Spanish Diary

Day… who knows??

Throughout this whole crisis, as much as I have been reflecting on what is happening perhaps I haven’t been reflecting on everything I should be. A recent immigrant, I arrived in Spain with a favorable bias, in love with the country I had visited years before. Living in Valencia only made those feelings stronger. In particular, I would walk through its Turia river park and marvel at its peaceful, international, garden-of-eden-like atmosphere. People from all over the world enjoying a public space with no evident private or commercial interest, walking, bicycling, sitting, sun bathing, enjoying the very definition of community. I loved going to that park because, coming from Mexico City, I could not believe that a space such as that could exist.

Naively, I admired what I interpreted to be the message of the European Union: no borders, quality of life, public spaces over shopping malls. That’s gone now and there’s no reason to assume the situation is temporary. More frightening is how quickly and easily it all happened, suggesting that what existed only existed in the limited confines of comfort and privilidge. But such things cannot last and therefore cannot be genuine since neither comfort nor privilege are everlasting. If something only exists when things are good, is it real?

Are we here for each other or are we not? Did the founders of the EU truly believe in an open, borderless society that looked out for a common well being or was it just a convenient instrument of neoliberal capitalism, made possible by America’s blank checks? As soon as things get tough it’s every man, woman and child for themselves? Across the ocean the split is obvious. If it is not there yet, America will soon find itself in a similar place as in 1861. That seems almost inevitable. What still remains to be seen is if the EU will prove Trump’s criticisms right and crumble without its checkbook or if it will get its shit together and offer a ray of hope to a world in dire need of one.