<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - Miquel Àngel Maria]]> 10 <![CDATA[Nationalist heritage]]> Shortly before the summer, a friend told me that he had gone to one of the royal palaces in Madrid (I don't remember now if it was the Royal Palace or Aranjuez) and that he did not like seeing the books that were sold in the shop of that royal place. Alongside the usual catalogues of works of art and collector's items, the visitor guides, the obligatory hagiographies of the Hispanic monarchs and some historical novels, there were a series of titles that are presented as history books, when they are works with a cynical and unashamed ideological burden, authentic manuals of the most outdated Spanish nationalism. My friend's anger (do you think that in places of the National Heritage they should sell these things?) made me remember that four years ago I too had been surprised by the book offer at the Royal Monastery of El Escorial shop. I took note of it, in case it was a good time to comment on it one day. There were pieces like La leyenda negra, historia del odio a España, by Alberto G. Ibáñez, Imperiofobia y leyenda negra: Roma, Rusia, Estados Unidos y el Imperio Español, by María Elvira Roca Barea, and La Reconquista contada para escépticos, by Juan Eslava Galán. All these books are the literary version of junk food: they also sell by the bucketload even if they are unhealthy.If you have ever leafed through any of these titles (for the sake of my mental health I have never read one in its entirety), you will already know that, even though they are presented as new contributions to the historiography of Spain, they rarely exceed the level of a brother-in-law-style byproduct intended to fuel the crudest revisionism. Some do it with a humorous and casual tone, others with a pseudo-academic veneer to disguise the crudest manipulations. The common denominator of all of them is an ultramontane nationalism resistant to any filter of reason. The problem, however, is not so much that at the royal sites (which are public institutions of the State, be warned) they sell this mental junk, but that you cannot find the alternative there, works with a minimum of rigor and with a more hygienic narrative. Because we are talking about a public institution that, it is assumed, must help to educate, or at least inform with veracity, its citizens. At that table in El Escorial, the most 'alternative' thing I saw was Defendiendo a España: verdades y leyendas de nuestra historia, by the British Hispanist Henry Kamen. I would bet anything that in no store in the places that make up the Patrimonio Nacional will we ever find a book like the one recommended to me by my friend Ismael Pelegrí (he is never wrong), and which I have read with fascination this summer: Una i eterna. Sobre el nacionalisme espanyol, by Ferran Garcia-Oliver. It is an extraordinary exploration of the roots, development, and perpetuation, right up to the present day, of the construction of the great nationalist myth of Spain. It turns out that the Patrimonio Nacional is in reality Patrimonio Nacionalista, even in the times of the gobierno más progresista de la historia. All of this makes one quite pessimistic regarding the possibilities of a hypothetical reform of Spain, or at the very least of the conception that Spain has of itself. It is frightening the number of people who, deep down, continue to see Spain as an empire diminished by the fault of the everlasting foreign conspiracy, with the complicity of the successive representatives of the internal anti-Spain: Jews, Moors, Reds, Freemasons, separatists, faggots, and other degenerates. Cyclically, the intelligentsia of Spain takes it upon itself to put things back in their place, to revive, with new voices but always with the same music, the only history of Spain that can save the pride of being Spanish and very Spanish. The editorial secretions we have discussed are only an epidermal eruption of a much deeper disease. The state of infoxicated opinion caused by the great diffusion given to this type of book – many of its authors are regulars on radio talk shows and certain TV channels – helps to understand why Spain finds it so difficult to understand the terrible human drama that has been experienced in Ceuta for a long month now, and why the Spanish nationalist outcry overrides any humanitarian discourse, which becomes anecdotal. How is it possible that state funerals have not been organized for the victims of this tragedy? The discourse of anti-Spain is resurfacing. The enemy is always the other, and the victim is Spain, not the poor migrants (minors, invaders?), sick and starving, thrown onto the streets and beaches of Ceuta. Spanish nationalism always needs an 'a por ellos' to maintain its narrative. Nine years ago it was the Catalans. Now it is the Africans whom misery pushes to flee towards the north. None of the books we mentioned ever provide the keys to truly understand the history of Spain, with all its contradictions. They never explain the truth of what happened in Morocco during the time of the Spanish protectorate, a hundred years ago. A colonial conflict that was never resolved, that is never wanted to be faced, and that still lingers. And because it is never explained, we do not understand anything.

