In the long run, societies end up judging actions better than intentions, realities better than speeches. Time strips words bare and puts deeds in their place. It is no longer enough to pretend, deceive, or promise to maintain popular favor.
Read more Blow to credibility
These are words taken from the book Maquiavelo en democracia, written by Édouard Balladur, former Prime Minister of France who coexisted with Mitterrand and was a trusted man of President Pompidou. Eusebio Val yesterday made a fitting obituary of his figure as that of a Gaullist, liberal, and Europeanist politician.
Balladur says that “more than ideas, often simplistic, even caricatured, what counts are images.” What we nowadays understand as narratives.
Politics is necessary, noble in many cases, but ugly and thankless almost always. And when narratives do not match the facts, it becomes suspicious and counterproductive. Upon rereading the highlighted paragraphs of Maquiavelo en democracia, I could not help but relate them to the figure of Pedro Sánchez, who has not managed to convey the narrative that Morocco did not intervene in the invasion of Ceuta by more than eighty thousand people in the last two days of July.
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Sánchez’s narrative that Morocco did not participate in the invasion of Ceuta does not hold up
The claim that the Moroccan government did not participate in the invasion does not hold up. Nor is the narrative that social networks, Russia, and the reactionary international were the instigators of the massive assault on Ceuta credible. It is not asked that all information about state secrets be made public. But it is very suspicious that neither Sánchez nor any of his ministers have mentioned Morocco as a key and necessary piece of the invasion.
The crisis is very serious because Sánchez himself said in Ceuta on July 31 that “we are facing a violation and an attack on the territorial integrity of Spain.”
It is a crisis that mainly affects the people of Ceuta, but it is also a conflict that fully impacts Spanish and European politics. It is a credibility crisis for the Sánchez government, which does not know how to face it. It is a crisis of reliable official information in the era of hyperinformation. Narratives and speeches are not enough. It is necessary to know the facts and to know whether Morocco “is a partner and friendly country” or a hostile neighbor.
Read more The outcry against the Government over Ceuta mobilizes thousands of people in the main cities
