<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - Cristina Ros]]> 10 <![CDATA[Do you feel truly Spanish?]]>

“Some people say it is possible to become truly Spanish if one makes an effort. Others, on the contrary, think that to be truly Spanish one must have been born Spanish. Which of these opinions do you agree with more?”.

]]> <![CDATA[In the hands of idiots]]> There are political decisions that seem designed more to soothe adult consciences than to transform realities. Pedro Sánchez's announcement that he wants to prohibit access to social media for those under sixteen has something of that about it: it sounds forceful, it sounds protective, it sounds responsible. And yet, it's hard not to also see it as a defensive gesture in the face of a collective anxiety that has been growing for some time now, without anyone knowing how to address it.

]]> <![CDATA[Tractor protest and Spanish nationalism]]> The tractor protests carried out separately by Mallorcan farmers this past Thursday against the agreement between the European Union and Mercosur have produced very telling images. They were so expressive that they go far beyond the rejection of an agreement that will have very serious consequences—not only economic, but also environmental—and which represents another blow to a sector, to a countryside, already quite battered, especially in the Balearic Islands. The reality is that even in the face of this frontal attack, Mallorcan farmers have not been able to unite. And this not only weakens them, but is also profoundly significant. Because the largest tractor protest, the one led by the ever-conservative Asaja, had little to do with protest and a lot to do with a Torrente movie. A posh lunch at a popular restaurant is, at the very least, a curious way to demonstrate, to protest. It seemed more like a calculated performance: pretending to protest without causing too much of a stir against an agreement that the People's Party—the party of the regional Minister of Agriculture and a long-time leader of Asaja itself—voted in favor of in Europe. It's also revealing that the Mallorcan tractor drivers didn't demonstrate when the Catalan farmers did, during the second week of January, precisely when the Mercosur agreement was at its peak. That was an explicit act of turning their backs on the Catalan peasantry. However, it should be remembered that neither the more progressive union Unió de Pagesos nor the organic farmers of Apaema joined the gargantuan gathering; they held their own demonstration and, moreover, issued statements supporting the demands of the Catalan farmers. In any case, this lack of solidarity with Catalonia is not without reason. Here, as always, it has a clear political meaning. The largest tractor protest, the one that culminated in a picnic, was laden with Spanish flags. They display them at every tractor protest. And Vox is not only a regular presence, but they know perfectly well they can reap significant benefits. While the far right is currently acting as the self-appointed guardian of Palma's libraries, demanding a count of books in Catalan and Spanish—even though librarians have already demonstrated that there are many more in Spanish: 150,004 to 86,945—the anti-Catalan rhetoric is once again proving highly effective.

]]> <![CDATA[It wasn't Catalan]]> In the Balearic Islands, there is a shortage of doctors. And nurses. And anesthesiologists. And pediatricians. And gynecologists. There is a shortage of hands, a shortage of minds, and a shortage of staff. There are public hospitals where on-call coverage for some specialties isn't guaranteed, where certain specialties simply can't be offered; there are centers where births are referred elsewhere because there isn't enough staff, and now there is an announced doctors' strike which, beyond the legitimate labor reasons, will end up swelling waiting lists that are already driving patients to despair. The diagnosis is becoming serious, but treatment is pending.

]]> <![CDATA[Empty Mallorca]]> Every week, between 2021 and 2024, five new villas were built on rural land in Mallorca. This isn't a metaphor or a subjective perception; these are facts. These facts come from Terraferida, a collective that has returned to the public sphere with rigorous, patient, and sometimes uncomfortable work—as numbers always are when they dismantle official narratives. In times of often confusing noise, it's worth celebrating that someone is back to put figures on the table and do so to reinforce sensible demands.

]]> <![CDATA[The 'kit' and survival]]> While we watch what the so-called world leaders—now egomaniacs with ulterior motives, obsessed with dividing up the international pie—are doing, we witness, almost numb, an obscene spectacle. Some countries are attacked, others threatened, and genocides are committed in broad daylight, like the one in Gaza. This all happens with international law being arrogantly trampled upon, while those most interested in violating it begin, obviously, by discrediting it before microphones with global reach. Yes, all this is happening before our eyes, broadcast, commented on, trivialized to the point of absurdity.

