The boat adrift

I still remember perfectly, because I was very impressed, that as a young high school student, I saw a 1959 film entitled "Mystery on the Lost Ship"; it was about the misadventures of a large cargo ship adrift in the middle of the English Channel, constantly whipped up by a huge squall with hurricane winds and waves of several meters that shook it at its whim, putting it in danger and with serious problems to its survival. In the ship, which was dedicated to covering up certain arms smuggling, due to a series of fires caused on board by certain types of uprisings or riots to sink it due to the effects of abandonment in the midst of the squall, only one person was left alive, previously presumed dead, and a corpse buried in the boiler room coal bunker. The living person, once awake and aware of the situation of loneliness and danger, struggled with all his might to fight against the inclemency of the weather, to start up the boilers to give pressure to the engines of the machines and to avoid their capsizing against some cliffs that he knew were near and towards which he was heading due to the effects of the serious currents and the strong tide.

It is possible that that film, despite being shot with a cast of very good and famous actors, had some detractors, not very good special effects, production problems or other problems because, coincidentally, I have not seen it again on the billboards or on the television networks, those that repeatedly bring back so many good old jewels or less good ones. In any case, I liked that film very much; otherwise, I would not be able to maintain with total clarity the great impact it had on me a little over fifty years ago. I wouldn't remember the effect that a large ship adrift, abandoned by its crew, leaves on your mind; without a captain to direct it or give the appropriate orders so that that enormous mass of iron, then whiny and full of strange noises in its aching beams and frames, could be set in motion again, generating light and the necessary energy so that the machines and their powerful rods of power could throw off the frame of the great distress and panic that those scenes showed with crudeness and provide the possibility of putting the ship on the right course and route to save it from those dangerous pitfalls that were known of its existence.     

Well, the film ends well, like almost all the films of the time; a small tug approaches the ship, not without great and serious ups and downs, and with the help of that brave and apparently only survivor on the ship in question, the mess is fixed, the engines are started and the ship is saved at the last moment before a more than safe and disastrous collision, and with this, finally, the whole plot that was intended to be hidden is discovered.

I have had the audacity to tell you the synopsis of a thriller and action movie because every day that passes, I have a greater feeling that Spain is today, a great ship adrift; with a government that, like that captain and his team of officers and crew, decided to abandon ship in the middle of the storm to hide their problems (they have gone on a long and luxurious holiday in the middle of the second wave of the pandemic, on the verge of going back to school, with the economy destroyed, in a country that is bankrupt, without fixing or regulating anything and leaving the many and varied problems that already exist or are yet to come to grow); It is left alone, without a leader, in the dark and at the whim of the winds, the big waves and the strong tides that will lead it headlong to some theoretical cliffs that will be, without a doubt, to its disappearance given that it is quite certain. Where someone is left on board - the population in this case - who alone and without help from anyone (the opposition), tries to shed some light on the ideas, checks the charts, thinks about what is needed, rolls up his sleeves and goes to work to put pressure and power into the system without caring about the problems it hides and the bodies that appear under the coal in the bunker.

Months and months full of lies, deception and cheap, zafia propaganda that embarrasses anyone in and out of Spain except themselves in the light of the self-praise that they are crawling with or the pleiad of grateful palmeros and stomachs that swarm around them in search of a prize, a salary or a position in the administration that guarantees a solution to their economic problems in perpetuity even if the above-mentioned or the above-mentioned do not have the merits or the preparation that is required for them and must be demonstrated. A world where the so-called new policy and its way of acting has given way to contempt for the existing civil servant, the one who is usually prepared and able to cover all kinds of needs because never has there been such a large number of overpaid advisors that each of these unbridled parasites dedicated to politics needs in order to continue deceiving a public that, on the other hand, seems well disposed to be deceived.

We are the ones who have managed to hold the most negative records; we have doubled and even tripled the other pairs we can compare ourselves to; everything comes late and wrong; various types of economic aid and incentives have been announced to the needy citizen and the various sectors that are experiencing problems and their possible recovery is not a matter of days, but of several months or perhaps more. Aid and incentives, which take a long time to arrive and sometimes come to nothing or only half as much.

