The judge authorizes the Madrid City Council to terrorize the birds of the renaturalized Manzanares tomorrow with a mascletà, which the municipal authorities sell as a tribute to Valencia Fallera but which is difficult not to see for what it really is: a patent and interested appropriation cultural. After the mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, called the Madrilenians critical of the firecrackers “catetos”, yesterday with visible enthusiasm and syllabic underlining, the Madrid councilor, José Luis Martínez Almeida, reiterated the epithet: “Catetos!”
The judicial journey of the matter, denounced by the opposition of Más Madrid, has consisted of the togado – alerted by the null administrative rigor of the Consistory, which on Wednesday had all the peremptory procedures yet to begin – has demanded the presentation of reports and papers to the municipality par excellence, to give bureaucratic decorum to the celebration. And with that he has been content. But no matter how enthusiastically the ruling PP in Valencia and Madrid has called the political enemies of gunpowder “catetos”, a calm look identifies other cultural and political interpretations in this strange noise ceremony that are not at all flattering for the capital of Turia. Firstly, it is obvious that the phenomenon is part, alongside the future arrival of Formula 1, or the landing of the National Football League at the Santiago Bernabéu, in the furor of cities to dissolve themselves as spaces for coexistence. and become a container for events and transient population. The writer Jorge Dioni López, in his book The Unrest of Cities (Arpa Editores) alludes to this: “After the crisis, emblematic building projects have greatly decreased and have been replaced by specific events, such as festivals, the startup version of cultural container.” In the years of the rage of brick and corruption (pardon the redundancy), “Valencia hosted Formula 1 races, the Copa América de Vela or a visit from the Pope.” Is it possible for a ruinous model to be repeated? “It seems obvious, but we have to remember: a hangover does not work like a vaccine, it is a parenthesis between two binges.”
The management model, consisting of capturing flows and city branding, is transparent and fits like a lycra monkey to what the Madrid authorities, that unique tandem formed by José Luis Martínez Almeida in the municipal government and Isabel Díaz Ayuso in the regional, they practice in the absence of another welfare proposal for the capital and its metropolitan area, progressively crushed by the diaspora of gentrification: the city as a theme park, as a facsimile version of itself for hurried travelers. Other large cities are no strangers to these autoimmune fevers where the genuine is as applauded as it is quickly replaced by its representation. That to explode the 300 kilos of explosives the City Council had the bad taste of choosing the Puente del Rey area, in the area of ??Madrid where ETA concentrated its most bloodthirsty massacres – as the journalist Israel Merino recalled these days – is only an accident. more fruit of municipal haste inherent to voracity.
But there is still another political and cultural explanation for this Madrid’s eagerness to capture its surroundings: the cities of the two plateaus have been converted into economic wastelands and picturesque overnight locations due to fiscal dumping and the vacuuming power of the highways and high-speed lines, Madrid , defined by Díaz Ayuso as “Spain within Spain”, wants to offer itself to its visitors in those literal terms, so that the entire surrounding territory – until reaching the sea, to the north, south or east – is only a gregarious area. From the capital. It is revealing – but not clumsy – that Díaz Ayuso defined Galicia this week as a timber plantation – and surely a seafood restaurant – and instead of praising its carballedas, he expressed his desire to walk through its “eucalyptus forests”.
It is not a new phenomenon and in fact it is at the basis of the transformation of the cities of colonial Europe. During the 19th century, all European capitals became cultural panopticons of their colonial possessions. Just as an Indian who makes his fortune overseas plants a couple of tropical palm trees in his garden, London, Paris or Berlin lorded it over themselves as imperial capitals, concentrating in the city a summary of the conquered exoticisms. Thus appeared the botanical gardens and zoos, an urban summary of the flora and fauna of the nations conquered beyond the seas, and a few years later the ephemeral universal exhibitions. In those theme parks of imperialism, large cities reified aboriginal cultures as a political gesture of domestication. It is not cultural hunger, but political hegemony that is the reason why half of Ancient Egypt is still on display in museums in Paris and London. And the anxiety of Madrid today does not give up anything, not even the ocean, so far away, hence the new Atlético de Madrid sports city will have an artificial beach and “the best surf waves” in the country with permission – or without it – of the left wave of Mundaka.
As Àlex Tort wrote in these pages, the best croquette, the best fabada, the best polbo á feira and the best Valencian paella are in Madrid because it is Spain within Spain. And the smell of gunpowder, the sign of a picturesque ritual imported from another colony for the solace of the people of Madrid and their cosmopolitan visitors.
