It was the turn of Televisión Canaria, the television that was created to unite the Canarians and not to fuel the island dispute. As if he didn't want to, he has slipped in a debate in which, according to a survey, 70% of ...
It was the turn of Televisión Canaria, the television that was created to unite the Canarians and not to fuel the island dispute. As if he didn't want to, he has slipped in a debate in which, according to a survey, 70% of the people of Tenerife asked that the adjective Gran be removed from the round island. One more grain in the strategy of creating awareness to annul the name of the island.
I don't know if we will leave this absurd inheritance to the next generations. What is clear is that mediocrity will not cease in its efforts until it achieves it.
A few months ago, the thinkers and ideologues of the Canarian government removed the dogs from the autonomous shield in all official documents. Further back, a municipality on the island of Tenerife tried, by decree, to deny Columbus' passage through the round island. One "Day" yes, and another also, it has been demanded that the adjective Gran disappear from the island of Gran Canaria. On another occasion, at a time when a bitter debate was open and sensitivity was on edge, it was an inopportune calendar of the same Canarian executive that appeared with a historical map of the Archipelago in which the Gran was not included in the aforementioned island. Surely, there was no other more suitable map in those delicate moments.
For many years, the airport on the island of Gran Canaria has been named after the island itself. However, despite the time that has passed, on some airplane flights passengers are still being told that they are arriving at Las Palmas Airport, which leads visitors to think that they have arrived on an island supposedly called Las Palmas, when in reality they have arrived in Gran Canaria.
In any of the other islands of our Archipelago - except in a few exceptions - we have always heard how the name of Las Palmas is erroneously applied when referring to Gran Canaria, which is achieving the substitution of the correct name of the island for another that does not correspond to it historically.
In this inaccurate use - since Las Palmas is the name of the province, and not the island - the social media contribute in a scandalous, if not interested, way. It is quite common to hear about Las Palmas and Tenerife, Cabildo de Las Palmas. South of Las Palmas. Arrived in Las Palmas? And, the curious thing is that it has become so widespread that it is strange to hear the correct term, and even, it is looked at with an air of bewilderment or poorly disguised contempt when someone tries to apply said name properly.
It is time that, far from erroneous patriotic feelings and false passions, we correct and prevent the name of Gran Canaria from being erased or replaced by another that does not correspond to it even historically, since this has been the name of the island for many centuries.
Juba, king of Mauritania Tingitana, educated in Rome, friend of Octavio, sent his navigators to explore the coasts of his empire and learn about its natural resources. With the information received, he wrote an extensive work. From this lost relationship, Pliny learned everything he tells us about the Archipelago in his Natural History, becoming a document of capital importance for the history of knowledge of the islands. There the name of Canaria already appears and its gigantic dogs or canes are cited as the origin of such denomination. Hence the Latin root of the word, which was later generalized to name the entire Archipelago.
Much later, the chronicles tell that in the 15th century, Jean de Bethencourt, making an entrance through Arguineguín, tried to conquer the island without success. Perhaps to justify his inferiority against the bravery of the Canarian aborigines and in recognition of their courage and strength in defense of their land, he added the adjective grande. Since then, it will be known as Gran Canaria, at first coexisting for a certain time with the toponym of Canaria, to, definitively, receive its current nomination - included in the Royal Charter of 1494 - as it is being reflected in all navigation charts, in all maps, in all geographies and, in general, in all references that are made of the Canary Archipelago.
In the 20th century, the Archipelago is administratively divided and confirmed in 1927 with the creation of two provinces: Las Palmas, formed by the islands of Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, made up of Tenerife, La Palma, El Hierro and La Gomera. In this way, it was thought to end the long and painful chapter in the struggles for the capital of the Archipelago.
The truth is that the name of the island of Gran Canaria, the province of Las Palmas and the capital of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (the latter approved in a plenary session of the City Council when Diego Vega Sarmiento was mayor and subsequently ratified by the Ministry of the Interior to avoid the continuous mistakes that had been occurring with the island of La Palma and Palma de Mallorca) respond to a historical legitimacy and as such must be applied.