Demonstrating with neo-Nazis

A graphic example of what the expression ‘cringe’ means is to see your own institutional representatives walking the streets alongside far-right and neo-Nazi groups, in a demonstration where racist and hateful shouts are uttered, and where the preferred chant includes the expression ‘son of a bitch’, in this case directed at the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez. The President of the Government of the Balearic Islands, Marga Prohens, participated in a demonstration with these characteristics, and immediately afterwards she posted a funny tweet, because it explained another demonstration that had not happened. In the original version, President Prohens tweeted the following: “Ceuta is not alone. [Dramatic pause]. Thousands of us have taken to the streets to convey all our support to the people of Ceuta and to say loud and clear that Ceuta is not for negotiation and that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Spain are not for sale. [Dramatic pause]. We are all Ceuta”. The tweet did nothing more than reproduce the Partit Popular's talking points just as they had sent them from Madrid, which is the speech that President Prohens usually offers. This time, without translating it, or anything. Very well. It is a pity that reality has nothing to do with all of this. What is happening in Ceuta is a deep migratory, humanitarian, and political crisis, in which Spain's unity and territorial integrity have nothing to do with it, except for those who actually believe that the seventy thousand people who entered on July 30th and 31st from Morocco are an “invasion”. They must be Boabdil's troops, returning to reconquer Granada five hundred years later. What is happening in Ceuta, also, is a geopolitical conflict in which the main objective (of powers like Russia, Israel, or Trump's USA) is the destabilization of Europe, and in which the Spanish border is used to achieve it. The border and the Moroccan civilian population, with more than 140 dead and hundreds or thousands of people abandoned to their fate.The demonstration that President Prohens attended was not about any of that. It was a demonstration, by the way, in which the Police refrained from striking a single blow with a baton, despite the decidedly aggressive manners of many of the participants. The demonstration, in fact, should not be considered as such: the ‘demonstrations’ attended by the far right and neo-Nazis use one of the fundamental rights of democracy, which is the right to demonstrate, to make a public exhibition of brute force. An exercise in intimidation: shouts with insults, racist proclamations, and the demand to put an end to those considered “enemies of the fatherland” are nothing else. Fascism (which in Spain is cloaked in neo-Francoism) has always functioned in this way: seeking intimidation through hatred and brute force. The Popular Party no longer flirts or dallies with fascism, but has joined it definitively, has adopted its discourse as its own, and strives to whitewash and normalize it. President Prohens, as she has always done otherwise, obeys orders and, if she must let herself be photographed next to individuals with their arms raised in the Roman salute or next to individuals who exhibit the neo-Nazi imagery of groups like Plus Ultra, she does so. If anyone ever takes the trouble to remember Prohens' term (some idler with an interest in insignificant things will have to do it), these photos will look very bright in her biography.