]]> <![CDATA[Laheq Halak]]> When we look from the outside at a country going through a difficult situation, there is a danger of imagining that its people live stubbornly and solely focused on their misfortune. The media has something to do with this, because they transmit all the bad news to us, but they often forget to show us that people, always and everywhere, strive to move forward, with moments for everything: to work, to laugh, to invent, to build community, to live. Some authors speak of the tyranny of victimhood: a person or a people in a vulnerable situation will be more worthy of our empathy if they visibly remain in the state of suffering and austerity that makes them deserving of our compassion. The moral paternalist distrusts those who do not adequately represent the role of the ideal victim.In Palestine, despite the duration and depth of the conflict, there is life. The life of a people who want to live and be free. Every day people get up in the morning to resume their daily lives. Mothers and fathers dress and feed their children, farmers sow their land, shopkeepers raise their shutters, and on hot summer nights people go out into the street to chat, to sing and dance, to live. We Mediterraneans are like that, everywhere.In Beit Jala, a village next to Bethlehem, two brothers, Jabra and Joseph, have launched a mobile application that presents itself as “the open door to fresh local products from Palestine”. Created with the support of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, it is named ‘Laheq Halak’, which in Palestinian Arabic means ‘hurry up’ or ‘seize the opportunity’, and it was born to be a resource that connects Palestinian producers, merchants, and consumers, a useful tool to improve people's daily lives, while strengthening the local economy and promoting more sustainable consumption.Laheq Halak is not a simple commercial application. The initiative is modest, but the objectives are ambitious: to transform food consumption and waste management, minimize food waste, and promote the circular economy. And if that's not enough, Laheq Halak is also a tool for solidarity. I will try to explain it in some order, so that this little marvel can be understood.When opening the application, a message appears that might initially seem discouraging: “Currently there are no vendors operating in your area”. It is understood, however: if we opened the application in the occupied territories, it would show us all the shopkeepers in the area who use Laheq Halak to sell the fresh products they have available. If this were the case, we could buy them directly and pay through the application.So far, all conventional. The plus of Laheq Halak is its secondary purpose, which invites us to install it and use it from the other end of the Mediterranean. When we open the application, we will also see one or more announcements of food collection and distribution campaigns organized in collaboration with social entities, youth organizations, and associations. The day I am writing this article, there is an active campaign promoted by the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul of Bethlehem, which explains its purpose: “Through Laheq Halak you can buy a digital gift card from anywhere in the world and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul will use it to distribute food to needy families in Palestine”. And it will not be canned food sent by cooperation entities, but fresh products: zero kilometer and without the ecological footprint of long-distance transport. The operation of these campaigns is similar to crowdfunding initiatives. When we click on a campaign advertisement, it explains the objective, the figure expected to be reached, and the end date, and it proposes different contribution amounts, between 20 and 200 shekels, which at the current exchange rate is about 6 to 60 euros. It also allows for a personalized contribution for the amount we decide. Payment is made by bank card. If the set objective is not met, the food distribution campaign will be carried out anyway with the funds that have been raised.Finally, transparency: the promoters of Laheq Halak have an Instagram channel through which they inform about the development of the campaigns. You will find videos with the bags of food collected from the campaigns, tips on sustainable consumption, testimonials from users of the application, and other information to build community among users.In Palestine there is life, and the Palestinian people, in love with their country, strive to live to the fullest. The Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish could not have explained it better: “On this land there is something that wants to live: on this land there is the lady of this land, the mother of beginnings, the mother of endings. Her name was Palestine. She continues to be called Palestine. Lady: I deserve, because you are my lady, I deserve to live”.

