Now, as the Cumbre Vieja volcano has entered a cruel and unleashed youth, it has been decided to take out three virgins to stop the eruptive process. Three better than one, of course, as shown by Charlie’s Angels or The Golden Triplets. Don Bernardo, who has touched us 300 years later, has preferred discretion and has called it “a gesture”. Anyone can see the images: a priest raising the cross with a group of faithful behind and there, at the end of the night, the tongue of fire that seems to twist in the darkness. It gives a lot of grief. I have read furious reactions from friendly anticlericals like me, but I am not up to the task of snacking on polychrome carvings. The accumulated suffering – and the indescribable fatigue generated by the combination of pain and uncertainty – is so intense that it transforms this prayer into a funny anecdote. Of course I find it embarrassing. Of course I cannot stop reflecting for two or three minutes on the bernardos weavers that if they believe that three figures can stop a geological phenomenon they should not assume any responsibility in front of a group of adults, and if they do not believe it, they just act like phonies. But so many things are happening, and so excruciating. Peoples and communities, like individuals, need memory to maintain their identity. We are what we remember. Hundreds of palm trees have not only been robbed of their house, farm or business by lava forever: they have been stripped of the space of their memories as if their skin had been torn off in strips. To lashes of fire.
Otherwise the virgins have been wrong. Yesterday it was possible to know what some suspected. The Spanish Confederation of Entrepreneurs announced that it would not attend any more meetings with the Ministry of Social Security, Inclusion and Migration until it was heard about the self-employed from La Palma. It’s very simple: an additional provision of Royal Decree Law 18/2021 established the possibility that the self-employed affected by the Cumbre Vieja eruption could access an extraordinary benefit. Well then: the self-employed and businessmen affected by the volcanic activity are excluded if they do not terminate themselves as self-employed and fire their workers. They will also be obliged to return the bonuses for the pandemic received to date. This dirty scoundrel – which affects more than 5,000 freelancers and small palm entrepreneurs – has been communicated to those affected without anyone’s pulse shaking. The three virgins should not approach Cumbre Vieja, but rather demonstrate, under the sign of the Cross, in front of the Government Delegation in La Palma. Because these guys keep their commitments and act with diligence and solidarity is going to be a true miracle.
