"Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it." Jorge Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana "A people who do not know their history are a people condemned to irrevocable death." Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo The idea of ...
"Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it." Jorge Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana
"A people who do not know their history are a people condemned to irrevocable death." Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo
The idea that a people who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it has spread with good reason among the developed countries around us. Throughout the civilized world there is agreement on the importance of not hiding the mistakes of the past so that they do not happen again in the future. There is a general consensus that the most shameful events in a society should not be hidden or sunk into the well of oblivion. In many states, the denial of certain serious events in their recent past is even punishable by law.
On the other hand, by virtue of what is happening, Lanzarote gives the impression of being very far from the closest democratic regimes. The island seems definitively condemned to reproduce, again and again, its mistakes. Our rulers refuse to know our history and, in addition, instead of spreading it, they seem determined to silence it.
Or that is what is guessed after the measure taken by the new president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, who has given the order to remove from the cover of the corporation's official website any reference to the urban planning illegalities committed on the island. As a result of his order, all links to the documents that clarified the irregularities committed by tourist establishments have been suppressed with unusual speed, but also those committed by residential partial plans, such as the Playa Blanca Partial Plan. The argument? That it gives a bad image of the island.
Pedro San Ginés does himself a disservice by using that justification to defend the decision made. It hurts him. And it does so for three well-founded reasons. First: it is, exactly, the same argument used by the offenders of urban planning illegalities, that is, the businessmen of the sector and the employers who represent them. Second: it is, verbatim, the same argument that the journalists and media owned by those offenders have been spreading for two years. And third: it is, simply, an argument that does not hold up. It has no rhyme or reason.
The Cabildo has two tourist information websites, that of the Tourism Board and that of the CATC's. Both work well, they seem to have many visits and none of them refer to urban planning irregularities.
But the Cabildo's website is the official page of the institution, the one that has information about the Corporation and that is therefore mainly intended for its administrators, that is, the people of Lanzarote. It is a page of little use to tourists. To give you an idea, the Cabildo's portal is not even translated into other languages as is the case with the websites of the Board and the CACT's.
Bad move by the President. Because no matter how much he does nothing but repeat in words that he is not controlled by any business group, his actions - the facts - indicate the opposite. It gives the feeling that instead of distancing himself from that "lobby" cited by Torres Stinga and a PSOE now in the opposition, Pedro San Ginés seems to embrace it. Perhaps the bear hug that Manolo Fajardo Feo did not want to give/receive?
Either he explains himself better, or I am very afraid that it will be difficult for Pedro San Ginés to prevent the citizens of this island from reaching the conclusion that they have as President of the Cabildo a member of the board of directors of Asolan.
Andrea Betancort