]]> <![CDATA[Zero kilometer energy]]> Some people, when they look at the countryside, see only plots of land —Guillem Frontera dixit. And some people, when they look at wind turbines and solar panels, see a tap that pours money. The concern for climate change of large companies that are getting rich with large renewable parks is far below their interest in the profit and loss account, as demonstrated by their strategic actions (are we talking about Venezuelan oil?) no matter how much green propaganda they bombard us with to make us believe the opposite.The delay of the Spanish state in the energy transition compared to other European states is explained precisely by the pressure of the large energy corporations of the Ibex-35. The famous “Sun Tax” of the government of Ema Punt Rajoy, which fiscally penalized self-consumption and batteries for storing surplus energy, was the scandalous toll we all paid so that these companies had time to give themselves an environmentalist facelift and get ready to lead the new clean energy business. When the Sun Tax was repealed in 2018, they had already done their work: they had achieved a dominant position in the green energy market.Energy companies, like all companies, seek maximum performance: minimum expenses, maximum profit. That's why they prefer places where it's easy and cheap to build large renewable parks, and rural land is the prime candidate. In places where there is no adequate public land-use planning, the result is the industrialization of the countryside: land previously dedicated to cultivation and pasture is occupied, forests are destroyed, and areas of high environmental value are colonized.This has not been the case for Menorca. The public debate a decade ago generated broad citizen consensus on the desirability of having zero-kilometer energy, but not just anywhere or in any way. The Menorca 2030 Strategy was the culmination of this debate, in which the main objective was established as the reduction of fossil fuels consumed on the island. The work of environmental and cultural heritage defense organizations was effective. Combining pressure and the ability to reach agreements, they fostered a model that many other territories would want to have. On the one hand, the establishment of very strict and mandatory conditions for any energy facility installed on rural land: the prohibition of soil alteration, respect for the dry stone wall network, the maintenance and restoration of ethnological assets by the developers, the prohibition of asphalt paving of service roads, etc. On the other hand, zoning: the PTI of 2023 determines the areas suitable for renewable energies, which prevents them from being installed everywhere.But let's not be complacent, because the work is never finished. The power of large companies, with the invaluable participation of the state-owned public company in charge of energy planning, is like an octopus that always finds cracks to insert its tentacles. Now the danger is that, in addition to producing zero-kilometer energy for its own consumption, Menorca becomes an energy exporting territory.Next to the Mercadal electrical substation, in the center of the island, Red Eléctrica is building a huge high-capacity battery plant. The aim is that, if a blackout like the one on October 28, 2018, which left the island without power for several days, were to happen again, Menorca would have its own emergency resource. But common sense says that these batteries should also be used to store the excess energy from solar parks: the energy produced during the sunniest hours could be stored here, and evacuated at night. This would avoid having to start up the highly polluting Maó thermal power plant, which is the primary objective of the Menorca 2030 Strategy.So, no. Red Eléctrica does not foresee this use of the Mercadal batteries. They say that to channel the surplus solar generation energy, there will already be the second submarine cable that will link Menorca with Mallorca from 2030. Well, there is no doubt that this second cable is very much needed, but it was supposed to guarantee that Menorca does not remain energetically isolated, not to sell energy with Menorca origin denomination abroad.The zoning of the PTI was conceived to determine where solar panels could be placed and where not. But the planning of the state-owned public company will facilitate that large investors, who always sniff out business, place panels everywhere it is permitted to place them. Who will place these photovoltaic parks? To whom will they give benefit? Who will receive the profits from the clean energy that Menorca will export through the second cable?We are not doing well. If Menorca's photovoltaic plants, with the new electric transport networks and battery equipment, do not serve to reduce the island's pollutant emission levels, but rather to turn us into an electric factory that will bring benefits to the owners at the cost of occupying everyone's territory, we will have made the na Peix Frit deal.

