Celestí Alomar, thank you very much

There are people to whom a newspaper owes much more than the articles they have written, the advice they have given, and the collaborations they have made. Celestí Alomar is, without a doubt, one of those people. To ARA Balears, we owe, above all, extraordinary generosity. As a member of the editorial board from the beginning, we always found in him an attentive gaze, sharp intelligence, and a willingness to help that was never forced or self-serving. His advice was good because it sprang from a deep and sensible observation of reality. He also gifted us ideas, topics, questions, and analyses that were as lucid as they were accurate. And he did so with a naturalness that made his contribution even more valuable.

But if ARA Balears is grateful to him, the reason is not only that he helped us to make this newspaper better. It is that Celestí Alomar thought of this medium of communication because he thought of the country, always and in all cases. He thought about the tools we have to build the country, to understand it, to defend it, and also to explain it. Culture, territory, language, society, economy, environment, everything that makes up the Islands and determines their future. Alomar was one of those people who, in any debate, asked themselves a question that today seems more necessary than ever: what can we do to contribute to improving this country?

He had the mind of a statesman and the gaze of someone who was not satisfied with easy explanations. His political and professional career was marked by this way of understanding the Islands. As Minister of Tourism of the first Progressive Government, he was the driving force behind the ecotax, and to do so he confronted the powerful hotel employers' association. He was convinced that the benefits of tourism should revert to the territory. But his was not just a tourism policy: behind it was a certain idea of the country and self-government.

That gaze did not end with politics. Until his last years he continued to participate in public debate and warn of the risks of an economy excessively dependent on tourism, of real estate pressure and the degradation of the territory. Also from the pages of ARA Balears. Even this year he argued that the Sustainable Tourism Tax should grow, but above all because it should serve to return resources to the heritage, landscape and culture of the Islands.

His career explains where this commitment came from. He participated in the founding of Gadeso and the Socialist Party of the Balearic Islands, he was active in the Mallorcan left, and later he was Director General of Tourism Strategy for the government of Felipe González and an international consultant. He has been a political animal, in the sense that above party affiliations and positions, there was a single idea: politics understood as a tool in the service of the common good. With commitment, critical spirit and a strong sense of civic duty.

At ARA Balears we had the privilege of having this gaze, his gaze. As an editorial advisor, as a columnist and, above all, as a person who always helped us to look a little further. Today we not only bid farewell with gratitude to a politician, a geographer, an intellectual and a columnist. Today we express our gratitude because, although he thought a lot about ARA Balears, we know that, in reality, when he did, he was thinking about something much bigger: about the Islands he wanted to leave and that he wanted us all to leave.