It has cost me a lot, but yesterday I forced part of my family to vote without resorting to expeditious threats, such as hiring a DJ for Christmas lunch, following the fashion of planting a self-absorbed DJ in every celebration, such than open-air food fairs, craft beer joints, and other recreational forms of 21st-century torture.
In short: I have done my part as a citizen. Now, I want my flat, my affordable housing, my slice of pie in social heaven. Because if there is one thing that all the municipal candidates have promised this time, it is “housingâ€, like Franco in 1957, the year of the creation of a Ministry of Housing.
From what is seen and heard in this campaign, we Spaniards are a lot of dwellers and piset (not to be confused with the love nests of the 20th century, sponsored by company captains, high officials and possible bourgeoisie).
At the beginning of the democracy festivities, the parties offered jobs in industrial quantities as something sexy. Thus, the candidate Felipe González promised 800,000 new jobs in 1982 – a joke – a proposal welcomed with divided opinions because of its magnitude, not because of the importance of offering work to those who did not have it.
Forty years later, we have made progress: why offer jobs if we can directly promise “affordable housing” within the reach of all Spaniards? In this way, we avoid discussions about whether it would be quality jobs or chichinabo and prevent spendthrifts –or the very lazy– waste their income and in the end dedicate the money destined to pay the entrance fee for a small apartment to iPhones.
Going from promising work to promising flats, aid for pens, cases and school ring notebooks or movie sessions where retirees can take a nap at reasonable prices is a great ideological change. It is not about giving a job and making an effort to own a flat –or two–, it is about letting yourself be loved by the State, which knows better than anyone what we want and what is best for us. Guardianship in perpetuity.
