My father reminded me the other day of the album that Els Pavesos – a Valencian group born in the eighties in the heart of a falla and led by Joan Monleón – dedicated to the native festivals. In that “Borumballes falleres” that I have heard so many times in my childhood, and which is now also on YouTube, the ninot of the falla is honored as that caricatured character to laugh at.
The scriptwriters sharpen their pens when they design the failure and seek to make fun and question, but also to condemn those inappropriate attitudes, then burn what would not be repeated. There is a lot of that communion in the party. From that perspective, and no other, it is understood that a falla with almost a century of history and critical commitment has exhibited at this year’s Ninot Exhibition a Christmas tree crowned by the Star of David from which children’s heads hang. Crude, huh? Seeing it the other day made me turn around twice, think. And that’s where I imagine the falla wanted to take me when it thought of presenting that ninot, and no other, to a popular exhibition that in general shines for being colorful, sarcastic and, much to my regret, increasingly less local, less Valencian.
Because there are many Puigdemont, Sánchez and Feijóo in its corridors. Few Catalá, Morant or Bernabé. And I understand that there will be a lot of national stories in the failures that will take to the streets. And our (political) battles have a lot to caricature: from the red water of La Albufera, passing through the courts where the autopsy is carried out on a recent period, to the overturn (unexpected for some) of the government, with all the changes , and there have been not a few. Will we see Ximo Puig become a ninot in Paris? Or Vice President Barrera made of cardboard and cork, fighting in some plaza? Can anyone be ninot in a falla? They have to know you to understand you, criticize you or exalt you, and that is surely the stone in the shoe of our reality.
Because it happens to us in the Fallas and it happens to us Valencians in almost everything, forgive me. With that meninfotisme that is so ours, we let the train of action pass and we sanctify the blows that others take with the system while we miss the train. Oh if others had a Fallas monument like ours, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, to burn as much as they wanted! I see little fault when talking about the regional financing that they owe us, the water that we lack and the neglect to which they subject us.
Salva Enguix says that by what they call “terreta” the energies are already exhausted and that the Valencian road is more similar to the “Valencian melancholy.” What a mistake we were going to make with that motto. First prize.