]]> <![CDATA[The sea of idiots]]> A stroll along Palma's seafront no longer means seeing the sea – yes, the sea that was once its main attraction. From Porto Pi to the Muelle Vell (Old Wharf), what you see now are boats moored, tightly secured. "A port with more than 2,000 moorings!" boasts one website. And yes, what you see are thousands of boats, small, medium, and many outrageously large, with names like "Libertà," "Eterna Primavera" (Eternal Spring), "Sweet Dreams," or "Goldene Meerjungfrau" (Golden Meerjungfrau), which obscure the horizon. This isn't just happening in Palma. Next come El Molinar, Can Pastilla, El Arenal… You can travel around Mallorca or the Balearic Islands, and one after another, there are ports, harbors, and coves serving as marinas. And thousands of boats that spend a good part of the year waiting for their owners to arrive for a week or a couple of days. There are no figures on the total number of moored boats, but the ports are overflowing and the sea is suffocating. In islands where there is no available housing, how many 'floating homes' are there exactly? Official statistics are confusing – as always, due to a lack of data – but they invariably point to the Balearic Islands' leading position in recreational boat registrations compared to the rest of Spain, with hundreds of new registrations every year. This is to say nothing of the waiting lists, stretching for years and decades, for a mooring berth. Paradise, if it dies, always dies of success.

]]> <![CDATA[No gifts or anything like that]]> In these days when we can begin to take stock of the first quarter of a century, two stories emerge that, together, illustrate one of the great social changes we have experienced in this time. They have nothing to do with screens, algorithms, or electric cars. They deal with more fundamental things: attitudes, respect, and also a certain sense of coexistence.

]]> <![CDATA[Patrimoni Square]]> The Council of Mallorca has advertised a Heritage Technician position with an alarming peculiarity: it is the only position in the department traditionally intended for an art expert, yet the syllabus has eliminated all references to art history. The University of the Balearic Islands has issued a strong statement, and the rector himself has officially requested that the island institution rectify the situation. This is no small matter, because those responsible for protecting and valuing artistic assets require specific training. Without it, art in Mallorca is left orphaned and vulnerable.

]]> <![CDATA[Palma vs. Sánchez]]>

If it weren't really happening, it would seem like a script fromThe Intermission in particularly inspired moments. In the next plenary session, the Palma City Council – with the votes of the PP and Vox – will declare Pedro Sánchez persona non grataYes, in the city council meeting. Yes, to the Spanish Prime Minister. Yes, at a time when Palma is facing serious problems such as housing, overtourism, and the decline of local businesses. But no, the priority of the Cort government team is to perform a kind of institutional exorcism against Sánchez.

]]> <![CDATA[With Feixina, there's nothing to be done]]> The initiative by Vicenç Vidal, the Mallorcan deputy from Sumar, to request that the fascist monolith of La Feixina be included in the state catalog of Francoist symbols is undoubtedly laudable and necessary. As is the determination of Pedro Sánchez's government to stand firm on democratic memory and against any praise of the dictatorship. The problem is that all this comes to Feixina when it's already too late. With Feixina, there's nothing to be done. There's nothing to be done now, nor tomorrow, and I don't think there will be for many years to come.

]]> <![CDATA[Brutes with clean energy]]> In the Balearic Islands, the debate on renewable energy has taken such an absurd turn that it's difficult to distinguish where sustainability ends and opportunism begins. Following the avalanche of solar farms that has invaded rural land—without zoning, without any landscape or land-use planning criteria—the next wave has arrived: lithium battery parks. Thirty-four projects are already with the Regional Ministry, in various stages of processing, according to Jaume Perelló. Thirty-four in total, seven of them in Alcudia alone.

]]> <![CDATA[Let's talk about genius, Rosalía]]> There are artists who, when they find a formula that works, cling to it like a lifeline. The market rewards repetition and punishes risk. It's easier to copy yourself than to try to break new ground. That's why Rosalía's new album, LuxIt has a value that goes beyond the specific work, far beyond itself. The Catalan singer could have continued exploiting the path that has brought her fame, recognition, and a windfall of millions. But she has decided to do the opposite: embrace uncertainty, take time disconnecting from the record label's dictatorship, explore unknown languages and registers, expose herself to making mistakes.

