Opinion

And for this we won the war?

photo_camera Y para esto hemos ganado la guerra

A very famous and well known phrase, which became fashionable in Spain in the 1950s, a few years after the end of the Spanish Civil War. It contains a question and a complaint at the same time and showed the discontent of those who were losing most of their "privileges" for having actively or passively participated in the "winning" side, to whom, from the beginning, a series of rights were granted, such as preferential eligibility for the civil service or reserved seats in the scarce means of transportation under the sign "seat reserved for the knights maimed in war" as opposed to the crippled on the other side, who were contemptuously known as "lame fucks".
A few years after the end of such a bloody conflict, many saw that a large and growing number of those who had participated in the Republican side, even though they had been tried, soon had their sentences commuted, their release from prison was hastened and following the path of patronage, nepotism and cronyism as an endemic evil of the Spanish; soon they were seen holding positions of all kinds, even in the civil service and even in the media, in politics and in those famous vertical unions. We have many examples of this and it is enough to scratch a little in the curriculum of the parents and close relatives of many of those who now define themselves as reds, republicans and for having remained faithful since their childhood in a struggle -so hidden and hidden, that never existed as such- against the Franco regime and abjure or try to erase their past as faithful followers of it.
Well, since history repeats itself and more so in Spain, where it seems that we never learn from our mistakes, even if we slightly or totally change the scenario and/or actors; in these last years we are living again a similar situation of bewilderment and anger among the plain and simple people. These people, who for more than forty years, have done nothing but comply with their obligation and abide by the rules and legislation without complaining like good democrats and now they see that without their support, desire or participation, they want to change everything; and furthermore, they see that the changes are imposed through the back door and all that they fought for inside and outside Spain with so much pride and dedication loses its meaning.
We tend to be a protesting, protesting, non-conformist people, not at all or very proud of our history, fond of throwing stones on our own roof and quite blind when it comes to recognizing our mistakes and successes, riches and historical, cultural and artistic legacies for our enjoyment or that of all mankind. We tend to abjure our principles and are certainly conformist in the face of bloody or imaginary invasions and all kinds of external fashions that sweep over us, settle in our way of understanding life, take root or even last for centuries and make a strong dent in our own customs and certain habits and forms of civility. 
We are parochial, envious, treacherous, with a tendency to felony, too deep in our own shell and tend to be lovers exclusively of our own small homeland; we are not proud of our common language, nor of our symbols and we despise the Homeland, making a big difference with our neighbors and peers; who with less right, history and roots, have their national pride very high, respect their flag and are willing to defend their values with all their will, strength and weapons.
We allow rancor to be born in our hearts and minds with absolute ease; which, together with our ugly habit of being very or quite "chaqueteros", makes us very capable of changing -from one day to the next- our guide, model and predicament. We follow a political party with all our strength, even if its policies are crazy and little or nothing appropriate for the good of Spain, or we change sides and do not stop beating that party, which served us as an example and stimulus, without any condition whatsoever.
There are famous phrases and even some already quite legendary, which define us as a dissatisfied people, who do not stop sowing discord and political and regional unrest in such an insistent and strong way, that it seems unbelievable that Spain continues to exist, for the time being, as a nation.
As I mentioned before, almost from the very moment we voted and adopted our present Constitution in 1978, we became in a very exemplary way, apparently and quickly, one of the most democratic countries in the western world and nobody questioned that on this occasion, Spain and the Spanish people -by the hand and with the political example of HM Juan Carlos I- had truly and definitively turned the page. 
A crass mistake, because the passage of time has shown that, in parallel with those initial moments and jubilations, some ill-intentioned people began to place holes in the pillars on which that new stage was based in order to dynamite them for mere and pure protagonism, a certain dissatisfaction, political or personal selfishness, political or personal demands, or demands of the Spanish people, political or personal selfishness, demands of the script in the controversial and divided political map or as a consequence of a plan duly drawn up by different interests and internal and external black hands so that, in the long term and progressively, to undermine the wills or laminate the education and the individual or collective formation and the true meaning of values; monopolizing the control of the media and networks; annulling the adequate legislative capacity; removing the impartiality and the sense of duty of the armed forces in conflictive situations or of danger for the nation and its integrity, at least in its most representative leaderships; whitening and extolling the parties in which the enemies of Spain are framed, and copying positions in the judiciary and the judicial system in order to transform the wills and hearts of those who, having known nothing other than this tainted political situation, any other "story" that can be told, even if it is real, has no point of comparison with this arcadia that is sold to them from all corners and with bad intentions.
To this exaggerated, totally deformed and invented situation -by various strokes of luck for them- we must add the facilities that external events such as the Covid pandemic have lent them, so that in the last stretch of their performance, they have been able to accelerate the attraction of deformed wills and, at the same time, to increase the number of grateful stomachs that are grateful to them, increase the number of grateful stomachs in search of easy accommodation, which leads many to a total dependence on those who have the Official State Gazette in their hands and the ability to satisfy them (buy them) with crumbs, thus ensuring that they will remain blind and silent or at least, looking the other way in the face of so much ignominy, outrage, contempt, lies and corruption.    
