Local campaigns with great moral discussions. That seems to be the sign of 28-M. The racist insults against the Real Madrid player Vinícius in the Mestalla stadium last Sunday have crossed borders and have pierced the most superficial layers of the social epidermis. Soccer is a powerful striker. Star football is also a medium for some underlying social tensions. Rarely has the debate on racism reached such intensity in Spain. There are five days left for the vote.
The Government of Brazil has expressed its discomfort. (The Government of Lula da Silva, who recently visited Spain). The lights of the Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro have been turned off in protest. The international press has taken an interest in the subject. The insecure say that the Spain brand is at risk. The televisions have found a great song and these days social networks transport all the voltages of anger. Professional politics does not always write the agenda. Society also generates great topics for discussion, when the magma that comes from below is not blocked by the upper layers of the media. This time the lava flows and may reach the slopes on election day. The parties go with lead feet and with a fireproof suit so as not to burn.
The Vinícius case is a magnificent audience generator and has a powerful sponsor, Real Madrid, which has been determined for months to change the social perception of its brand. The white club is making notable efforts to blur its old symbolic link with Francoism and is now at the forefront of a noble cause, putting the bow to the reactionary leaders of the Professional Football League (LaLiga). The future models of stellar football competition are at stake.
Local campaign, moral discussion. Last week, the debate focused largely on the presence of former ETA militants on some municipal lists of the EH Bildu coalition. No law prevents them from standing in the elections, but the moral debate materialized to the point of forcing Bildu to make a gesture of correction: the former convicted of blood crimes will not collect the minutes if they are elected. Bildu did not rectify to do the PSOE a favor, he rectified so as not to lose votes beyond the traditional nationalist circles.
The PP stole the initiative from the PSOE for several days until Isabel Díaz Ayuso introduced the proposal to outlaw Bildu, that is, to begin to change the party system by force. At the moment, Bildu is gaining votes in the Basque Country and Navarra.
This week's framework is racism. Neither the Socialist Party has sought it nor surely the Popular Party wanted it, since it is a narrative in principle favorable to the left. The police have moved quickly. Yesterday three young men from Valencia were arrested who allegedly insulted the Brazilian player. They must appear in court in the coming days. Four other young people were arrested in Madrid for hanging a shirt with the name of Vinícius from a bridge.
Vox shut up. The far-right party seems to have parked the campaign against public assistance to unaccompanied foreign minors, to focus now on the rental aid received by the foreign population under current regulations. Posters have appeared in the Madrid metro with a reproduction of the forms of the Community of Madrid, with Arabic surnames. After having capitalized – outside of Madrid – Ayuso's campaign for the illegalization of Bildu, Vox is now trying to attract attention.
The great social debates always tend to saturation. The targeting of racism in the case of Valencia carries a political risk. Valencian society does not like to be stigmatized. In Valencia he began to lose his right the day the Madrid media began to broadcast the subliminal message that the corruption of the Gürtel case was "a thing of the Valencians." Reputation is a very sensitive issue in the key autonomous community in the elections next Sunday.
