"It was not the man's brain that was speaking, but his larynx. What came out of it was made of words, but it was not a real speech; it was noise emitted unconsciously, like the quacking of a duck" G Orwell. 1984.
Confusing politics with partisanship is like confusing speed with bacon.
No matter how much partisanship is practiced from government institutions, sometimes even in the name of the State or the Constitution, it does not make it politics.
Political parties engage in partisanship by confusing the public interest with the interest of the party and turning that interest into government action. The first commandment of this new religion is “if it is good for the party, it is good for the island, for the community or for the country”. Under this precept, what is good for the party becomes, in fact, insular, regional or state politics. What happens when something is good, necessary or urgent for society, but does not benefit the party in power? Well, that something is left in a drawer, it is forgotten, since electoral periods take precedence over the general interest.
The paradigmatic example is the obligatory measures to curb the planet-devouring economic system. No political party wants to assume the electoral cost of asking citizens to live with less, consume less, spend fewer of the planet's resources. Can you imagine a political party adopting as a government measure the urgent need to develop an economic activity that emits fewer emissions, generates less waste, spends fewer resources, or consumes less land?.
In the same way, no political party that aspires to govern can confront the business profits of the financiers. The price of this dependence has been evidenced in this country on countless occasions, as many as those that have shown the submission of the parties to economic forces. Whether they are banks, electricity companies, oil companies, tourism companies or large construction companies. Cuna del Alma and the paralysis of the Government of the Canary Islands is a good example, because it is recent and painful.
Partisanship is conditioned by the electoral calendar. And we are in an election period. In September, all the parties fired the starting gun. Candidates are already being announced. They are no longer working in the armchairs, since September they have been working for the front page of the newspaper.
Partisanship follows the criteria of complacency. Do not disturb, do not generate conflict, do not provoke.... The luxury of making “uncomfortable” policies is only allowed in the first two years of the legislature, as the election date approaches, the party machinery strives to bring out the actions that are presumed to have more consensus. The most spectacular ones. Confident as they are in the “citizen's forgetfulness” factor, they believe that the voter has immediate memory and votes according to their state of mind in recent months.
Partisanship follows the criterion of opportunity, that is, the use of instruments at the service of power to encourage the community to assume the need for certain partisan actions. In the Canary Islands it is very common to generate the need, with the always invaluable collaboration of the regime's media, so that, once the need has been assumed by the generality, to sell the action in question as a merit of the ruling party. In Lanzarote we have been hearing for years that we need more roads, more asphalt, more roundabouts...the promotion campaign of the media affiliated with the government bombards us with these needs until they consider that they have sunk in enough. And then they offer us the work. And everyone is so happy. Meanwhile, in the last thirty years not a single care place has been implemented on the island, have you heard the cement journalists asking for places for nursing homes? for the chronically ill? for dependents?
Politics should not obey the urgency of electoral periods, nor criteria of opportunity, nor desires of complacency. Politics should be an act of generosity exercised under the principle of the common good and good governance. Politics should be subject to the objective of improving coexistence and safeguarding the peace and prosperity of citizens. The exercise of politics should be aimed at achieving the greatest and best quality of life for the inhabitants of the planet, promoting education, health, justice and the independence of the human being.
There is no greater heritage for a people than the education of its citizens. The capacity for criticism, equality, participation in public affairs and the formation of values in society are the pillars of a healthy and strong democracy. Politics must promote the value of the public and channel the participation of citizens in the construction of a cohesive and supportive society. Governance is not the heritage of a leader or a visionary, governance requires the balanced interrelation of the State, civil society and the market in order to obtain stable and respectful development with the space where we live and develop our lives.
At this moment in the history of humanity, respect and care for people cannot be sustained without urgently addressing the repair of the territory and biodiversity. It is the economic system that is destroying our habitat. Our main problem is the economy, not the climate. The serious problems of climate change derive directly from emissions, pollution and the unlimited use of the planet's resources, that is, the planet suffers from the effects of an economic system based on savage capitalism.
The Canary Islands is not a territory foreign to the changes that are emerging. We will not be immune to the consequences of rising tides, nor to the desertification of the planet, nor to extreme climate changes, nor to the warming of the ocean, nor to civilizational collapse... The Canary Islands is not a paradise isolated from the rest of the world. Nor are we oblivious to the causes of the problem, we promote a clearly polluting industry such as the tourism industry, we depend on fossil fuels, we generate emissions derived from air traffic, we depend on the outside to eat and drink.
Faced with this unquestionable reality, approving a new PIOT a few months before the elections, patching the 1991 Island Plan, planned for a reality very different from the current one, to adapt it to the 2017 Land Law, which the PSOE and Podemos promised to repeal for being speculative and mercantilist with the territory, is a partisan action. A decision that would turn the problem of the current government's non-existent territorial policy into a cannibalistic action. Infamous for being short-sighted, indecent for being opportunistic, insulting for being cynical. Offensive to the culture of the territory of Lanzarote.
Governing for the people but without the people is the legacy of despots.