When the war is over

The coronavirus has taught us the vulnerability of our arrogance. This war, which began in Wuhan, China, has spread around the world with incredible speed. There are no borders to this pandemic that respects neither the rich nor the poor. I write minutes after learning that 514 people have died in Spain in one day (40,000 infected) and a few hours before the Government ratifies in Congress the decree of the state of alarm with the secured votes of  PP and the Citizens. The separatists, as lying and disloyal as ever.

When the war is over, the first lesson we have to draw from the accumulated experience is that Health (and Education, Justice, Foreign Affairs, telecommunications, ports and airports, public order as well as pensions, unemployment, Social Security and dependence) should/must depend on the Government of the Nation. We have the worst Administration of the Nation in the worst moment of our history. Its sermons from La Moncloa try to blame PP for its own mistakes, which culminated in triggering the 8-M demonstration, which, with statistics in hand, confirm that they have boosted the “assassination” of innocent people. Television appearances by President Sanchez have confirmed that they only serve to whitewash his inaction while installing censorship. Will he be able to lecture us every Saturday with his characteristic unpunctuality? I hope not, even though we have to support him, because our lives are at stake.

The questions filtered through the Secretary of State for Communication, Miguel Ángel Oliver, have been consecrated, without journalists being able to ask, for example, why they did not suspend the feminist demonstrations when the lethality of the coronavirus was known since January, why the Minister of Science was not on the Advisory Committee of the Apocalypse when he had met with international experts and the CSIC had given him a report on the seriousness of this virus, or why the President hid his wife's infection for 48 hours.  

When the war is over, the social-communist government will have to be called to account for all kinds of things (political and criminal) because they knew since January how serious this pandemic was, but they consciously waited until 8-M to take action. The irresponsibility of Pablo Iglesias holding an ideological rally from the presidential palace and of the doctor himself breaking the quarantine, confirms that we are without leadership. And that these guys don't even meet the standards they themselves promulgate. The single command delegated its functions to minister Illa, possibly a good philosopher, but a man unable to take over (by quota from the PSC) the Ministry of Health. The spokesman, Fernando Simón, lost his authority on March 7 when he didn't have the guts to tell the truth after bowing to pressure from the vice president, who is now suffering from respiratory failure in a private clinic. Does he have a coronavirus? Just say so. Your Zarzuela quarters have been disinfected. 

The talks at La Moncloa will not whitewash the inaction of an incompetent government that is two and a half weeks behind the tragedy. The fact that health workers and pharmacists do not even have protective material indicates that the single command - I am the president, insists Pedro Sánchez; we already know that, boss - has not been able to implement the purchases. He never makes a commitment or meets a date. 

When the war is over, the coalition government that has doubled public spending on ministries and senior officials just to make room for their fellow passengers will have to be dismantled; before this war is over, it will be necessary to thank the doctors, nurses, assistants, stretcher bearers, ambulance drivers, cleaners 500 companions infected; to the UME -thanks to the Army for doing the dirtiest work-, to all the ESF, to the transportation workers, to the farmers, to Madrid's Samur and to generous people like King Felipe VI, Amancio Ortega, Ana Botín, el Corte Inglés, Telefónica, Iberdrola, Ikea... and many more. Madrid is a permanent ICU, an endless cemetery expanded to the Ice Palace, while nuns and solidarity companies make masks and respirators. Fortunately, solidarity does not stop. 

When the war is over, the Public Prosecutor's Office has to ask the managers of the geriatric centres where corpses have lived together with unprotected old people to be held responsible. When the war is over, the first victim of this war, which is truth, disinformation and secrecy, must be exposed. Hackers who have tried to block computer systems, causing hundreds of unnecessary deaths in exchange for a ransom, must be prosecuted as war criminals.

When the war is over - the sooner the better, a better tomorrow - we must tackle the second front: the economic and social front. This crisis is much bigger than the one in 2008. The fall in stock markets around the world is the best thermometer. It is like Black Friday in 1929. Recession, unemployment, hunger. The government's measures (up to 200 billion euros) are a mirage because most of them are securities. We call for special attention to be paid to SMEs and the self-employed. No one can be left in the lurch.

When the war ends - we already know that there will be no Olympic Games or Gay Pride; that is to say, we are talking about June - we must set up a national reconstruction government after breaking up the coalition government because we already know that the intentions of the United Nations Podemos are to politicise pain', a new version of ETA-Bildu's socialisation of suffering'. A government of national reconstruction that does not allow pardons for the Catalan coup perpetrators, that prevents the Churches from accessing the secrets of the CNI, that prepares a General State Budget 2021 where global solutions are contemplated. The ideal would be a new general election because Pedro Sánchez does not have sufficient leadership to manage this pandemic. But the tenant of La Moncloa wants to continue with his free Falcon and his privileges, bound by the separatists of ERC, JxC, PNV and the rest of Mareas de UP. 

If this sectarian government continues its course alone, it will take us to the edge of totalitarianism. Freedom is in danger.  In short, we demand a change of direction from the PSOE on the constitutional path, to avoid a secessionist drift.  At the same time, a Marshall Plan is needed from the ECB. It is time for a new European Union, one that shows solidarity. 

When the war is over, we, then, will not be the same. Nothing will be the same, when autumn comes around, in a world that will opt for closer cooperation or for lack of solidarity after having left tens of thousands of dead in crematoria without receiving a single tear or a goodbye. Then, we will pick up the cooking pots with José Antonio Labordeta, and together, perhaps, we will raise “a sure hope that everything moves forward and if someone is left unmoving, tell him he is a walker”. We are all, until 11 April, surviving prisoners. 

When the war ends, we will discover if we have been able to put an end to the hatred of the ultra left, the Nazi supremacy of the separatists, the socialist rancour, the resignation of the right, the disaffection of the centre and the spite of the extreme right. The confinement of this  “1980s” will open wide the doors of ethics, austerity and solidarity. The dead from the coronavirus (and those infected with the spectral virus) will remind us from now on that nothing is more important than life itself. And that life is freedom: a kiss, a hug, a smile, a walk, family, meeting in bars, going to the cinema, reading, dreaming... And, we will also remember that we are all now one world.