The impotence, disinterest and boredom among ordinary people are increasing; every day we witness outrages based on execrable silences or legislative milestones achieved without the slightest nerve or dignity; situations that we could never have thought of and that violate all kinds of laws and the slightest morality; we see that our economy is staggering and sinking more than in any other country in our environment, to the point of depending greatly on foreign handouts or on the cancellation of our debt, as illustrious socialists and communists have recently illusively and futilely requested from the Central Bank; that public health has been discredited from the very first moment that its control and direction fell into the hands of politicians who are true amateurs, totally distant from the field and from a certain or so-called "committee of experts" that never existed, unless we want to define as such a group of civil servants and friends related to a Minister of Health, the one who, in the middle of the third wave of this serious pandemic, abandoned his post to go to Catalonia to play at what he never was and will never be able to achieve, no matter how much he lies, daydreams and the CIS eats his ear with false surveys, rigged like all those presented by what was once a noble and prestigious institution.   
We see a coalition government turned into a real henhouse, full of roosters who try to save their heads and get political performance at the cost of joining or supporting the worst enemies of Spain in order to keep their perches on any stinking armchair. That part of it officially, or in its totality, attack the foundations of the nation, its noblest institutions and feel no shame in agreeing with whomever and whatever is necessary, even after having officially promised, hours before, that this was never and will never be their intention.
A country in which we are lied to daily on any subject and where everything said or spoken by unwise people, in order not to be known or published, is transformed into a state secret. We are the laughingstock of the world in the international arena for the great eloquences of a trickster to have our debt forgiven and for having become, after many false promises, lies and deceptions with our alliances and allies, someone with whom no one wants to make a pact because they see that in this government there are two or three governments, where each one goes its own way, without agreement and lacking the necessary and precise direction.
Trump has repeatedly ignored us in the person of Sánchez; the desired and anticipated change of course and orientation in our relations with Uncle Sam has not taken place because apparently Biden has not yet "had time" to return Sánchez's official congratulatory call; our run and tell Borrell -whom to get rid of by imposition of more than one Catalan party we foisted on the EU- has just starred in an ignominious situation with the Russian foreign minister that has brought out the colors of Spain and the whole Union. This situation has been aggravated by the inestimable help of someone who, being vice-president of the government and having promised before His Majesty the King to respect and enforce the Constitution, not only does not comply with it, but he and his henchmen are daily shitting on such a noble Law and calling into question the full democracy of our nation. 
In just one year, we have become or we are about to become the only country in which the official language is not taught in schools as compulsory, the concerted education is attacked, religion is despised, personal performance and the spirit of improvement are ignored; where institutions and symbols can be attacked "artistically" without any punishment or blush unless the insult is against the government; the importance of serious crimes such as sedition is reduced in order to favor the release of those who are in prison; abortion and sex change are practiced freely without parental permission even if they are minors; euthanasia will be used with total normality; the networks, the armed forces and the judiciary are controlled with total impudence and impunity, and legislation is no longer passed except in haste, at night and on the basis of Royal Decrees using the roller formed by all the parties declared enemies of Spain and some other clueless ones, which having lost the north and almost all their strength, to avoid disappearing as happened to others, are grasping at any burning nail as their last and desperate solution.    
Currently we are playing or we are about to reach a general amnesty although it is forbidden for being unconstitutional; they have consented without protest to release the prisoners so that they can campaign and can go to vote in person and among their own people today; an unstoppable and shameful approach of ETA prisoners to their people and home is maintained and promoted without repenting, asking for forgiveness or compensating for the damage done; we live immersed in constant and obscure pacts with Bildu although it is announced that they will not happen; we are witnesses of frequent and dastardly attacks on the monarchy in all its figures although some of them are minors; an orchestrated and dastardly contempt for the victims of terrorism has been put into practice; we are still anxiously awaiting European funds, funds which, as Brussels sees things here, we will see how and when they will arrive; after a long period in State of Alarm, we are once again subjected to another six months, the longest in history; the intention to create a Ministry of Truth has been announced, something that sounds totally like an inquisition; we are facing the greatest and most serious undermining of our international prestige while maintaining an erratic and very worrying foreign policy (Morocco and Venezuela), at the same time that we are immersed in a disastrous exchange of insults with Russia and in this fatal scenario, the USA is training and equipping the Moroccan Armed Forces in the middle of a campaign for the claim of this country over Spanish lands and waters. Meanwhile, and as if it were not with them, our government is applauding itself daily, spending with full hands the money it does not have, raising almost all taxes (while the rest of the West lowers them) and waiting for the vaccines against the coronavirus to become the miracle that will redeem us from all our sorrows and debts, when we have forgotten that several months ago it was the government that announced to have defeated the pandemic and today, in the middle of the Catalan votes, to see if they can fix again something that never ends up being fixed because it is impossible with things as they are, Spain is completely ruined and in debt, has more than two million infected and about 95. We have more than 95,000 dead in solitude due to a virus that we initially despised and then we did not know how to stop.  
For all these reasons, I believe that people, and more and more of them, are beginning to ask themselves: "AND FOR THIS WE VOTED AND APPROVED THE CONSTITUTION?