2023-10-31 10:20:04
In 2009, the Spanish writer Javier Cercas published a magnificent book titled “Anatomy of an Instant,” a fictionalized historical chronicle regarding a brief event, barely thirty-five minutes long, but with important institutional and historical implications for Spain. The moment that the author dissects over more than five hundred pages is the televised image of the shooting of Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero and his troop of civil guards into the Spanish parliament, with the intention of carrying out a coup d’état, more precisely the image of the outgoing president Adolfo Suárez, sitting alone in his seat, unharmed by the roar of gunshots echoing in the room, while all the deputies present disappear from the view of the cameras by hiding under their chairs.
The image portrays the loneliness of a finished government whose president had been forced to resign a few days ago, immersed in a political and institutional crisis due to pressure and palace intrigues of those who at that “instant” were lying under the chairs of their seats, while The defeated outgoing president remains undaunted in his chair in an unequivocal gesture of resistance that was being televised.
The novel analyzes how a single gesture can change the destiny of a political actor in decline to transform him in a single instant into a national hero, and how a gesture that is interpreted as heroic in the face of adversity can inspire a society to mend irreconcilable divisions.
It is often said that in politics you have to be in the right place and time for things to work, but it is more true that the times and places that politicians must occupy in a given context are not more important than the gestures or attitudes they use. are assumed at key moments.
I steal the title of this note from an author who I admit to recommend reading a great book, but above all to analyze the political reality of our country, from a “moment” that for me will be decisive in the electoral result of the next November 19 and that has to do with the gesture of the two presidential candidates who will compete in the Ballotaje.
No one can deny that Massa until election day had one of the most negative images among the political actors in dispute, which represented the continuity of a progressive government in decline, immersed in an unprecedented crisis since 2001; We can also recognize that Milei, the self-determined libertarian candidate, established himself as a new political force that stood above the government-opposition divisions, exalting the decadence of the entire political class as a whole, which he called: “Caste” pretending to represent the discontent of society in a powerful and decisive way, thus blurring the message of “change” proposed by the majority opposition alliance.
Javier Cercas tells in his fictional chronicle that Adolfo Suarez knew that the television cameras were filming the moment in which the coup plotters entered the premises with bursts of gunshots and more than his heroic gesture, it was an intelligent pose that was offered to him in his last moment to be able to retire with glory from a decadent scenario.
Evoking that anecdote, let’s analyze the gesture, the attitude that both candidates assumed following Sunday’s election results: Massa goes on stage alone and humbly accepts the unexpected result that places him as the winner almost seven points away from his opponent, who He was the favorite in the polls, and in his speech he has the intelligence to call for national unity and give a clear and forceful message expressing: “the crack is dead.”
That restorative moment establishes a conciliatory message that society has been asking for a long time and that none of the candidates from the competing political forces had decided to represent.
As a counterpart, Milei immediately assumes a triumphalist attitude, spurring existing divisions with destructive messages from the adversary, stating that he is coming to put the lid on the coffin of Kichnerism, an expression that reissues symbols of political violence that have not been seen in our country since the burning. of the radical coffin in the hands of Herminio Iglesias.
Paradoxically, the candidate of the political force responsible for the rift includes this demand in his speech and whoever establishes himself as the new expresses a renewed division.
Argentine society knows that while economic crises are temporary, political crises remain when divisions and antinomies are cultivated by the leadership. Personally, I believe that, beyond the political and economic models proposed by the two candidates, society will ultimately choose whoever is in the best position to represent that orphan demand in these elections. With so little time left for the electoral event, I believe that the speech that the two candidates gave following the last election event will have been the decisive “instant” that made the difference.
Neuquén lawyer and writer.
1698748373
#Anatomy #moment
