The demonstration called for this Saturday aims, apart from being the largest in the history of the Canary Islands, to provoke a paradigm shift in the archipelago's socioeconomic model that improves the lives of the Canarian people.
As 12 noon on Saturday, April 20 approaches, we read more strategies to defend the indefensible in the press and social media. Some blaming the opposition for organizing the demonstration, others pretending that the protests have nothing to do with them, that they were not in government four days ago. There are also those who say that all this is organized by lazy people and that blessed peaceful invasion we have in the Canary Islands while talking about the cow that gives milk or I don't know what other metaphors. And of course, tourism phobia jumps to the forefront as a tool to criminalize any protest.
It is clear that these are studied communication strategies, with more or less success, which, much to their regret, only convince those who are already convinced.
They have been talking for years about "sustainable tourism growth", when developmentalism, and even more so in an archipelago, can never be sustainable. What about "quality tourism" associated with the tourist's purchasing power, when it is already known that these are the ones who require the most resources and infrastructure, and only spend in elitist ghettos. There is even talk that the expansion of the Playa Blanca dock to receive cruise ships will turn it into the first sustainable dock in the Canary Islands, the joke tells itself, cruise ship tourism is the most polluting and has the greatest socio-environmental impact. And nonsense after nonsense and story after story without blushing for a second.
It would be worth reminding the gentleman of the cow that he forgot to convey to the citizens that there will be a day when the cow will not give any more, that that day is not far away and that they will let that cow die while they look for a new calf.
A video of Cesar Manrique comes to mind in which he said, while overturning a glass of cava denying a toast symbolically, "I curse the speculators and all the scum that is arriving to get rich in the short term destroying this island." I add, "and those who allow it."
The demonstration called for this Saturday is especially exciting because it will be transversal, it is about citizenship, from environmental associations to people from the murgas, from the kellys to the Cesar Manrique Foundation, from unions to comedians, it is about the demands of the vast majority of Canarian society that can no longer stand it. It will be a demonstration of a strong civil society eager to say that enough is enough.
It is time to think about the day after 20A and be optimistic, not only because of the change in the productive model that is coming, but also because of the opportunity that is given to us to learn from these mistakes.
The particularity of living on islands with very finite resources has caused alarms to go off much earlier than in other territories, and thanks to this we may arrive on time, but it is time to act now.
The archipelago must become an innovation laboratory where management depends on professionals with a strictly ethical perspective whose objectives are the needs of the population and the working class, and not the needs of employers. We must break with this monoculture that constantly endangers Canarian society and think about that diversification of the productive model that will turn us into a sovereign people. May that socio-ecological transition that is coming end precariousness and attack inequality, making the Canary Islands more socially just.
Canarian society will emerge better from the 20A demonstration, without a doubt. Everyone to the streets with their heads held high on Saturday.
As Cesar Manrique said sitting in the garden of what is now his foundation, "there is always hope for people with fantasy, good will and enthusiasm to be able to save what we have left."
