Like a ‘wayward’ rock star. This is how King Juan Carlos has been treated during his recent visit to Spain. Or more than visit we should say ‘tour’ —the Juan Carlos Tour’22—. A long-awaited ‘tour’ that has embarrassed a large part of the citizens of Spain and its society, as a whole, but which has been applauded and cheered on by not a few Spaniards, journalists, politicians and other personalities.
Despite the fact that Spain is a country that is drowning in corruption and is not capable of getting out of it — ‘stagnant’, according to Transparency International, in position 14/27 in Europe and 34/180 in the world with a 61/100 — explains Luis Gonzalo Segura, a former lieutenant in the Spanish Army, in an opinion article for RT.
Spain ‘celebrates’ it. It jocularly enjoys such severe drama as someone who applauds in the morning at the person who robbed him the night before after showing him the darkness of the soul. That incomprehensible fervor that only fanatics or ignorant people can show. A part of the Spanish society, Juan Carlos’ staunch followers, forgive him everything.
Among other issues, this happens because these followers are fueled by disinformation, in some cases ‘obscene’ disinformation, but in others, as in the case of the newspaper El País, the disinformation is delivered with gloves as white as the robber’s. It is enough to offer a minor coverage, as if it were only a somewhat relevant event and dispatch the matter as soon as possible. For example, the last chapter of the tour of the royal artist formerly known as the ‘Campechano’, only deserved a small box on its cover on the morning of May 24 —El Mundo, for example, the other reference newspaper, no stranger to the system, dedicated that same morning, as it had for days, the main part of the cover to the Juan Carlos ‘tour’.
Otherwise, those who shouted «Long live the King!» would have had to contain themselves by remembering that, just a day ago, the European Commission had alerted Spain about its high debt and high unemployment. Spain is in no condition for many parties nor for many stars’ ‘tours’.
The cost of the king’s ‘tour’
The five days that Juan Carlos has spent in Spain after his pleasant stay in the United Arab Emirates, that beautiful dictatorship in which workers are slaves and die by the hundreds or thousands a year, have had a cost. But, unlike the tours of the great rock stars, the king Juan Carlos has not paid for it. He has only enjoyed it: we have paid for it. But we don’t even know how much it has cost. Those little things of the full Spanish democracy. And its transparency.
«Neither the Casa del Rey, nor the Governmental Delegation in Galicia, nor the City Council of Sanxenxo (Pontevedra), where he stayed, have given details, they only indicate that the increase over the usual was minimal», can be read in El País, one of the main Spanish newspapers. «Minimal» is hardly quantifiable, and even less transparent.
The four usual agents that Juan Carlos has in the dictatorship of the Persian Gulf, who are paid by the Spaniards, became eight, and the three personal assistants who normally attend to the personal needs of Juan Carlos remained (three people who take turns). Therefore, It is plausible, that the monthly cost of 50,000 euros to safeguard and attend the Campechano, according to journalists at the service of the Spanish State in media such as El País, have increased. Although that figure surely hides something, given that the Spanish monarchy always hides something —like that little year in which they did not tell us that Felipe VI was the beneficiary of an account with 100 million from Juan Carlos and that, suddenly, after being published in international media, they confessed.
A rogue star called to order
However, in the Casa del Rey, Juan Carlos’s rock ‘tour’ has not gone down well. Not so much for the crimes he has committed, which matter very little to a royal family accustomed for centuries to participate in all kinds of crimes, betrayals, plunder and other shamelessness, but for what could erode the monarchy’s ‘credibility’ itself. The House of King Felipe VI does not fear the excesses of Juan Carlos I, much less questions his crimes, far-right affiliations or praise for the Franco dictatorship —it shares them—, what it fears is running out of a future. Therefore, there was an eleven-hour meeting between Juan Carlos and Felipe.
Almost half a day of meeting in which Felipe VI, reminded King Emeritus Juan Carlos, in words like when you talk with small children, that it is not a problem that he has committed or commits multiple crimes, since Felipe VI himself has agreed to the continuity of legal inviolability with the PSOE and the PP —if he were not in favor of the figure of the delinquent monarch, whose Bourbon lineage has been elevated to a new category, he would have eliminated the aforementioned feudal privilege—.
No, the problem is not the crimes —such as the one of which he is accused in the United Kingdom in relation to harassing Corinna—, the problem is the ostentation of these, the lack of a minimum of cynicism or hypocrisy to apologize for that, that you do not feel that you should ask for forgiveness or, at least, some discretion. That is, a little please, That’s all. Well, we all know that Juan Carlos thinks that he has not stolen anything, that he has only taken what is his and Corinna’s, well, these are things that happen. And that, in any case, he surely thinks that we should thank him for existing and for not having turned Spain into a formal dictatorship, but into an authoritarian regime with the appearance of democracy in which the same people who ruled during the dictatorship, still rule.
A King under no control
As if that were not enough, everything indicates that it is a wake-up call that will not have any effect. No rock star ever got straightened out, or hardly any. And Juan Carlos does not seem to be an exception, especially when the Spanish, who are more proud than ever of the monarch who committed multiple crimes under the cloak of impunity of legal inviolability, even asked him to take selfies with them. In addition, the Sanxenxo city council accredited more than two hundred journalists —many foreigners—, the Real Club Náutico had to increase three Internet lines and the entries in the competition rose to the point of having almost fifty international boats. Too many benefits, too many people delighted with the visit of the wayward monarch who still occupies his days in an Asian dictatorship due to the excess of his good for nothing attitude, raids and crimes in national territory.
A punishment, exile -or flight-, from which he seems to have drawn no conclusion -because it has already been announced that he will return in June, in a new challenge-, since a video circulates on social networks of Juan Carlos leaving a local seafood bar at dawn —at least at night—. Juan Carlos, who knows he is a star —and likes to appear as such—, stops to greet the crowd waiting for him to leave. «Good night,» he says, smiling in a sober state—when anyone else would have avoided such a situation. «What, and now whores, eh, Majesty?», asks one of many Spanish subjects. Juan Carlos, instead of being offended like any person with a minimum of decency, laughs sincerely. «How folksy (campechano) he is!», says another.
He is. And a lot. Above all, for those two million poor Spanish children and that 11% of Spanish households that cannot turn on the heating because they do not have enough resources. Perhaps among them is one of those who later shouted to Juan Carlos «Long live the Republic!» without Juan Carlos showing much concern or interest. After a few laughs and a «How’s the centollo?», Because of his well-known reputation, someone concluded: «Full and without drugs!». A wayward rock star would have been told the same thing. Or not.
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