]]> <![CDATA[The rights of others]]> We already know that, with very few exceptions, Spain has never understood its own plurinationality. But there is another more local incomprehension that we don't talk about as much, and in any case, we only do so from the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Country: that Catalonia, and especially Barcelona, with rare exceptions too, has not understood our common nationality. This lack, a mixture of disinterest, ignorance, and self-sufficiency, manifests itself in almost all areas of social, cultural, and political life, and is especially noticeable in the world of books. Balearic publishing houses make a great effort to publish excellent books that far exceed the interest they might have in the territory where they were published. I understand that a study on the profound and never sufficiently explored differences between the way of doing the heel-toe in the fandango dance between Ferreries and Ciutadella, should not be on the new releases table of the main bookstores in Barcelona. The problem is that on these tables we will find the nonsense of an author – not a writer – who had never published anything and whose only merit is a media (and ephemeral) fame achieved with anything that has nothing to do with writing or thinking, while essential books for the public cultural health of the entire country will be missing, but who have made the grave mistake of letting themselves be published by a label from any of its Islands instead of doing so by a good brand. From Barcelona, of course. We have a good dance. There are truly egregious cases. The book Political Trials under Spanish Militant Democracy. Analysis of Political Justice: Four Criminal Cases, by the Majorcan Doctor of Sociology Daniel Escribano, published by Documenta Balear, is a real gem. Of the four cases announced in the subtitle, only one refers to a Majorcan victim, the singer Valtònyc. Another chapter explains the case, in the eighties, of the Basque deputy Miguel Castells Artetxe, convicted for an opinion article. The other two cases analyzed are from Catalonia: the conviction of a group of activists from the 'Aturem el Parlament' encampment, carried out in Parc de la Ciutadella in June 2011 against austerity economic policies –Daniel Escribano dixit– and, finally, the main theme of the book, which occupies two-thirds of its total length: the general case against Catalan independence, otherwise known as the 'procés trial'. Daniel Escribano's text is dense, extensive, exhaustive. But what he explains is so poignant, so significant, and so well written, that it is read with the fascination of the best Anglo-Saxon judicial journalistic chronicles, so given to this genre.I attended the presentation of Daniel Escribano's book at Espai Mallorca in Barcelona, on September 27th of last year. Audience? Four cats and a dog, as we say in Menorca. A shame. The author was accompanied by the book's prologuist, lawyer Benet Salellas, who perfectly understands the subject as a very prominent member of Jordi Cuixart's defense team at the Supreme Court before the ineffable judge Marchena. After the presentation, I visited some of the largest bookstores in Barcelona. The book had been published and distributed just two months before. It was difficult to find. If by chance they had it, it was tucked away in a corner of a shelf. How is it possible that one of the best books explaining the epic of the most important political trial of the 21st century in Catalonia has gone so unnoticed? How can we aspire to be a normal country one day if the metropolitan capital is incapable of exercising its role as a unifier and promoter of the rich cultural diversity that is brewing throughout the national geography? How can we get out of this deadlock if, when you comment on this chronic, almost structural, imbalance, someone answers you with the name of a well-known island writer in Barcelona, as if the exception were the rule? Surely this perennial absurdity has explanations of a logistical, commercial, media, cosmetic, chemical, metaphysical, and quantum nature. Everything has an explanation, yes. But it is such a colossal, so pernicious anomaly and it has been going on for so long, that it should be an absolute priority for the highest institutional leaders and for the entire Catalan cultural ecosystem. But no. It is just a peripheral nuisance. A complaint from the nuts of the Gaulish village. A pain in the ass... of another. At the book's presentation, Benet Salellas maintained that, contrary to what is often said, today there is not a crisis of claiming rights, but a crisis of claiming the rights of others. There are many protests, he said, but each person complains about what affects them directly. I agree with this. The decline in the value of solidarity has given way to hyperventilation over my personal grievance. It must be that this surely explains more things than we are willing to recognize and admit. If it is true, the absence of important books published in the Balearic Islands would be the least important problem, but ultimately it would be an evident example. In Barcelona, we are the others.

]]> <![CDATA[New sap]]> Next weekend, ‘Ferreries floreix’ returns, and it’s already the fifteenth edition. As every year, the streets of the old town will once again be covered with floral arrangements, and residents will adorn their facades with bouquets, handicrafts, and imaginative manual work. As every year, more than one will admire the great effort that has been made to prepare this ephemeral work of collective creation. For Bep, the best part of ‘Ferreries floreix’is precisely the preparations: “What I like most are the days before the inauguration, when we neighbors almost live on the street. They are the days of the year when we see and talk to each other the most. That makes a village!”. And he adds, still: “If necessary, I would tell you the same about Sant Bartomeu: more joy from the days we prepare the festival than from the festival itself. Perhaps it is age.”.It is possible that age makes you see and live the party in a different way, but Bep's comments have revived me following the experience of other people who are not old, and who were the protagonists of another civic festival just two weeks ago: the group of young people from Ferreries who organized the passage of the Correllengua Agermanat through the town. They got involved months ago, responding to the invitation from Joves de Mallorca per la Llengua. As preparations advanced and the goal came closer, their enthusiasm, confidence, commitment, energy, courage, and desire to do it well so that everything would turn out well grew. And they have achieved it. My goodness, have they achieved it.The first of May's event began early, with children's games prepared by the Agrupament Escolta Sant Bartomeu. Afterwards, there was a popular dance with the folk group Aires des Barranc d’Algendar. At twelve, the glosat, until the flame of the language arrived from Ciutadella, celebrated by the songs of the students from the School of Adults and the veterans of the Club of Retirees. At half past one, a good paella, cooked by the people of Cas Vesins, which was very tight indeed: the success was so great that if they had prepared fifty more, they would have sold out. After lunch, musical bingo and a truc championship, and at five, the concert by the group Res a dir, while the flame of the language continued its journey to Maó. Bravo for weaving multiple collaborations with other groups and entities. To rally together, to add for the language, to make a community. The success of the event, well-deserved, was the crowning of the work done long before. A lot of work, and very well done. To love the language is a craft, says Antoni Bassas in the manifesto he has written for this year's Correllengua Agermanat, dedicated to Josep Maria Espinàs. Like any craft, it requires learning, it takes hours in the workshop, it asks to learn how to pick up the tools and how to use them. In Ferreries, the youth have picked up the tools with a naturalness and drive that has left us admiring. In Ferreries, as throughout the fifteen hundred kilometers covered, the Correllengua Agermanat has been a festive and resounding demonstration of the vitality of the defense of the Catalan language, and of the generational change of those who champion the fight: like the torch with the flame of the language, which passed from hand to hand, the commitment to the language also passes from generation to generation and silences the siren songs of the prophets of doom. The most important thing is that this celebration has not been a flash in the pan. Correllengua has been the trigger for Ferreries to flourish all year round. I insist: the months of prior work have created a community, they have initiated a complicity among the involved youth that, now that Correllengua Agermanat is already history —and what a history—, the desire to continue is irrevocable. We can't leave it here, they say. One girl says she knew that other one from high school, but they had never exchanged more than two words, and that now it will be different. Another one says he works in Girona, but asks to be taken into account if they organize another party: they reply that they are already talking about doing something this summer. And another, who is now a trainee teacher at the town's high school, has become, probably unintentionally, an example and a benchmark for others to emulate. Let's say it loud and celebrate it: from Salses to Guardamar and from Fraga to Maó there is a new spirit that does not understand administrative borders, nor generational breaks, nor nostalgic discouragement. Young people who look each other in the eye and recognize themselves as part of a common project, for whom language, more than grammar, is a brotherhood.

