How do you like your Sherry? Without police intimidation.
When Canalejas was shot in the streets of Madrid at the hands of an anarchist, he was alone. Even if he had been a criminal capitalist (it appears he was not), he died a victim. He was a prime minister.
Today, coming back from work, we met with a crowd in Sol. It turned out an inauguration of the Tío Pepe sign was scheduled. This kitch advertisement banner in flashy neon signs with its out-of-mode curves, used to be a symbol of Madrid until its removal when Apple bought the building supporting it. It recently made its coming back (on a different building). So a little podium was installed with a giant button so that someone, apparently Ana Botella, the mayor of Madrid, could light it up again.
Why I'm writing about this is because even for this innocent looking thing, an air of revolutionary time was floating on Sol, that is now officially "Vodafone Sol", by the way. El Pueblo, the people, had gathered to shout down and boo and hoot at the politicians. It seems there is not a single popular thing that they can do with a public support or even interest. Everywhere they go, their presence is resented. That's how badly they failed. This is a trend everywhere in Europe. It's probably even worst in France where Hollande shattered all the indicators of unpopularity.
The most striking was the absurd, exaggerated, incomprehensible police forces deployed. The place was literally full with heavily armed police. Several dozains, possibly 50 trucks of police were spread in formation. A line of policemen was keeping the flow of people at a distance (people were mainly tourists, of course).
Naturally Botella didn't come down. A group of models dressed like la botella del Tío Pepe came for a photo as "la Tía Botella" showed up on the balcony, the sign lighted up with the button stupidly standing there for nothing, nobody cheered or nothing, everybody was looking at a twelve-years old barrel of arrogance dominating the event from the stage of stolen power, taking a few seconds, maybe half a minute, to scorn at the crowd below. Even though you could only see her shadow, it was stifling how she despised this noisy lot addressing her, you could literally see the smile in her black silhouette. Then she got back inside the palace where you could make out a banquet and some drinks were waiting for the assembly celebrating. Not celebrating the sign of course, that they surely don't care at all about. Celebrating that all this is still going on.
Even if Canalejas had been a banker, a fraud, an illegitimate usurper of the people's power (it appears he was none of this), he died a man and a victim. A few meters only from where this caricature of a politician was standing tonight. If he would be to come back to Sol and contemplate all this, he would possibly become himself Botella's Manuel Pardiñas. He was looking at books from the pavement when he was murdered. She was looking at how luxury and power taste when you can abuse it in the face of those who are kept like cattle below. Botella who is but a tiny fraction of what Canalejas was, is supposed to come from the people to serve a democracy. She is so hated she can not walk in the street even with the army shielding her. The sense of absolute, confiscated power was pungent, with the sheer and brute force to keep the crowd away like filth. I have more respect for a dictator. Botella and her fellow elects are like the pigs of Animal Farm. They are supposed to be like us, to be from us, but so great is their treason that even from the urns of a democracy and the values of the western culture, they turned more fascists than the worst military tyrants.
- The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
