POLITICS AND THE ABSURD THEATRE

It is inevitable to refer to what happened this week although the events are disheartening and boredom imposes some reluctance to the conversation. So, when my friend said that it was just another theatre’s act, it took me a few seconds to react because my imagination flew over two thousand years ago, at a time when the Athenians (male, free and over 20 years, of course) expressed their opinion in an open forum with the utmost eloquence and, I suppose, with great gestures to convince his listeners. I flew to the republican Rome, where I could see myself sitting on one cold Carrara marble bench listening attentively to the speech of a Senator, one of the representatives of the civilization and culture of his time. I would watch perhaps with skepticism, perhaps with fascination, the expression on his face, the movement of his hands, his walk while he attempted to convince his listeners. My mind flew over the dark times of the Middle Ages to a seat in the mid-nineteenth century British Parliament where I would attend, most likely with tedium, the speech of a "lord" trying to gain support for a government post.

And suddenly, I came back to the harsh reality of the TV coverage of the last debate in the Galician Parliament wondering what was the play in scene. My friend was right, at least, last Wednesday's session was "pure theater". A crude, vulgar theater unworthy of the second decade of the century, inappropriate in the present state of our region, our country, our European Union. In which, "and you more", won over the debate that matters: how to solve the problems of the citizens.

I do not feel represented by any of the politicians in office at this time, nor am I protected in my rights and defended in my needs. And like me, I guess, tens or hundreds of thousands of cheated bank clients with unaffordable mortgages, millions of self-employed that have had to increase their working hours just to cover expenses and keep their businesses open, the millions of unemployed people who know they will not find work in at least a couple of years, officials that have suffered cuts in their salaries, pensioners that at their old age have to help their children or grandchildren, young people who do not know whether to stay idle or try to go abroad in search for better opportunities.

  

Obviously this is not the sole fault of politicians, they are only a reflection of our society, the neglect and passivity with which we lived the fictitious welfare decades of the housing bubble and bank manipulation. It is the result of the access to a political career, I dare not to say in most cases but in a high percentage, that was not vocational but "aspirational", for a living until retirement, rather than by merit and ability. It is also the result of our unbridled desire to live like commisionists and, above all, the failure of all control and regulation systems in this country, or rather, its absence. And, of course the corruption is the result of a general permissiveness in which anyone who did not get his hand in “extra” money was a fool.

All of us, or nearly so, know what is wrong. All of us, or nearly so, are aware of what must be changed. All of us, or nearly so, suspect that if the situation does not improve, the streets will become a fighting ground. But for now, no one, or almost, nobody knows how to fix it. And, while we wait, a new act of this "theater of the absurd" will take place in which the only certainty is that less and less can make the month’s end meet.