March 24, 2012 will be marked in the history of Lanzarote as the largest popular mobilization ever seen on the island where I was born. Despite the shameful dance of figures that some dared to do, ...
March 24, 2012 will be marked in the history of Lanzarote as the largest mobilization
popular ever seen on the island where I was born. Despite the shameful dance of figures that
some dared to do, no one who was there and respects himself would doubt that the
attendance greatly exceeded 20,000 demonstrators. Something similar, proportionally, to
that several million people had taken to the streets of Madrid.
Undoubtedly, a phenomenon of such magnitude is only possible when the whole of a society
massively shares a cause that remains just as alive, as has been corroborated almost a
year later by an opinion poll by the always professional Data Center of the Cabildo de
Lanzarote. And this, despite a powerful and manipulative media campaign, probably
equipped with the many economic resources that REPSOL has in abundance, and the many levers of
pressure used by the Minister of Industry and Tourism, clearly aligned with the interests of
the multinationals and confronted with those of the Canary Islands and the Canarians, whom he should represent
in the Lower House.
A simple but illustrative and visible example of this power is that, given the almost frequency
daily with which photographs of platforms appear on the front page of almost all Canarian newspapers
from different parts of the world, it would seem that there have never been platforms in
the Canary ports, or that these are those of REPSOL and come from extracting oil in waters
deep off Lanzarote or Fuerteventura. Shameful is the attempt to confront and divide the
Canarians by making some believe that their interests clash with the selfishness and ignorance of
others.
Today is exactly one year since that collective success, and despite the fact that -having been myself, as
president of the Cabildo, the convener of the demonstration? we did not succumb to the easy temptation
of trying to capitalize on it and we avoided any political intervention in an act that brought together some
25,000 people, from that same day I knew that the main throwing weapon of the oil mentors
would be precisely the alleged "political manipulation" of a people who expressed themselves
free, convinced and united as never before. For them, effectively, it could not
be otherwise that so many people simply thought and freely disapproved of their sinister
intentions. Two days later, Minister Soria called all the protesters partygoers
summoned by sandwiches and tambourine. And he's still at it, without apologizing.
Much has rained since then and numerous have been the misleading "force ideas" with which
that the tentacles of power have tried to sell us the benefits of black gold. But perhaps
the last in their design strategy has been what I described in a recent article as a
"miserable objective", and this is none other than urging us to the obligatory negotiation with the sole
intention, immediately afterwards, of accusing us of putting on sale our firm will to fight with
everything against what we consider a terrible threat incompatible with our development model.
In that same strategy, and given their frustration at not achieving the photograph of the negotiation,
the last of the conceptual traps with which they intend to take us Canarians for
imbeciles, is the insistence on establishing a specific tax on oil, which would benefit
who knows how to the Canarians, and necessarily include it in the framework of a Pact for the Canary Islands.
As if it were not possible and necessary to reach agreements on Employment, Health or
Education if the Government of the Canary Islands does not accept the imposition of the desired photograph. To be
clearer, the PP is not willing to solve the problems of the Canary Islands and its people if the
regional executive does not give in to its rejection of the oil industry for whose implementation
paradoxically the central government says it does not need the Canary Islands and has managed it that way. But
nor would it need it to establish, if it believes it is so fair, the blessed tribute, and there it continues
trying to sneak it into the Pact for the Canary Islands. In short, the same and miserable objective of the
photograph of the "sold wills".
I respect those who believe that we are wrong and defend their position with arguments
respectable but, I'm very sorry, none of these seem so to me. That being the case, a year
after Lanzarote and Fuerteventura spoke loud and clear, I reaffirm that we will not
we will sell our will, that we will continue fighting with all the instruments, legal,
political and social that we understand can contribute to banish forever this terrible
threat to the Canary Islands, and I invite the people of Lanzarote and all Canarians not to decline, to avoid
that they impose our destiny on us, to make ourselves respected, and to fight so that the Canarians
we can freely decide the future we want for our land.
Pedro M. San Ginés Gutiérrez is the president of the Cabildo de Lanzarote
