The eclipsed sea
A total eclipse can serve as a metaphor (there are so many) for the over-tourism and massification that stems from it: if in an eclipse a relatively small celestial body manages to obscure a much larger one, here it is the speculators – more than the tourists – who manage to completely overshadow the Mallorcans in their own place of residence. And to push them out of orbit.
As far as we know, at this point there have been no eclipse deniers (we still have time) claiming that no eclipse exists, but rather that it is a blackout programmed by Pedro Sánchez. There are indeed deniers of over-tourism and massification, although lately they have recycled themselves into a new current that accepts the existence of these phenomena, but blames the previous government. Our rulers have not yet found the right moment, on the other hand, to meet with GOB and Terraferida after the demonstration on July 26, with 70,000 people protesting against mass tourism. The Minister of Tourism, Jaume coño Bauzá (he uses this word in Parliament), says he has a "complicated agenda": in the summer, as you know, dinners and lunches multiply. The demonstration is also remembered for completely unjustified police charges, which will reach the courts hand in hand with 25 demonstrators who have announced lawsuits against the National Police for those shameful aggressions by public servants against the citizens who pay their salaries, their uniforms, and even the batons with which they hit them.
More news from these days that you can read in ARA Balears: 'The Balearic Islands break the record for human pressure in a May, with 1.86 million people', 'One out of every three homes sold in the Balearic Islands during the second quarter of the year was acquired by a foreign buyer'. You don't need to be a very perceptive analyst to understand the reality shown by these headlines: even those who benefit and those who are harmed are understood. Amidst the vertigo of islands devoured by greed, the event of the eclipse occurs, placing us in a scenario not of privilege, but of danger and emergency.
Also at sea: on the day of the eclipse, more than ten thousand boats will set sail (or will have set sail, depending on when you read this) in the waters of the Balearic Islands. These are not rafts, they are leisure and luxury vessels. As you can also read in ARA Balears, the Balearic Sea will take years to recover from the destruction that this overcrowding signifies. In parallel, we receive the news that the Dragonera buoy has measured the absolute record for sea surface temperature, at 32.71 degrees. Any temperature equal to or higher than thirty degrees in the sea is indicative of serious problems.
The most cynical will say that we don't live in the sea, but as always they are mistaken: we do live in it. We all live in it, in the sea, but especially those of us who live on islands. We have set out on the path to end the Mediterranean Sea, or to cause irreversible damage to it. Our rulers consider they have done a great job by restricting traffic in the Serra de Tramuntana for one day, when the restrictions should be for the entire year. In addition to this, it is essential that we begin to worry not only about the coastline, but about the sea itself. And that they find the time to meet with ecologists and listen to them, because they are right. And never again – never again – should any police officer dare to lay a finger on a citizen who legitimately, nobly, demonstrates to ask that we do not eclipse the sea; all this, in exchange for something as miserable as money.