We are getting used to the theme park

A company has been summoned by the Artà City Council for organizing a macro-gymkhana with no less than 900 people. It involved running through the urban center doing absurd things like painting on the ground or sticking stickers on traffic signs or the town's walls.

The fact is regrettable, because it portrays once again the theme park that the Balearic Islands have become, and to which we are dangerously becoming accustomed. Artà has so many values that it does not need in any way for some scoundrels to roam the town carrying out an improper, excessive, and offensive activity for residents. But one does not need to go to such a crude extreme to see how much quality of life and authenticity this and the rest of the coastal municipalities, and little by little, those of the interior, have lost. It is enough to go one market day to Artà, to Sóller, or to so many towns and try to cross them amidst human madness that disrupts everything.

And housing prices, after, of course, many locals have sold all the land or houses they had for sale. And tourist rentals. And the signs of bars and restaurants or shops, many of them, oriented towards visitors. Walking through any corner is walking amidst a feeling of artificiality, of excess, of not being able to get on certain public transport, or having to go standing up to get to work. Or having to dodge hundreds of bicycles to travel a small part of the Islands by car.

The season has started and we repeat again in the talk shows that everything has lost its charm, how we are strangers in our own home. But to avoid repetitions, we should move forward and ask ourselves what else must happen for the islanders to wake up from the nightmare and recover, at least, some dignity.