]]> <![CDATA[We are second-class patients: Catalan in IB-Salut]]>

I, who have already put a six in front of the figure that states my age, have so far come out cheap for the public health system. If you count all the care, tests, treatments, and interventions I've had throughout my life, since fortunately there haven't been many, the economic balance is favorable to IB-Salut. But I won't deny it: I've started to have little things. Unimportant trifles, parts that wear out from continuous use of the machinery. And since it's better to prevent than to cure, I've started to go for a few check-ups. Among the doctors who have visited me, there have been a couple of South Americans with whom I have had no problem when I addressed them in Catalan. They answer me in Spanish without any problem, nor do I. On the second visit, one of these doctors plucked up the courage to stammer in Catalan, and I encouraged him to continue because he was doing very well. The Charter of rights and duties of the healthcare user from the Government tells me that I have the right to obtain information, verbal and written, in understandable language and in the official language of the Balearic Islands that I choose. I have not asked the doctors who have attended me for anything more than what they have done: that they understand me when I address them in Catalan. Thank you very much. But to the public Health system, to the health administration, I do ask - I demand - that the documentation be delivered to me in Catalan: written appointment and referral letters, diagnostic reports, informed consents, analysis results, medication instructions, therapeutic advice. Well, no. Impossible. 

]]> <![CDATA[Other local products]]> Friday evening. I go into the corner fruit and vegetable shop. Every week we do a shop to complete the order that an organic farmer delivers to us (we order via WhatsApp and he brings the basket to our house. Yesterday he brought us a bunch of wild asparagus. It doesn't get any better). But we were in the shop. It's always quite busy at this time on Fridays. Because the produce is good, because the service is good, because it's a long-established shop you trust and that never lets you down. Fresh, local produce predominates, with an increasingly generous selection of organic products.

]]> <![CDATA[When the 'Argentine' wanted to replace the Spanish: the lesson for the Menorcan debate]]>

In the midst of the tiresome debate about the name and the unity of our language (will it never end?) It's common that, when someone says "Menorcan yes, Catalan no," someone else asks why the same isn't said of Castilian Spanish. In Extremadura, in the Pampas, or on the streets of Mexico City, it's often said that everyone understands they speak the same language, regardless of the variations in vocabulary, phonetics, intonation, and syntax. So why isn't the same criterion applied to Catalan? And it turns out that, indeed, among Castilian speakers there have also been attempts at linguistic secession, which are quite entertaining.

