“Luck directs our affairs better than we could wish; because you see there, friend Sancho Panza, where we still discover thirty or more raging giants, with whom I intend to fight and take the lives of everyone, with the remains of which we will begin to enrich ourselves, that it is a good war, and it is a great service rendered to God to remove such a bad seed from the face of the earth.
This famous phrase, which Don Quixote says to Sancho at the beginning of the eighth chapter of the first part of the novel written by Miguel de Cervantes, can never be put into the mouth of the protagonist of another beautiful story; the one who plays Marciano Ortega Molina, fan of the main symbol of La Mancha that the ingenious gentleman of La Mancha confused with the giants and to which in 2021 he dedicated a book entitled ‘Molinos de El Toboso Fact or fiction! Prologue or vision of the greatest chimerical adventure.”
The author, who To make matters worse, he was mayor of El Toboso, Dulcinea’s homeland, between 2007 and 2015.platonic love of the Knight with the Sad Face – had already slipped into this work an idea which has now taken shape. This is a request that was sent to the authorities of Castile-La Mancha in the midst of negotiating the reform of the Statute of Autonomy, whose deadline for presenting amendments will expire on October 23.
Ortega Molina’s proposal consists of nothing more and nothing less than including a windmill in the white rectangle to the right of the flag of Castile-La Mancha and, therefore, integrating it into the regional shield. An initiative that was taken up at the beginning of this year, on the occasion of the start of negotiations for the reform of the Autonomy Statute and which has now taken shape thanks to a collection of signatures on the change.org platform, with which it aims to reach 500 supporters and has already reached more than half, to which are added the more than 13,000 views, even though he estimates that there could be many more people.
At the same time, this Cervantist sent his request to President Emiliano García-Page and to that of the regional courts, Pablo Bellidowho urges them to accept or, at least, take note of his proposal. “Seeing the flag of Castile-La Mancha flying with the two symbols of a castle and a windmill would ennoble the memory of our ancestors, give reality to the emblems of a territory and make a region proud. Our greatest ambassadors, Cervantes and Don Quixote, will be eternally grateful to you,” he said.
Inside first paragraph of article 5 of the Statute of Autonomy of Castile-La Mancha, approved in 1982the flag of the region is described: “It is composed of a rectangle divided vertically into two equal squares: the first, next to the mast, crimson red, with a golden castle crushed with sand and lightened with azure, and the second, white.”
The author, according to the promoter of this initiative, was Ramon José Maldonado and Cocatwho in 1980, “as part of the previous process which took place with a certain speed during these years of preparation, configuration and accommodation to the pre-autonomous State, to which rapid solutions had to be provided, designed the symbols which would have required greater study and detail.
“It is valuable to recover the windmills, many of which are cataloged as Assets of Cultural Interest, as an image and great representative of our territory to ennoble it to the same height as the castle,” explains the researcher, who recalls that since 1562 represented as members of the landscape of La Manche. Thus, he gives as an example the drawing of Anton Van den Wyngaerde or ‘Antonio de las Viña’, as this Flemish landscape painter was called at the time who collected some of them in Belmonte (Cuenca) and Chinchilla de Montearagón (Albacete), or the numerous appearances in other artistic disciplines like photography, literature or music.
So far, the proposal has only received administrative silence from the regional courts and a response thanking him for the idea from the presidency of the Community Council. However, Ortega Molina will not give up his efforts and will fight against giants, not windmills, to bring precisely this symbol of La Mancha to the flag and coat of arms of Castile-La Mancha.
