Towers and watchtowers: now more than ever
At what point did we give up on considering humanity? When did we stop empathizing with the suffering of others? When was the last time our sensitivity was shaken by a humanitarian tragedy? This summer we watched impassively as more than one hundred and forty human beings lost their lives at the Ceuta border while we sipped a cold beer and watched the sunset. We have witnessed, once again and with the same impassivity, the death or disappearance of more than one thousand six hundred human beings in the middle of the Mediterranean, while they were trying to find a future on our shores.
Can you imagine if the first one hundred and forty had died here, in a train attack or an earthquake? Can you imagine if the other one thousand six hundred were the victims of a cruise ship that had sunk? What tragedies, right? And yet, these hundreds or thousands of nameless beings, with skin a little darker than ours, do not alter our daily lives unless it is to become bargaining chips in political bickering, in the confirmation of the apocalypse announced by those who—appealing to our baser instincts—make hatred of difference their reason for being.
Ten years ago, a group of teachers from IES Marratxí, together with members of the Balearic Mathematical Society and accompanied by hundreds of citizens of Mallorca, decided to commemorate the fourth centenary of the death of the Mallorcan doctor, astronomer, mathematician and historian Joan Binimelis with the symbolic lighting of the towers and watchtowers that are part of the defense system he organized, we thought it would be good to give a new meaning to these elements of our architectural heritage. In the manifesto we drafted for that occasion, we wrote: "May those towers and watchtowers that, in their origin, were conceived as defensive elements against the undeniable dangers arriving from the sea, now serve as beacons to light the way for those people who, fleeing war, violence and misery, aspire to a better life. To a simply human life." It was the time when the Syrian war had caused a diaspora in which millions of refugees wanted to leave the country and reach Europe. The tragedy of the refugees was faced in different ways by the various European states, but a citizen outcry in favor of welcoming them could still be heard. It was, still, the time when the image of little Aylan drowned on a Turkish beach moved us and appealed to our consciences.
For ten years, the act of lighting the towers and watchtowers for human rights has continued. New collaborators have joined – the Mallorcan Solidarity Fund, Amnesty International and the Council of Mallorca –, we have multiplied the number of lighting points beyond the towers of the defensive system devised by Binimelis and, even, we have exported the initiative to other places on the Mediterranean coasts. But we have not advanced much in the demands that drove us to propose this initiative, that is, human rights – and, particularly, those of migrants – and the defense of the historical architectural heritage of our islands.
Regarding the latter, although it must be acknowledged that—especially in the last legislative term—our initiative represented a wake-up call that, to a greater or lesser extent, was picked up by the institutions, the laws and decrees that regulate construction and the use of rustic land continue to allow buildings and golf courses next to or surrounding elements of architectural heritage, and some of the defense towers continue their inexorable process of collapse. On this side, therefore, we cannot be very satisfied.
And in relation to the humanitarian demand, not only have we not advanced, but we are going backwards. Ten years ago, we also warned that the white knights of the Ku Klux Klan were riding again on the North American prairies and that the ears of the wolf of fascism were rising again in the heart of a bewildered Europe. Well, now they are already in governments and institutions and are the ones who decide migration policies, with examples as shameful as the actions of ICE in the USA and the creation of deportation centers outside the borders of the EU, which began with the Italian government and has been uncritically accepted by the majority of the other members of the Union.
Meanwhile, we pay other countries that border the European Union—such as Turkey and Morocco—to do our dirty work. For the part that concerns us, the institutions and regional governments look at the drama in Ceuta with concern about the number of minors they will have to host. Or not, because some take advantage of the drama to fly the flag of their lack of solidarity and thus—incomprehensibly—still collect more votes from a citizenry that is increasingly misinformed, frightened, and anesthetized.
And in this context, the representatives of that group of idealists who ten years ago lit the towers and watchtowers to raise our voices against the systematic violation of human rights and to demand absolute respect for the dignity of every human life, we receive the notification of the granting of the Jaume II award for our initiative. We cannot help but feel proud that the main island institution remembers us and recognizes the merit of this citizen initiative, but, at the same time, we do not want to stop denouncing the double standards of those political forces that, with one hand offer us recognition and with the other make decisions and contribute to spreading discourses that are radically opposed to our demands.
