Pride of Pride

PalmaThe human "pocatraça" has no limits and the Palma City Council is a good example of this. It is enough to listen to a plenary session to confirm that the municipal government does not like groups that are on the margins of what it considers a decent society very much. Cort has not shown much esteem for immigrants, shack dwellers, caravanners, or street artists – at this point, it is worth making a digression: if it is not very, very, very expensive, for the City Council it is not art.

Now it's the turn of the LGTBIQ+ community. After Ben Amics decided to cancel the Pride Day festival due to the organizational paralysis of Cort, the City Council is now distancing itself with its own festival. The problem is that the municipal officials, led by Jaime Martínez, intend to commercialize any initiative. Furthermore, the Pride festival can also serve to attract tourists. It's all profit. They could even convince the far-right that there's nothing wrong with putting up colorful flags for a day. All to make money.

Ben Amics has reminded the gentlemen and ladies of the PP of something very important: the demand has no price. And the demand for Pride goes far beyond pinkwashing and posturing. Pride is a celebration of the rights that have been achieved, a call for those that are still missing, and a cry, because there are countries where sexual orientation is not only a cause for marginalization but a matter of life and death.

The officials of Cort have given ample evidence that they do not represent all the people of Palma, but only those they like, who are usually the well-groomed and well-dressed, and who go to mass on Sundays. "Cort will not allow a unilateral decision [that of Ben Amics] to prevent the celebration of an entire community," said councilwoman Lourdes Roca, determined to move forward with the City Council's festival. What Roca pretends not to know is that it is precisely the organizations that have been working for decades in the fight for rights who represent "an entire community" and not a government team that only remembers people when it needs them for the backdrop of their photos.

With this scenario, going to the Pride demonstration, making it a massive protest, is more important than many other years. Surely Cort's festival will be full of people, of tourists eager for a party. But it will also be empty of meaning.