You know that saying "even if the monkey dresses in silk, it's still a monkey"? Well, that's what the latest invention of the table-side chat puppies called Lanzarote Premium sounds like.
The table-side chat thing is as old as the saying. There are those who have always wanted to govern the island from the small circle of a table-side chat, there are those who finance it, there are those who get drunk on ego in it, who handle the media promotion, and there are even those who still believe that the island is run from that small physical space, but with a large accumulation of ego, power, and wealth.
The table-side chat has a lot of inbreeding. This island inevitably reproduces generational ties as strong as blood. That friend you went to cockfights with in shorts is the same one you enjoyed the first parties with, the one you shared a girlfriend with before settling down, getting married, having children, and prospering. Those children gathered around the same table to share football games again, and then card games, repeating the same jokes, the same anecdotes they heard from their parents, and the same whiskey until old age. My grandmother Lola used to say: "blow the snot of your neighbor's son and marry him to your daughter."
Around that table-side chat, these prominent men gather with a glass of alcohol in hand and their chest puffed out with patriotic pride. They deliberate on the future of the island, which is the future of their families and their businesses; the public blurs in favor of the private. These gentlemen get very serious when it comes to growing their fortunes and make decisions such as which tourist model to promote, which leader to support, which business group to manipulate, which official to promote, which media outlet to finance...
It's about "governing the island from the table-side chat," I quote literally.
The new toy of the table-side chat puppies is this thing they've called Lanzarote Premium, which the Cabildo (Island Council) is promoting with great fanfare, without skimping on public money.
This has always been called subsidizing the tourism industry; you know, public investment, private profits, public losses. Now they call it public-private collaboration. No matter what label they put on it, the silk with which they dress the monkey is still paid for with public money, but the monkey still looks just as ridiculous. I almost prefer the Biosphere label; it was just as empty and stupid, but we had already overcome the ridiculousness. It's the tourism promotion policy, that intimate connection between the politician, the businessman, and the financing of the party.
I recommend that you consult the Lanzarote Premium page, Corporativa de Turismo de Lanzarote https://corporativa.turismolanzarote.com/lanzarote-premium/ and browse their website because you will be amazed; it makes you want to cry. It's a compendium of empty texts, a general and simplistic copy-and-paste, without order or concert, whose identification with the territorial culture of the island is pure science fiction and denotes an astonishing lack of identity. It's the most evident example of the town's inferiority complex. Of the nine objectives, eight are tourism promotion explained in different ways and described with different words, but pure and simple tourism promotion, paid for with public money. The ninth is titled "Activities aimed at improving the image and beautification of the Lanzarote landscape." Judge for yourselves; it's pure cardboard scenery.
It's logical to ask when it was decided to give up defending the island's uniqueness, who opted for the showcase to the detriment of the content, when they appropriated the narrative of defending the territory and stole it from society, who decided what and why, and above all, was this nonsense consulted? Was it submitted to public opinion? Was it explained to the citizens? Were debate tables created? Why wasn't the population consulted before they robbed our wallets? Society is superfluous to the table-side chat; it's enough for them to put the word sustainability next to a photograph of marinas or aviation companies. This is the level, that of the eco-hotel, eco-plane, eco-wood.
Not a single study on the quality of the tourism that is arriving, not a single piece of data on the future of the main industry of the Canary Islands, not a single index on economic alternatives, not a reference to the declassification of tourist beds. All tourism promotion with public money. Nothing about carrying capacity, nothing about the new global economic paradigm, nothing about the energy crisis, nothing about climate change, nothing about poverty, nothing about tax havens, nothing about corruption, nothing about the exploitation of the territory for purely private and propagandistic purposes, nothing about environmental damage. Nothing about the economic and social cost of an industry that is dying, nor about the ecological footprint of those to whom our public representatives have decided to hand over the planning of the island.
Nothing about food sovereignty, everything about tapas fairs. Nothing about energy consumption, everything about airlines and cruises. Nothing about the protection of natural spaces, everything about film commissions. Nothing about biodiversity, everything about potentially aggressive sports events with the environment. Institutional binge-drinking sessions organized in natural spaces, all very educational and consistent with the culture of the island's territory. Nothing about transparency in public accounts, everything about private advantages. Not a single forecast for the future, all smoke and mirrors.
The effects of this new occurrence on the island remain to be seen. Until now, this way of relating to power has given very ephemeral results, but a lot of hangovers. The territorial disaster is already looming. The coast was already eaten up in the 90s, but this thing they call rural tourism seriously threatens the center and north of the island. Natural spaces are more at risk than ever; the limitation of uses is not conceived, because this rural tourism does not want to stay in the illegal macro-hotels, they prefer rural tourism houses, isolated, surrounded by silence and nature, just what these scoundrels of power and money who govern the island from the table-side chat are going to devour.
It has been taken for granted that sports events are organized in the most sensitive spaces. If it's more fun to run through the Chinijo Natural Park, the Corona Volcano, or the Ajaches, why are we going to organize the event on the avenues, streets, roads, or urban centers? It is publicly promoted that the voter attends a massive concert and gets very drunk in La Geria, instead of in the spaces designated for it. The party is not in a position to confront the voters, much less to educate them. Nature, from whose preservation we live, at the service of fun.
It's the politics of me, here and now.
This new premium tourism will be built on new soil; they will desecrate the territory and do it in the name of a legacy that became great and universal by defending it. No matter how much they fill their mouths, they are not permeable to the story. Some advisor should recommend that it is better to opt for silence so that cynicism does not come out of their noses. Every time they refer to our culture of the territory, they only trivialize it.
The first institution has already lost three years. In the time of legislature that remains, we already know that they have no forecast for the future; a new PIOT (Territorial Planning Instrument) that could include mechanisms to recover the already degraded space will not be drafted; not a single planning instrument will be drafted to recover the exploited territories; the exhausted tourist plots will not be expanded. Haven't we elected them to plan and lead? At what point did we vote for them to delegate their powers to premium businessmen? The Island Council should have prepared to face the new world paradigm on criteria of reduction and recovery, not of new invasion, but they have given in to the planning of public policies that defend the general interest for the benefit of partisan and business interests.
The table-side chat will never be able to understand the new challenges, as they would have to raise their heads to see beyond their navels. And this, in the town, is not well seen.
Every time the premium brand is mentioned, mediocrity will continue to spread like an oil slick over the island territory. Premium in pollution, premium in the use of energy derived from petroleum, premium in the abuse of natural resources, premium in waste, premium in cynicism, premium in vulgarity.
A premium wash.
