New York's joyfulness
And the "gozadera" was on in New York, as the song goes. A Canary Islands festival at the UN during the "Fourth Committee: Special Political and Decolonisation Committee". And nothing of a low profile, hogging the limelight, since most of the delegation spoke first, just behind the Polisario representative, who always opens the floor for petitioners. Incidentally, the first day of the event collapsed, with hardly anyone else being able to speak. People from all over the world had to wait, and who knows if they might return to their countries of origin without being able to participate, because apparently it was in the interest of the Polisario's official delegation in the Canary Islands to intervene en masse in the first place. Coincidences as they come.
Looking at the list of participants in this Fourth United Nations Commission, for a moment it might seem that the territory to be decolonised was the Canary Islands themselves - surely to the delight and delight of more than one member of the delegation. At least that was the impression of such an elephantine representation from the Islands at an event as symbolically charged as this one. It almost seemed more like a delegation from the MPAIC than one that is going to defend the interests of the Polisario, not the Saharawis, just a few of them. However much they were repeating the opposite for almost three hours like automatons, to the despair and tedium of the audience present, who were barely suppressing their yawns.
Who thought this could be a good idea? Beyond the expenses-paid trip to the Big Apple, it remains to be seen whether it was paid for with public money or not. It wouldn't hurt to know, but to really know, and not to deny it with euphemisms. And if this New York revelry has been paid for by the public coffers of the Canary Islanders, based on some kind of budgetary item under a textual heading that is difficult to digest. Especially coming from them, who are always so eager to know how we pay for the things that the rest of us organise, wielding nonsense as lazy and conspiratorial as we are accustomed to hearing. They say Moroccan secret services, the CNI... too much Netflix in their lives. In any case, if their claims were true, which they are not, at least it won't be with funds from the public purse. I don't think everyone can say the same.
At first glance at the official - and publicly available - document listing the participants, Nueva Canarias is obviously over-represented, along with Podemos, of course. It seems clear that one of the reasons for this sort of end-of-year trip to New York has been the childish tantrum provoked by the celebration (or goal in someone else's field) of the MSP event a few days ago. Proof of this were the constant direct or indirect references to it during the endless verbal ranting referred to above.
In this document, we found an agglomeration of politicians and representatives of a variety of associations, some of them of a very different hue. I am not saying that their representatives do not participate in an individual capacity, but of course, looking at the nomenclatures of the list of participants, it would not have been surprising to find a Canarian association of petanque, pigeon fanciers or numismatists speaking at the UN about the Sahara. With all due respect to their daily work, but what are they doing there? Who is paying for this?
Incidentally, Coalición Canaria, the Canary Islands' political weathercock par excellence, was also there, and its criticism of the government's decision on the Sahara issue will turn into the opposite in the near future if the post-election situation so requires. Was its representative there in a personal capacity, or does he represent his party's official position at the UN?
And the University of Las Palmas was also represented: does the ULPGC also take an official position before the UN in favour of the Polisario in the Western Sahara dispute? It would be useful if the Rectorate could clarify this, because its name is associated with one of the participants, whom I do not have the pleasure of knowing, nor anything against him. But at this point it is worth recalling the disproportionate campaign against Rafael Esparza after the 2005 edition for a similar event, even going so far as to call for Esparza's expulsion from the academic institution. His "crime"? Well, it is clear from what we have seen this year that it was not the use of the University's name in his participation, but rather that the content of his intervention did not meet the interests of those offended who called for his head. Incidentally, the prime mover in that episode happened to be the head of this delegation. A rather nauseating double standard.
Only the illustrious and omnipresent Carmelo Ramírez was absent from the New York rave. He was supposed to be settling the party's accounts. Years of accounting mess are not easily straightened out. The only question I am left with is whether all those tendentious simultaneous publications that Mr Ramírez wrote and placed in numerous media on the eve of the Movement Saharawi for Peace conference, full of untruths, came from the same aforementioned coffers. Of course, in this case we cannot ask for miracles. If in four years they have not been able to present their own accounts under childish pretexts, we are not going to ask them for so much transparency all at once, lest they get a dizzy spell.
It is also curious that in that barrage of articles he called the association of which I am vice-president, the Fórum Canario Saharaui, a 'kiosk'. I think Ramírez was wrong in his words towards us. I don't think there is a kiosk similar in size to the one Mr Ramírez puts at his disposal when he has a tantrum about the Sahara.
Of course, not a word was said about the Canarian fishermen murdered during the 'black decade' in the best and most emblematic setting to do so. It was to be expected, no doubt a surrealistic exercise in placing sympathy and solidarity with those who at the same time perpetrated those execrable acts against Canarian workers. It is a grotesque paradox, it is those who should be most concerned for their memory, their politicians and countrymen. Canarian officials and representatives who fervently defend the victimizer of murdered Canarians. And at the UN no less. The things of ideological dogma and militancy. So let the New York revelry continue. The Big Apple always tastes better when it's paid for by others, let them keep on biting.