As soon as we arrived, we were informed of the main successes achieved by the Politburo. In this place in the suburbs of Seville, in this 41st Federal Congress of the Socialist Party, “it doesn’t smell like horse shit”.
-Excuse me? How do you say?
–Yes, yes, what we hear is that it no longer smells like horse shit here. We succeeded.
We think it’s a joke between activists, but they show us on the screen of a cell phone the poster announcing the event that took place here until four days ago: the International Horse Show.
We looked at some photos. The pavilion, moreover, is the same. Sand and horses are exactly where Zapatero will harangue against setback and corruption…right.
It smells very good here. To Peter what belongs to Caesar. Indeed, if you put your nose in the right place, you will be able to smell salmon, anchovies and olives. They sell them for a fair price in the bars spread around the main room. When we feel weird, we look at bars. Bass are the only iceberg in the world Transition which has not yet melted.
A political party convention is very difficult to understand for those who are not politicians or members of an organization. Also for those who attended the clandestine congresses and the beginnings of democracy. Today, everything is tinged with sentimentality. Everything is sticky. Everything is bought and sold. You are at the PSOE congress, but they want to give the impression that you are in Ikea, in a flower shop, on a blind date.
While going to greet a minister, we came across the store. T-shirts, sweatshirts, notebooks and even pens. All that, okay. But look: baby clothes, kitchen gloves, small plastic boxes to carry bags to collect dog excrement. Each article with a motto, a photo or a doubled plural, “us and us”.
“Red” and “red” is what is written on the t-shirts. We had never described those of the PSOE as “red”. There, they merge. The Popular Front, the reds and the blues. How will it happen branch? Our grandparents called the socialists “reds”, not even our parents.
This is what we don’t understand: when does it occur to you to dress your baby in PSOE? When do you want to read a political slogan when you take the pizza out of the oven? How are you going to want to bring the initials of your party closer to your dog’s poop?
– Minister, minister!
– How are you, man?
He is a minister of classics, who wears his shirt tucked in and his sweater over his shoulders to dress casually. He could go unnoticed within a group of PP activists in the Salamanca district.
We intercepted him as he came out of a glass tank in the middle of the pavilion, which is called “red zone” and it is a television set where the PSOE interviews the PSOE, where party employees interview party leaders.
–Very difficult interview, Minister. We saw him do very well.
– It wasn’t that bad, really. They didn’t give me much wax.
–Well, it seems!
– Are you having a good time?
-Wonderful. Thank you so much. And you?
At this moment, the conversation is interrupted by an activist who wants to take a photo with him. How is the PSOE leadership doing? They say very well when you meet them. Santos Cerdan, Maria Jesus Montero, Shoemaker.
We stopped Santos because we are from Pamplona, to thank him for saying “red” everywhere; which reminds us Osasunawho plays here, in Seville, in a few days.
There’s no stopping Montero because she looks like a rock star. When she enters, she is surrounded by a swarm of journalists and activists who end up knocking over two decorative plants along the way. She gets angry, she pouts, she doesn’t like the plant stuff, damn it, we have to fight against climate change and defend the environment!
appears on a bicycle Andrew Gilwho was President of the Senate. He comes with some cycling companions from Madrid. He achieved this because he is from Bilbao and not because he is a socialist. It took three days. He says they suffered “a few losses along the way” and their “legs are bruised.” It must be, dear Ander, the fiscal hernia.
We dive into the turbulent mind of activists. It is said that the news of the absentees – Koldo, Aldama and company – are debates which want to prevent people from talking about “things to eat”. “Here, we’re talking about things to eat!” declares a very convinced man in front of an Antena 3 camera. That’s why they had to put more bars than stands informative.
– So-and-so! How are you doing? How long! –We salute a leader who was a minister under Zapatero. A charming guy. A difficult context, eh?
– And so many things. The right has united with the far right in Europe and this means that the continent is going through very delicate times.
–Hey, don’t mess with us. We were talking about…
He asks for the device. He leaves before we can respond. We are left in doubt. Basically, it’s the same doubt this comes to mind when we listen to the activists, the leaders who accept the caucuses. Do they really say it? Is this the difficult context?
It’s as if it were Valentine’s Day all weekend. Hearts on the walls, hearts on badge pendants, hearts in the speakers’ speeches. They will cause diabetes with so much sugar they have no heart!
Furthermore, so much heart does not fit with the process of annihilation that is supposed to begin in the autonomous federations after this Congress. And we don’t say it, it’s the left-wing media that says it. Several barons will soon be relieved because the problem of this PSOE – they say in Ferraz – is not in Madrid, but in the territories. We, the provincials, are always guilty!
–Sir… how is it going in your country? – is precisely a baron who has just arrived from his Community.
– In this game, you never know.
–But you think they will…?
– We’ll see. For the moment, I am not going to become a Cub. I’m holding on.
The baron tells us that the Madrid federation is “the seed of Cain” and leaves. We, to free ourselves from the curse, look in fear at the wall. To hearts, always to hearts. ¡Sursum corda!
They called “agoras” at the place where the rallies are going to take place these days. This poses a problem not only for socialists, but for everyone. Speaking in an agora, with that name, leaves you naked unless you are Aristotle.
The first intervention is that of the minister Isabelle Rodriguezwho shouts against Aznar. But there are almost more people in the bars than in the “agora”. If you give a Spaniard the choice between an agora and a bar, no matter how socialist he is!, what will he choose?
We returned to the “red zone”, the set of the PSOE television program, in the glass aquarium in the middle of the room. There is María Jesús Montero, but the isolation is total. From the outside, even if you close your ears, you can’t hear anything. We note the metaphor in the notebook: they talk and talk, but we cannot hear.
We see in the reflection of the glass those who are not there, as if a large part of our heart had been turned upside down: Aldama, Little, Koldo, abalos. And in the books sold by the Pablo Iglesias Foundation, the names of Felipe Gonzalez And Alphonse Guerraas if they were dead.
How beautiful is the comic strip with the biography of Pablo Iglesias the good printed on the wall. The most laudable political career in this room is that of a dead man!
Fly over the roof drone. He hovers over it constantly. It makes a strange noise, like a whisper. There is something that is there all the time in this Congress, that has no name, that floats in the air, that makes this damn noise. Everyone knows what it is, but no one names it.
