The festivities of San Marcial de Rubicón 2022 began this Friday with a clear message of acclamation to its historical, cultural, religious and social heritage that gives life to the present and also to the future, and it was given by the Vice President of the Canary Islands Government, Román Rodríguez. In charge of announcing the celebrations in honor of the Patron Saint of Lanzarote and the Canary Islands. The Vice President stressed that “Femés is today a place of celebration, a festival that exalts the Canarian identity, the preservation of our history, of our folklore, the roots that unite us to the land and its fruits, and that give meaning to our collective identity.”
As soon as he began his narration, Román Rodríguez maintained that “history is not only the past, but it becomes present when we remember it and it is the first step towards the future. Here, in Femés, we know well what and how much value history represents.” Before, in his presentation, the mayor of Yaiza, Óscar Noda, had emphasized one of the transcendent events for Femés, its surroundings and the island of Lanzarote: “this July 7th, we celebrate 618 years of the creation of the Canariense Rubicense Diocese. Since 1404, San Marcial de Rubicón has been the Patron Saint of the Canary Islands, a colossal event that deserves the care and recognition of all the Canary Islands.”
Accompanying Román Rodríguez and Óscar Noda at the reading table of the proclamation were the Councilor for Festivities of Yaiza, Javier Camacho, and the parish priest of Yaiza, Jonathan Almeida, a solemn act that was attended by numerous public and the assistance of the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, María Dolores Corujo, the Government delegate in Lanzarote, Juan Ramón Pérez, and different civil and military authorities.
Touching on the keys of global problems of today and intermingling these facts with a historical review and the evolution of Femés, the herald of San Marcial 2022 praised the people of Mararía as “an example of the eternal struggle of the human being for its survival, for overcoming difficulties of all kinds to generate the conditions that facilitate a dignified life,” a struggle that he cited as “a struggle in calm,” referring to the “intelligent combination of the human hand and the volcanic nature to draw the landscape of Lanzarote and, specifically, of this area of the Island.”
The mayor of Yaiza recalled that the “first permanent European settlement in the Canary Islands located in the Los Ajaches area, which meant the first contacts between European and aboriginal culture in the 15th century, is an archaeological site that is currently the subject of a thorough investigation by the Government of the Canary Islands, the Yaiza City Council and the two public universities of the Canary Islands, another way of valuing and disseminating the rich heritage of southern Lanzarote, which we cannot and should not forget.”
And speaking of history, Román Rodríguez noted that “time stops in Femés; time of a history divulged by the shepherds who, together with their cattle, gave life, in the most faithful sense of the expression, to an Island that knows well of scarcity and deficiencies, of how hard and devastating the force of nature can be.” Its Atalaya, he said at another moment of the story, “should now serve to see how this Island has been transformed. How it was able to overcome moments of famines, poverty and migrations.”
The men and women of Femés, “who know a lot about renunciations and sacrifices,” have seen the overcoming of so many difficulties, in such a way that “what has been achieved, far from leading to self-satisfaction and conformism, should serve to stimulate new challenges.” The herald ended his narration by thanking again the invitation extended by the Yaiza City Council and the residents of Femés, highlighting that “they must mark the path. Writing, as it has always done, with effort and solidarity its own history, its own present and its own future. With values, with tenacity, with pride.”
The Yaiza School of Music, directed by Clotildo Martín, closed the act of reading the proclamation by performing pieces of Canarian folklore such as the song ‘Elogio a Femés’, a group of touch and voices integrated mostly by children and young people of the municipality. The School took the last ovation of the heartfelt evening of the proclamation.