To certain gentlemen, the Canary Islands are great for vacations and much worse for listening to those of us who live here. They land, enjoy the climate, praise the landscape, and return to Madrid delighted. Then they decide our future from an office. Getting to know our reality already seems like an excessive effort for them; they did find time for the sun lounger.
Then some of them lay out their idea of Spain and decide how we should live about two thousand kilometers away. Without knowing our islands, our difficulties, or what it means to depend on an airplane to travel for certain medical treatments. But they decide. With admirable certainty. Ignorance, when it wears a tie, has a wonderful self-esteem.
That is why I defend a progressive Canarian nationalist vote. I want the decisions that affect this land to have a voice of its own, strong and capable of standing its ground. Faced with the possibility of darker and more centralist times, it seems reckless to hand over our influence and trust that someone will remember us between a meeting and lunch.
The Canary Islands have the right to self-government. Our Statute recognizes our status as a nationality and includes remoteness, insularity, and ultra-peripherality as circumstances that must be taken into account in public policies. It is written. Although some only find time to read the Statute when they need to find out how much they can cut it.
Distance has a price. In transportation, in the shopping basket, in opportunities, and in the difficulties of those who need to leave their island to study or receive specialized care. Applying the same recipe to different realities can be very comfortable for the one who signs the document. For the one who suffers its consequences, much less so.
I have no problem with Madrid. I have a problem with those who believe that living in Madrid grants them automatic knowledge of everything that happens outside. Also with those who confuse equality of rights with the obligation that all territories fit into the same mold. If the mold squeezes us, we will have to change it. Not amputate a part of ourselves so that the gentleman is satisfied.
However, carrying the word Canary Islands in their acronyms does not make anyone its defender by the grace of the Holy Spirit. At this point, it is advisable to demand results, because political folklore is costing us dearly.
A flag moves me. But I want to be able to live under it. I want those who work here to be able to afford a house here. That our young people have opportunities to stay. That a dependent person receives care and that our elders live with dignity. And I want the territory to be protected, because the soil of an island does not stretch, no matter how much enthusiasm the developer puts into it.
When someone boasts of defending the Canary Islands, I ask them which Canary Islands they are defending. The one of the person who cleans rooms and cannot rent one, or the one of the person who contemplates the archipelago as an investment portfolio with sea views. Both appear in the same photograph, but only one usually comes out smiling.
There I place the value of progressive nationalism represented by Nueva Canarias–Bloque Canarista: in uniting the defense of this land with the rights of those who inhabit it. Its commitment to strengthening the Canarian progressive space and coordinating with other territorial forces includes housing, public services, territorial protection, and greater levels of self-government. That is a political direction that I consider necessary.
And also demanding. Being from Nueva Canarias does not oblige me to applaud in turns. It demands that my organization be up to the task of what it defends. To have proposals, to hit the streets, to listen to the discontent, and to ensure that this Canarian voice translates into decisions. To distribute pats on the back, we already have enough institutional events.
We need strength in our institutions and representation in the Cortes. Representatives capable of negotiating, conditioning agreements, and demanding what is due without waiting for instructions from a state-level leadership. Party discipline will be very respectable, but if it always forces the Canary Islands to wait, we will have to ask ourselves who it is serving.
We are talked to a lot about the useful vote. Well: I want to know useful for whom. To complete the majority of a candidate who will later discover our singularities during the next campaign, or to give the Canary Islands real capacity to intervene. The seat will be the same size. Obedience can be very different.
Faced with a possible advance of the right and the far-right, that capacity becomes even more important. I am concerned about the discourse that presents territorial diversity as a nuisance and autonomy as something superfluous. I am concerned about those who promise to fix everything by concentrating power, as if the problem of the Canary Islands were that we can decide too much here.
A gentleman who is unaware of our islands should not be able to dispatch our needs with a whim and a signature. State decisions that affect us must have our participation and respect our competencies. We are citizens with rights, institutions, and our own judgment. Enough of treating us like the tourist destination at the end of the map.
If attempts at recentralization arrive, I want them to find a progressive, organized, and firm Canarian nationalism in front of them. With arguments, citizen support, and institutional strength. Indignation is understandable; to stop a decision, votes and negotiation capacity are also needed.
We also need to understand each other within the Canarian progressive space. Some differences deserve debate and some egos deserve a vacation. People have enough trouble making ends meet to tolerate those who share objectives being incapable of sitting down at a table. Unity must serve to offer a solvent alternative, with commitments that citizens can later demand.
Defending self-government also requires accountability here. I will not accept a Canarian ruler using Madrid as an excuse for their own failures. If we demand more decision-making power, we must demonstrate what we want it for and be responsible for how we exercise it. The Canary Islands deserve respect outside and good governance inside.
I want a land capable of discussing its future with its own voice. Solidary with other peoples, open to the world, and aware of its needs. A land where identity is not only brought out for parties and where progress is noticeable in people's lives.
That is why I consider it necessary to strengthen the progressive Canarian nationalist vote. So that our voice carries weight when resources are negotiated, rights are discussed, or someone intends to reduce self-government. So that the Canary Islands can demand, propose, and decide on its future.
We are about two thousand kilometers from Madrid. Precisely for this reason, it is absurd that someone who barely knows the Canary Islands intends to decide for us without listening to us.
To come and enjoy these islands, all you need is to buy a ticket. To decide about our lives requires much more than booking a hotel.
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