Every time I hear President Aragonés say that with the head of Paz Esteban (director of the CNI sacrificed at the altar of the Pegasus case) it is not enough "to resolve the espionage crisis" comes to me I remember the photo of the emeritus king in Botswana, posing with his shotgun next to the freshly shot elephant. What does one case have to do with the other? Not much, if we stick to the purpose of the hunts and the identity of the hunters and prey. But much more so when we compare the two's eagerness to collect new trophies: they've both behaved like compulsive, seemingly endless hunters.
The emeritus, recalcitrant hunter - of partridges, leopards, bison, bears ... and whatever came before him - believed in that distant 2012 that he had a well-deserved hunting and romantic getaway to Africa. And that's where he went. But the party ended in a bump and a hip fracture. Then came a stumbling block of worse consequences, which plunged from the heights of popular esteem to the abysses of collective reproach, and then even further down, so that previously reprehensible conduct was revealed.
For his part, Aragonés is upset - rightly - about the espionage he suffered when the Generalitat was occupied by his predecessor, that president-hooligan who encouraged the CDRs to "squeeze", and is upset - all the more so if it can be - for the espionage he suffered some time later, when he had already made a decisive contribution to the investiture of Pedro Sánchez since the presidency of the Generalitat.
That being said, we can say that the imperishable passion for the great game of King Juan Carlos now has a reflection in Aragonese, whom I imagine with batí, plantofes and a glass, clinging to his favorite armchair, contemplating his panoply of trophies, lamenting the loneliness of Paz Esteban's forehead and wishing to remedy it. For example, accompanying her with the head of the Minister of Defense. Or with the Minister of the Interior. Or, as we are, with that of the director general of the Civil Guard (tricorn included) or that of the director of the National Police. Being able to aspire to these trophies, who is content with a rooster, a deer or a lion? Or with a collection of bull bull heads?
I would not want to offend readers opposed to hunting with this comment. But it is difficult to forget that in Spain hunting is a widespread hobby. More than a million federal licenses were issued before the crisis. If there are fewer of them - around 750,000 - it's not because they don't want to go out and shoot, but because the cartridges don't give them away, and when they need to be saved, they fall off the shopping list. However, hunting is popular enough that some autonomous communities have set out to give hunting licenses to children under the age of fourteen. That's the way it is.
Now, it's one thing to hunt and another to not get tired of hunting. Dickens described hunting as "a passion deeply rooted in human beings." But he did not say that this would make us serial hunters, capable, with the newly collected piece on our feet, still hot, bleeding, with an empty gaze, of forgetting it and thinking of the next one. This is what Aragonés refers to when he warns that "those who believe that the cessation [of Paz Esteban] will end the purge are wrong". He makes the unpleasant feeling of being someone with an insatiable thirst for repair; or revenge and punishment, which tarnishes his image; moreover, it is far from that poster of peaceful movement, which has never broken a plate, so loved by independence, in which it is so much liked and recreated.
In addition to tearing down new pieces - whether in the rival ranks or their own, which is all there is to it - the pro-independence leadership would do well to prioritize other more peremptory and convenient issues for the smooth running of the country, and even and all for their own interests. All the more so now, when according to a poll published on Monday in this newspaper, more than 70% believe that independence should not be a priority for the Government. Aragonés himself is aware of this, even if he is not preaching it, and as a rule he acts accordingly. Perhaps that is why he sometimes thinks it appropriate to compensate for his political pragmatism with statements of a compulsive hunter. Should that be the explanation?
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