To have style (or not to have it)

President Prohens disavowed the behavior of the mayor of Campos, Francisca Porquer (who disrupted the human chain last Sunday, July 5, in defense of Es Trenc with an absurd intervention), saying it was not her style. “My style is respect,” she repeated a couple of times. These were statements with a very presidential tone, which might sound good in another context. Not in the one created by Prohens, her Government, and her fascist allies of Vox.

To begin with, it should be clarified that what the bell-ringing mayor did at the human chain was not a more or less unfortunate prank, but an infraction of the law. Specifically, the Citizen Security Law (Organic Law 4/2015) which defines as a serious infraction "the disturbance of the development of a lawful meeting and demonstration". That is to say, exactly the case we are talking about. It is an infraction punishable by a fine of between 601 and 30,000 euros, and evidently, the fact that the perpetrator is a person with public responsibilities is an aggravating factor. In a country with a little more democratic demand, a mayor cannot do anything other than resign or be dismissed after such events.

Leaving that aside, the respectful style that Prohens claims as a hallmark of her way of governing has been evident in recent days in much more serious events. The IB3 works committee made public a scandalous and very harsh statement, in which the News professionals denounced having suffered censorship, precisely, in the information about the Trenc human chain. The text that had been drafted for the news was modified, and some graffiti on a machine-gun nest on Ràpita beach were overemphasized as if the demonstrators had made them.

It was about turning the PP's argumentation about the protest into "news", namely, that the demonstrators were damaging the Natural Park with their mere presence, because it turns out that on an island that receives 20 million tourists, 10,000 people had never coincided in that area before. Before the human chain, there had already been a disinformation campaign by the PP rulers themselves and their affiliated journalists (we will write 'affiliated' to avoid using a more offensive word, which starts with 'suck-' and ends with '-up'). Also, an targeting of environmental organizations, calling them liars and creators of fake news: this is the specialty of the right and its influencers, precisely.

Furthermore, the Constitutional Court has annulled the repeal of the democratic memory law – one of the lowest points in the political history of the Balearic Islands – and the PP's only reaction is to acknowledge that they have no objection, because, in reality, they don't care about the memory of the victims of fascism in these Islands and only use it to beg Vox to vote for their budgets. The first lack of respect is governing hand in hand with fascists and having dirtied the presidency of Parliament by keeping an individual like Gabriel Le Senne there is the greatest institutional disrespect a government can commit against citizen sovereignty. However, these are arguments that do not enter into the analysis of reality made by the president and the members of her Executive. Style and respect, like intelligence, are not things that one has just because one says so: they are earned or demonstrated by deeds.