]]> <![CDATA[Balearic Islands as a 'positional asset']]> The Austrian economist Fred Hirsch, a key figure and fundamental precursor of ecological economics, in his best-known work, The social limits to growth (1976), coined the concept of positional goods –positional goods, or status goods– as opposed to material goods: while the latter are those that allow us to satisfy our needs, positional goods are those that, due to their scarcity and high price, are consumed exclusively by the richest individuals, who buy them to signify themselves and position themselves socially.

]]> <![CDATA[The Menorcan exception]]> In a recent radio program commemorating the centenary of Josep Maria Llompart, a Mallorcan intellectual, questioned by the journalist about the current Balearic Islands government's language policy, described it as curious, even strange. She stated that, at this time, laws are being passed or are being considered that go against the language, but, on the other hand, there are numerous institutional activities in favor of the language, funded by the government. The same interviewee contrasted the current situation with that of the disastrous—her adjective was the one she used—government of José Ramón Bauzá. She is right about this, but upon closer examination, Prohens's language policy is not so novel. In fact, it bears many similarities to that of Jaume Matas: maintaining a healthy distance from the most radical wing of Gonella's faction, promoting institutional activities, some quite significant, such as the Any Llompart event itself, subsidizing and treating the cultural sector well to keep it secure, and, meanwhile, limiting any possibility of a real and effective exercise of equality between Catalan and Spanish.

]]> <![CDATA[Priorities]]> The day after the COP30 summit, which was hastily wrapped up and as tense as previous ones, I wanted to know its conclusions. I searched for a while and consulted several reputable media outlets, both local and international. It was difficult, or rather, impossible, to find a concrete list of the agreements reached. Because they're strikes, and because they're no longer of much interest. Pretty wild, huh? Nanda Ramon nails it in her latest article in ARA BalearesWith climate change, the stakes are ever higher, yet paradoxically, we seem to care less and less. I get the impression that even—or perhaps as a starting point—the COP leaders, who have the power and resources to change the course of this race to nowhere, appear weary and apathetic. Could this apparent growing disinterest be induced, and perhaps the initial surge of interest when the climate crisis was the top priority was also deliberately fostered?

]]> <![CDATA[Like two peas in a pod (in stature)]]> I am quite perplexed by the spectacle of recriminations between the PSOE and PP regarding port policy in the Balearic Islands, because this war of mutual accusations is only succeeding in demonstrating that their port policies are exactly the same. Every new headline generated by their squabbles sheds light on the shameful shortcomings of their equally disastrous management, a blatant antithesis of what public policy should be in any area: safeguarding the general interest and preventing public assets, in this case the ports and the waterfront, from becoming a casino.

]]> <![CDATA[Indigenous people and guests]]> In the book The wonderful landing of the Greeks in Empúries, Published in 1925, journalist Manuel Brunet demystified the arrival of the Greeks on the beaches of the Gulf of Roses, which at that time was usually presented as a scene somewhere between romantic and ridiculous. The Greeks who arrived in Empúries were not philosophers or poets but merchants, and their baggage was not lofty ideas or verses but "all the science of brothels, dice, ports and prisons," says Brunet, and explains that the indigenous people of the future Catalan land did not welcome them with songs, did not welcome them with songs of beginning a future.

]]> <![CDATA[Three language policies]]> At a time when no territory in the Països Catalans has a sovereignist government, or at least one with sovereignist participation, what is the outlook for their respective language policies?

]]> <![CDATA[All those who are not Lorca]]> A few months ago, through the help of an archaeology student and thanks to the kindness of Professor Francisco Carrión and his team from the University of Granada, I had the opportunity to visit the excavation and exhumation of Civil War graves being carried out in the Víznar ravine in Granada. The site is famous because it was somewhere in this still-undiscovered area that the poet Federico García Lorca was murdered on August 18 or 19, 1936.

]]> <![CDATA[Is Menorca's star going out?]]>

The late Guillem Frontera, in the interview I conducted for the tribute collection coordinated by Damià Pons and published by Ensiola, insisted on convincing me that, despite the feeling we Menorcans sometimes have, because each one fears what belongs to him, Menorca has withstood different sides of the same onslaught. In comparison with what has happened in Mallorca and Ibiza, Guillem praised the prudence of the Menorcans, the slow and measured steps toward tourism without abandoning other economic activities, from farming to industry, the continuity of associations, the preservation of a humanized and vibrant landscape. A whole series of virtues, Guillem said, that generate in the foreign visitor the sensation of stepping on a civilized land, and that make Menorca a luminous, profoundly Mediterranean landmark that persists amidst a disfigured environment.

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