]]> <![CDATA[Youth and Fascism 2.0]]> Near my house lives a group of very young people who share a rented apartment. It's not necessary finezza A sociological observation to see what their true colors are: Spanish flags on the balcony as big as the one in Madrid's Plaza de Colón, and, occasionally, a pre-constitutional one; Francoist symbols visible from the street; and two dogs barking with a strange aggression, as if they had memorized the rage their owners exuded. The other night, while walking my dog, I ran into them on the street below their building, surrounded by a police patrol. An officer was asking them what they planned to do with a dog that, as I understood it, had jumped from the first floor. The police asked the animal's name, and one of the young men answered with a naturalness that seemed inherited: "Franco."

]]> <![CDATA[The (real) weight of culture]]> The fact that culture generates 3.2% of jobs and represents 2.1% of the Balearic economy may surprise some. For some, it's far more than they imagined in a region known for its reliance on tourism. For others, the percentage is disappointing compared to the vibrant cultural scene across the islands. For the former, these figures offer a glimmer of hope. For the latter, they merely confirm the precariousness of a sector that survives more on passion than on anything resembling sustainability.

]]> <![CDATA[Memory]]> For many years it has been an anomaly, a collective disgrace, that foundations dedicated to glorifying the Francoist dictatorship still exist in Spain, and that they even enjoy tax incentives or public subsidies, like the one it received from the Aznar government. That a democracy keeps alive an institution that glorifies a regime that denied it is an intolerable contradiction. The initiative by Pedro Sánchez's government to outlaw the Francisco Franco Foundation is late, very late, but it seems that it may finally arrive. This in itself is good news.

]]> <![CDATA[I want a time change]]> I'll say it clearly: I want a time change. I say this with the calmness of someone who knows perfectly well that their opinion won't change anything, that no ordinary minister will be heading to Brussels for me to speak out, but I'm aware that, nevertheless, the sum of these small, useless declarations is precisely what gives joy to democratic life. We're here to debate everything, even what the EU will ultimately decide for us.

]]> <![CDATA[Neither East nor Este, it is Levante]]> At the Consell de Mallorca, in a fit of misguided modernity, or rather, a blessing, they've decided to name the new hiking route in the Levante region East Mallorca GR 226. It sounds like a joke, but it isn't: East Mallorca. As if the place name 'Levante' had never existed, as if it were something too local, too old, too... Mallorcan. And you don't even have to be a toponymy enthusiast to know that the Levante region is much more than a cardinal point: it's a territory with a name, an identity, a landscape, and pride. Even the King of Spain, who isn't known for being an expert on local culture or for loving Catalan, gave Rafael Nadal the title of Marquis of Levante, not East Mallorca. Or will they now change his marquisate too?

]]> <![CDATA[Not even the hooligans]]> There are gestures that speak louder than a thousand speeches. What happened in the last plenary session of the Balearic Islands Parliament is a clear example: Vox prevented a minute of silence from being observed for the victims of Gaza.We are not talking about discrepancies over budgets or bills, but rather about what should be the lowest common denominator of any democratic society: respect for life and human rights. Not even in the face of grief or death does the far right show empathy or respect. Neither do the hooligans, who often also wrap themselves in flags and slogans, dare to break the minute of silence observed in stadiums for anonymous victims.

]]> <![CDATA[Protect beauty]]> In just 67 meters, Florence shows us a reality that we can recognize in the Balearic Islands—and in many other places. Barely three minutes separate them on foot. On one side, the Galleria de l'Accademia, with Miquel Àngel's David, is a scene of fame and expectation, with outrageous lines marked out in corridors and controls regulating the massive flow of visitors, a lot of noise. On the other, the convent of San Marco, with its cells painted by Fra Angelico, seems to hide from the world, discreet and silent, as if waiting only for those who know how to look without hurrying. In this literal proximity, we are given an unexpected lesson about how we perceive and treat beauty: what is famous calls, but the discreet can offer a great experience.

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