The only certainty we all have is our inevitable death. What we don't know is where or how. Even so for every son of a neighbor without exception, it would seem that those who are most affected by this inescapable appointment with the grim reaper are the politicians, whether they are democrats or despots, and, by extension, the remaining monarchs, in addition to the famous and famous from any branch of culture or culture, but without excluding, of course, religious or nationalist leaders with airs of greatness, not to mention the richest men on the planet who do not think they will die even if it is shot.
It would seem that the recently deceased Elizabeth II of England was completely right when it came to saying goodbye, at the age of 96, to this world, since rather few have been the criticisms dedicated to her kingdom or her person. The sum of her tireless dedication to her charge along with her unwavering loyalty to democratic rules has been enough to draw a thick veil over certain unflattering issues that occurred during her long reign.
That yes, surely that right now more than one paid investigator will be tracking archives and newspaper libraries, in search of some unacceptable word or activity that to date has been able to hide from public scrutiny but, once disclosed by the networks, could , in a matter of hours, ruin the image of the late monarch who, for many, was born and died without conceived sin.
Much more crude is the emeritus king of Spain, Juan Carlos I. If he died before the unfortunate incident of hunting an elephant in Africa and how much he himself has contributed to his fall from grace and his long exile, probably little either we would know nothing about all this now or we would simply not give it importance. He would have received at his death all the honors for having returned to Spain a democracy -despite his defects- exemplary of him.
It is early to know if Jordi Pujol's numerous attempts to clear his name will come to fruition before he appears before the incorruptible judges of posterity. Had he died before the confession of the accounts in Andorra, it is more than likely that he would have received a funeral worthy of a head of state, without being one, of course. But now…
It is said that on one occasion Mao stated that it was still too early to comment on the French Revolution, since the same can be said of Napoleon whose armies left a trail of blood and destruction throughout Europe. Hero or villain? Chi knows. Then there is Churchill, the admired and much-loved political joker who continues to be credited with numerous witty quotes that all too often turn out to be apocryphal; or that he always miraculously comes out on top when reviewing his blunders, not to mention the deadly atrocities for which he and he alone was responsible. The persistence of the whitewashing of his legend is astonishing.
If until very recently there was no asylum that did not have at least one madman who believed himself to be Napoleon, now, starting with Boris Johnson, there are many politicians who believe they are Churchill, an extreme that contributes, and in what way, to turning parliaments into ungovernable madhouses.
Churchill was more faceted than a diamond cut in Antwerp, but he was a warrior first and foremost. In October 1940, that is, when Great Britain was alone in the middle of the Nazi offensive against the island, he confessed to his secretary: “People were talking nonsense when they said that wars never serve to solve problems. ; Nothing has been resolved throughout history that was not through wars.”
The bad thing is that there are more and more leaders, whether democrats or totalitarians, who agree with Churchill on this point. And what is worse, they do not say it confined to an insane asylum for believing themselves to be vicissitudes of the English warrior, but rather they proclaim it in parliamentary headquarters. They say it because, lacking ideas, ideals or scruples, they see no other way out, they don't give more of themselves. The gas cuts that are expected from now on could turn the embers of the cold war into a very hot war that will punish us all without exception, like the reaper.
