Maybe I’m wrong, but this is what I think and this is how I wrote it to a friend: “After what happened in Barbate and given the precarious repercussion it had on Spanish society, I’m afraid we’re not just dealing with a demonstration of the obvious weakness that our State suffers from, but in the face of an obvious proof of the insensitivity and lethargy of the nation. Let’s be clear: we are facing the beginning of a crisis, perhaps a serious one, for the Spanish nation. For years I have thought that Spain, the first nation-state to be formed, runs the risk of being the first to be diluted. It seems impossible, but it is not. There is no nation if there is no solidarity; there is no solidarity if there is no community; there is no community if there is no sense of belonging; there is no sense of belonging if there is no affectio societatis, and there is no affectio societatis if there is no shared interest. Sorry to upset me, but every day I have fewer friends to do it with.”
What happened in Barbate on the 9th was the immolation of two civil guards, killed in the line of duty while carrying out orders, in unacceptable conditions of staffing and resources if compared to those of their killers. It was a filmed public sacrifice, while they were mocked and offended by citizens whose cowardice and moral baseness does not deprive them of being compatriots.
Therefore, when a society legally organized in the form of a State, that is to say, the institutions, the people who are at the top and the common citizens, allow a delirium like this to happen without a strong unanimous reaction, it is that this society is seriously ill, and it is its illness that is entrusted to the State.
The problem is not, therefore, institutions and laws; the problem is the people who, out of interest, calculation or laziness, look exclusively for their own interest and don’t care what happens to others, whether they are servants of the State or simple citizens. And we cannot justify ourselves by attributing the responsibilities only to politicians, journalists, pretend intellectuals and their auxiliary troops.
Twenty years ago I wrote that, in The Iliad, the narrative of the funeral honors paid to two fallen warriors: Patroclus and Hector, is of particular importance. Thus, when Priam learned of Hector’s death, he asked Achilles to hand over his son’s body, and he agreed, moved by the old king’s pain; and then, “for the space of nine days they brought abundant firewood, and when Eros, who brings light to mortals, pointed for the tenth time, they removed, with eyes full of tears, the corpse of bold Hector, they put on top of the pyre and they set it on fire”.
But, many centuries later and at the other end of the Mediterranean, although within the realm of the same culture, when a Yak-42 plane went down in Turkey and 75 Spanish soldiers died, Spain consented, almost mutely. , the burial of dozens of her children who died serving her, without having taken care before diligently identifying their bodies. Therefore, then I ended up saying: poor Spain, which can no longer even bury its dead with dignity!
Today, everything is different, but everything is the same. Life goes on as if nothing: the dead disturb. Not all the media, with obvious calculation, have given the events of Barbate the importance they have; not all politicians, not even those with the highest government responsibilities, have paid due attention to it; and there has also been no shortage of institutions that have explicitly refused to give the fallen civil guards the recognition they deserve.
They were only civil guards, who – observata lege plene – were faithful to the end. But the example of his delivery remains for those who want to see it. Those soldiers who fell in Turkey and those civil guards killed in Barbate, equal in essence, have offered their lives in an act of service to the society that had entrusted them with its defense, even if a part of this society does not consider them ” seats”.
