These days of fighting against this train-like train they want to impose on us, I've thought a lot about my mother and father. I suppose the same thing happens to you. Their worries, their dreams, that extreme work from dawn to dusk. Their determination to get ahead, to float. Hours and hours of work and suffering... often just to survive and be able to pay four bills. What would they say if they were alive? I believe, I am convinced, that we draw strength from their memory and their legacy. Cati Mayol wrote a phrase on the Civic Platform's Facebook page, which says: "This group was born from the love for their land and the urgent need to protect what we are." With a single phrase, she captured the essence of the world we believe in and that sustains us. Don't give up... together we can stop this madness.
Every day, the basement of the Sala (the Town Hall) is filled with people coming to look at the train routes to Alcúdia sent by the Balearic Government. Feelings of fear, dread, and worry are running high among the rural peasantry. People are astonished by the black and red lines that mark, furrow, and dismember the lands of Marjal (I refuse to use the "la"), they stare, rub their eyes. "It can't be!" they say. We've been farming this land for five, six, or seven generations; it can't be that the na Prohens government wants to harm us so much. These and other words are the first we hear day after day. Evidently, in the village, they talk about nothing else.
Others react more forcefully: when we have to bring out the tractors, do they ask? We, those of Este tren no!, ask for common sense and calm; we know it's easy to say and difficult to put into practice. Our core and our bodies demand action, but our spirits must remain calm. For now, it's time to comment on a study presented by a Department of Mobility that has no love for, or sensitivity toward, the marshland. The presented work, lacking much detail or precision, contains too many questions and few answers. They don't know the width of the road and the lanes, they don't know the height of the bridges or the tunnels. Everything is still to be defined. They also don't know if the tram station (which isn't a tram) is on the right or left of Avenida Tucan. They're not clear about where the tunnel will begin or end. They haven't considered the protected and listed heritage of the mills, wash houses, and waterwheels. So what do these people know or want? It takes more than an hour and a half to travel from Alcudia to Palma. We're worried about the impacts 50 meters between both sides, which we'll have to endure for life.
They know nothing about the mountains of Son Fe and Sant Martí. What spirit inhabits them? The fossils that have been found? It's safe to assume that if we have the fossils stored in Sa Vileta, the area is protected. The DG of Agriculture states in its report that if the train were built within Marjal, it would be the final blow to ancestral farming and agriculture. It also seems that the mobility technicians haven't spoken much with their colleagues from the DG of Emergencies, even though they're from the Catalan government itself. Pablo Gárriz, the DG of Emergencies, is waiting for them with a battery of plans (Meteobal, Inunbal, etc.) that they haven't read and could lead to negligence or violations with serious consequences for human lives in the future. I still remember the Sant Llorenç floods of 2018 and the people who drowned.
They also don't know about the wells, the sprinkler pipes for irrigation, the motors, the access points, all the dreams and money invested in our land. They only know that they want a train; a train of fear. It doesn't matter if tears roll down the cheeks of the marshland dwellers, the poor, and the people of Alcudia. At the meeting in Alcudia, one voice spoke out loud: "I want lots of trains, and they're free!" That's all there is to it: lots of trains, and they're free. At any price, no matter what it takes. Marc Valens, a concerned professional engineer, asked them three questions at the meeting in Alcudia, and Joan Mas, head of department at the DG, could answer none.
Every day that passes, I wonder what the engineers who drafted the study presented were thinking, if they're from another planet or what they learned in school. I wonder if they came to the marshland to talk, to listen to its heartbeat, the people, their breath, or if they simply drew up the project with a satellite projection and a magnifying glass, inside an air-conditioned office, and fixed it all with a few lines. Mr. Sebastià Ribot and Mr. Carlos Vilés, who are signing the papers, come to Marjal and listen to the people with their bare, calloused hands. Madam President, Margalida Prohens, went to the Alcanada seafront to show the media a publicity video and to listen to the babble of her followers. Come to Sa Pobla in Marjal, talk to those affected and unaffected, more than 240 rural properties. Come, listen to the people! Then they will tell us if the price they are asking is fair. They are most welcome to take an afternoon stroll and feel at their feet the land won by hand in the marshes that surround it.
Right now, the people, the citizens of Poblera, have two collective challenges to address. On the one hand, we are too afraid. Fear of "power," of the "authority" of what they will say, and also of the people in ties who rule the Ciutat. The second challenge is a fierce crisis of confidence and credibility in public administrations, both local and regional. This isn't rhetoric; it's something verifiable and tangible. We'll have to see how this whole problem will affect us and what consequences it will have in two years, when we're called to vote. Not this train!
