20.30: Fourth post of the day.

A second article from today’s Voz de Galicia:-

For when the rains arrive

The enormity of the disaster is unimaginable. But even while the pall of smoke, the noise of the planes and helicopters and the smell of scorching all continue to grow, so does the temptation on the part of trade unionists and politicians to go for a share of the big cake of responsibilities demanded by all those with an eye on the near horizon. Yesterday in the HQ of the Xunta [Galician government] there were piles of leaflets in which the CIG* heaps all the blame for what we’ve been going through for more than a week on the Xunta. But not this Xunta. The one which governed until 2004!

A terrific business, of course; according to the CIG, the government is responsible for management of a crisis, right or wrong, but only if it’s their political opponents who form the government. If it’s their friends who form the government, then the crisis must be openly laid at the door of the opposition.

This, of course, is a bad route to take. In fact, it’s the worst imaginable in the circumstances. For it can and should be asked of the opposition that it doesn’t take out its knife and slit the government’s throat while Galicia is burning like it‘s never burned before in its history. In return, it’s clear that neither the government nor its supporters should pillory the opposition.
There will be a time to determine who should pay for this cataclysm, if there is to be anyone – most of all the heartless creatures starting fires in the mountains – who finally has to pay. For now, it’s appropriate to give an image of unity even if there isn’t any - more than anything to avoid adding the bloody spectacle of party bickering to the suffering of thousands of Galicians who are facing the flames with nothing to help them but their pans, the hoses and their determination to win the war against the fires.

So, unity; because the victims of this horror deserve it. And unity, too, in seeking the help of the [Spanish] state, without which we won’t be able to recover when – after the fires are out – calm returns and we can begin to evaluate what has been burned. For all of us think the state has to come to our aid. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to take into account that, as soon as it rains, we will once again be pestering about the national rights of Galicia and all those marvels which no one now remembers, when we have to sound the alarm so that those have helped us in the past can help us again and will surely do so again in the future – that Spanish state that some always insist on speaking about with contempt.

*The Confederation of Galician Trade Unionists.