that a platform like… SOSSenglars sprouts up. It is born "due to the citizens' concern for the extermination of wild boars". More. The food they leave out is to feed the beasts, not the people: "There has been hate speech against the wild boar". More: "The wild boar is an indigenous species and is considered an ecosystem engineer". Many labor rights for the wild boar and few natural duties: a wild boar does not dialogue. It attacks, charges, destroys everything and everyone. Predator. Not to mention that the day we discover that the mammoth was also an indigenous species of Collserola during the Cenozoic era... will we reintroduce it? And the bear and the wolf of the Pyrenees? Can we build villas here for them to live better? Do we want to welcome them? Why are there neighbors who not only feed the wild boars but bring it to their doorstep, into their very mouths, as if they were their moral wage earners? Do they think they are Disney animal cartoons? Trapped between pigeons and wild boars. The rotisserie.
It goes round and round... And many have been left hypnotized, magnetized, frozen this weekend. Watching the narcotized Barcelona with the living beings who are constructors of looting, robberies, manufacturers of nothingness. The city is already a sleeping beauty that does not wake up. Urban narcolepsy. If in the 20th century people came to Barcelona (to the cities) to work, progress, dream... in the 21st century they come to Barcelona (cities) to assault, plunder, destroy... But as a figurative metaphor we will call it struggle, pedagogy, students, and as a bloody reality it is violence, overthrow, spoliation... It does not want to be seen. They do not want it to be seen.
Like the pigeons, the wild boars, the vandals... Everything advances. And the future may be ending up roasted in a pigeon barbecue, in a wild boar grill, or in a cannibal barbecue of troglodytes. We must be more existential ecologists than ever. Remember what Joan Sales wrote during the carnage of July 1936 while he smelled the smoke of the fall of the Roman Empire: "What do we gain from having defeated the barbarians if we let ourselves be defeated by barbarism?" Maybe the world is going to hell, but maybe we also have to fight and tell the truth: go to hell!
