Sixty years ago, Lanzarote was a forgotten island that was beginning to shift its economic system from the primary sectors towards the tourism industry. Little by little, the landscape was transformed as the sea, the countryside and the salt flats were abandoned, and with them, a hard and dignified way of life that fed many generations of conejeros.
Some were quick to realize the risk involved in tourist excess. Since the late 70s, voices have appeared warning of the consequences that an investment in a developmental model based on quantity instead of quality could have. Before the land rush broke out, a group of utopian madmen knew how to stop to think about another possible island and raised the possibility of creating something new on the island, so that the great beneficiary would be the whole of Lanzarote society.
This island was able to open new horizons and the work of some visionaries broadened the pride of the people of Lanzarote for this land, because here two completely different things were being done: to value the natural resources of the island and to denounce the risk of growing beyond what logic recommended. The first was achieved and you only have to look at the rest of the islands to know that here it was possible to do something unusual for the time: to awaken an awareness of care for the island. The second remained in an attempt because the power of easy money was stronger than the attempts to impose growth rates on Lanzarote in accordance with its capacity for absorption.
The last fifteen years have been a drift towards nothing, a setback in the differentiating spirit of the island. Successive governments have limited themselves to managing the routine and trying to keep the hotels full at whatever price. And that price has been submission to the big tour operators and the precariousness of jobs linked to tourism, with the disheartening result of 30% unemployment while more tourists than ever arrive on the island. Something, obviously, has failed, because if the aim was to keep the hotels and apartments full, if that was the number one objective, what are we left with now? Accept unemployment and job insecurity as collateral damage of tourist success? It doesn't seem reasonable.
We have to recover fifteen years of weariness in political management. We have to recover the pride of living here in the face of corruption scandals. We have to recover the values of respect for this land and its inhabitants in the face of the monopoly of the god of money. We have to recover the dignity for the families who have lost their homes to the greed of the banks. We have to recover the illusion of having a new and differentiating project in our hands, just as they had in the sixties and just as they tried in the late nineties. We have to recover the Lanzarote spirit, the true essence of Lanzarote that constitutes the vindication of a way of acting and thinking that has made the difference for decades. We have to continue to confront those who try to impose on us the unique thought of unlimited growth. We have to put on the table a political project that takes up that legacy, updates it, and puts it at the service of the interests of the people of Lanzarote.
That's why we're here. To honor the intelligence and vision of the future of those who preceded us. To recover hope and the future. To demonstrate, once again, that things can be done differently on this island of brave and visionary people, because doing things differently is an essential part of our DNA.
Carlos Meca, General Secretary of Podemos Lanzarote