The César Manrique Foundation has pointed out that the statements by the president of Repsol, Antonio Brufau, regarding the oil exploration process in the Canary Islands "are worthy of severe public condemnation and an immediate request for apologies." Apologies that, according to them, should be demanded by the Parliament of the Canary Islands, with the Government of Fernando Clavijo at the helm. The FCM has condemned "the outrage" to the Canary Islands by the head of the oil company.
For the Foundation, "Brufau's disqualification and resentful offense to the Canary Islands and its citizens represent the most rude expression of arrogance and the colonial mentality of many multinationals that devastate the planet and undermine the natural heritage of peoples."
They have also considered that "his despotic language offends the collective dignity and democratic representativeness legitimized by the popular sovereignty that confronted Repsol from the Government. But it also paradoxically arouses a feeling of satisfaction." They have also pointed out that "Brufau's rage, until now contained, verbalized this Wednesday with haughty disdain, is a clear exponent of the defeat inflicted by the Canary Islands on Repsol, a failure that its president has not yet finished digesting, due to being unaccustomed to it, crystallized then in the shared cry of ¡Brufau, go home!".
"Feeling of self-pride"
From the Foundation they have added that "that joint victory of the institutions and citizens of the Canary Islands in defense of their land, despite millionaire advertising campaigns, provokes both a feeling of self-pride and a rejection of the colonial order and practices that move Brufau when qualifying what happened as third-world".
In the words of those responsible for the Foundation, "at this point in history, after so many postcolonial and decolonial studies, one might think that it is the words and attitude of Repsol that sound truly third-world. Without a doubt, Brufau has accumulated enough merits for the institutions of the Canary Islands —City Councils, Island Councils and Parliament— to massively declare him persona non grata, in defense of the dignity of the Islands that the president of Repsol, still affected "by a serious toothache", has tried to contaminate like a stain of his oil"
From the Foundation they have recalled that the previous Canarian Executive, presided over by Paulino Rivero, led an active resistance struggle against the oil giant, which was joined by broad institutional sectors of the Archipelago and also of civil society, with the active support of the César Manrique Foundation.
"The hegemony of money did not help him"
In their opinion, "as rarely, the popular will represented by its institutions and the street walked hand in hand in massive demonstrations and a multitude of symbolic and participatory acts in which the Canary Islands were defended from Brufau's oil company and the eventual risks it installed on our coasts and in our tourist economy".
"Antonio Brufau was not helped by the hegemony of money or the assistance of the power of the State to achieve his purposes of installing platforms in the waters near Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, so that he had to leave the Islands failed and chastened or, as it was said with joy in the street, "with his tail between his legs". To the power of money, the institutions and citizens of the Canary Islands confronted their own knowledge and convictions, moved by respect and affection for the Islands, by a patriotic sense that the president of Repsol insults again", they have indicated from the César Manrique Foundation.