Initiatives, announced as being new and very generous without sufficient and real support. In order to pay for them, multi-million dollar amounts (loaned or given away) will be needed, which will have to come from lenders or from the EU once they are truly approved and when the lazy European machinery gets underway and finds the funds; therefore, for the most part, these will arrive several months after the need arose. In the meantime, we have had to resort to issuing debt which, however little the rising interest rates may be, has grown so much that we are reaching unsuspected limits which can never be exceeded. The country's debt is so great that its total repayment will require either a powerful and merciful, although unlikely, cancellation or two or three successive generations who, working tirelessly and suffering many hardships, can afford to pay off penny by penny. We are paying for what our grandparents and great-grandparents happily spent, because some inept politicians did not want to listen to the warnings and certain external rules, which, not being imposed on us harshly and categorically, allowed us to ride freely into chaos, our own and others' shame, or the insured bankruptcy without any solution.  

For a little over forty years we have been victims of our own self-deception, we were convinced and believed without fail that we enjoyed a powerful, young and healthy democracy. Democracy, which was taken as an example and the source of the envy of others in many countries around us. That we also had one of the best health systems in the world, which could not fail and which would cope better than anyone else with any extraordinary effort that might be demanded of it in situations of extreme need. That our pension system, more powerful and generous than the best among our partners and allies, was so good and effective that it could even feed and fatten a large piggy bank for times of weakness without rest; a piggy bank that, when it came down to it, had only held out for a short time and now the system was broken and was unlikely to be able to continue along the same path for many years to come.

Likewise, we believed that we should not worry about the unwavering respect for our Constitution, the unhesitating admission of the parliamentary monarchy and the utmost respect for the separation of powers, freedom of expression and information because these principles and values were the unshakeable pillars that could not and should not be demolished. Now, without going into too much detail, we know that we find that, of all that is so beautiful and necessary, very little or nothing really remains. 

There are many efforts, even within the current government, to overthrow the Constitution, turn Spain into something different and bring down the monarchy as head of state. With regard to the administration of justice, this was a pure mirage with attempts to create a sense of balance and tranquillity. A feeling that today, without a shadow of a doubt, seems to us to be too politicised, vain and unrealistic; one need only look at most of the judicial decisions of recent times, their judgements and pleadings that are completely different and very different depending on the person, party or region where they are applied, depending on the political leanings of the judge or the majority of the aforementioned court. Allegations, which even without being relevant, being very unfortunate and quite uncertain, were the basis and foundation of a motion of censure that ended a legally established government with no extra political blemish to allege. 

Even the current government has announced-without any modesty or contrition-that it has set up a kind of police force to sift through the networks to censor and even erase the criticism of the government from those who do not think alike or similar. I know what I am talking about, because I myself have seen my rights to freedom of expression curtailed on more than one occasion. Today's Spain reminds me of the same drifting ship that I saw in that film one day; with the boilers off, no captain on the bridge, no officers or crew to carry out their duties, no light or power to move the basic elements of navigation and communication; a ship that suffers the lash of bad weather and is just waiting for someone from outside to rescue it or for the storm to subside on its own and it can get out of it with the least possible damage and some dignity. A ship that needs someone strong and capable enough in the boiler room to get the necessary steam needed by the immense and complex machinery of the ship, enough personnel to use the systems that manage the power and the necessary command equipment to steer it safely, tentatively and correctly to a good and safe port where it can take shelter and heal its many and serious injuries. 

But no, it seems that this dream that could bring us the solution is not going to happen no matter how much we all see and feel its necessity. Today, after a month's holiday in full view and with certain and very precise members of the Government, disappeared or inactive for a longer period, in the face of all that we have and is coming, with a country in a state of bankruptcy, with the homes for the elderly threatened once again to become centres of panic, pain and death, ten days from returning to school, converted into veritable beggars and with an economy that cracks like the ship's frames in the film, Sánchez returns to his custom of the Hello President and announces his two "great measures"; to support the Communities provided that they previously request the total or partial confinement of their territories - nothing new since this situation is covered by the same law that regulates the State of Alarms of 1981) and to put at the service of all Spain, only 2. The Spanish government has also decided to send only 2,000 soldiers to Spain to cover the needs of tens of thousands of "qualified personnel" to act as trackers in places where the pandemic is spreading in a powerful and uncontrolled manner. How little use have so many days of loitering been to them?