The tarpaulins of shame and the campaign of mud
In the last electoral campaigns we have seen everything, which have exponentially turned into an ever-increasing quagmire, with the parties looking for ways to foster fears and negative emotions in voters in increasingly unimaginable ways in other, not so distant times, when programmatic proposals prevailed. All of this with the underlying connivance of social networks and their stinking army of hate propagation.
The menu has been a varied one: Sanchismo, ultra-right, communists, drug traffickers, mail-in ballot rigging and, of course, ETA, now represented by "Txapote". The ETA member who assassinated -among others- Miguel Ángel Blanco in 1997, used as an electoral weapon. The end justifies the means. For those of us who, like me, were close to being orphaned during the years of lead in San Sebastian, to poke at the wound of the victims by frivolously turning "Txapote" into a pop icon exceeds the limits of what is tolerable. In short, we are getting a "beautiful" election campaign. The campaign of aversion, the campaign of emptiness and absolute nothingness.
But just when it seemed that we had reached the last frontier of pre-electoral decadence in terms of morality and degradation, our political panorama does not cease to surprise us by giving another twist to the aforementioned quagmire, with the introduction and staging of the concept of the "tarpaulin", usually placed on the façade of a centrally located or highly visible building. These tarpaulins are objects older than the black thread, but at the same time of a new breed for these propagandistic purposes, where parties and associations of all stripes are waging a lamentable war of messages on these tarpaulins with hatred as the main leitmotiv, using grotesque graphic designs after photographic manipulation of the political adversary.
In the height of surrealism and silliness, this past weekend one of these banners was displayed in Madrid showing Pedro Sánchez and the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, kissing each other. The perpetrators? They call themselves Frente Obrero, and boast a bizarre, pretended Marxism-Leninism, in a programme where certain impulses are closer to current post-fascism than to the communism they boast of. And where, on some issues, it shares similarities with the programme of VOX.
Frente Obrero's political programme tackles different aspects from very different perspectives. In other words, they are a chaos, a "totum revolutum". In their programme they are betting, among other things, on the removal of the monarchy, the exit from the EU and NATO, a federal republic, amnesty for political prisoners, the right to self-determination, the recovery of Gibraltar, as well as an anti-immigration discourse, where they take VOX's programme almost literally. Communism, they say.
Every political project has aspirations and an end. But the case of the Frente Obrero, which renounces absolutely everything, is hilarious, because in the end they are utterly undefined. Reading the postulates of these people, one comes to wonder if this is all a joke, or where the hidden camera is. Frente Obrero is a marginal organisation in political terms and, as such, they do not deserve any more attention. They are just four brain-liquefied fools indulging - in political terms - in mental masturbation.
However, the act of putting up the aforementioned tarpaulin is a very serious one. In a country like ours, where from some quarters our dear neighbour to the south is repeatedly disparaged using derogatory terms such as "dictatorship" and "medieval monarchy", it should be remembered that we live in a country that still has in force the offences of insulting the Crown and offending religious feelings. These are precisely the same two issues that are reflected in this offensive and insulting canvas. Both because of Mohammed VI's status as monarch, and because of his status as Amir al-Muminin (Chief and Commander of the Believers).
Without wishing to enter into the eternal debate on the limits of freedom of expression, if here in Spain there is still this judicial threat to citizens based on the two aforementioned criminal offences, it is taking too long to remove this offensive and shameful banner from the place where it is located. Out of respect for those affected and because of the double standards it implies due to the aforementioned legal issues.
Another option would be that, if it is really true that they want to overthrow the Spanish Crown, the alleged anti-monarchists and communists of the Frente Obrero would dare to place Felipe VI on that tarpaulin, in a similar pose, to demand a republic. We won't see it, they don't dare, nor do they fool anyone no matter how hard they try.
And so the days go by, in this endless electoral swamp. Where one no longer knows whether to listen to "txapote" or "txapapote". At least, after 23 July, let's hope that they leave us a few quiet days to go on holiday and detoxify ourselves of so much political vacuity. It is an almost infinite void, one that no tarpaulin can cover.