Antonio Navalón
June 6 is and will continue to be a key date in the history of humanity, but especially among European nations.
On June 6, 1944, the Normandy shores turned gray. That day, more than 150 thousand soldiers, more than 6 thousand ships, and more than 11 thousand planes from England began landing the allied troops in the northern part of the European continent. The also known as Operation Overlord, had the intrinsic objective of ending the Nazi regime as soon as possible and containing the power and conquests that Adolf Hitler had managed to perpetuate throughout Europe. This day is also known as the longest day. It was a moment in the Second World War in which, if the Germans had succeeded in dissolving or facing the landing, surely the end of the war would have been delayed and at great cost. This action was crucial since, at that time, there was also the imminent risk that Hitler and the Germans would manage to discover the nuclear weapon before the Allies did. If that had happened, the ending would definitely have been unpredictable.
In history, there is no ‘would.’ There is only the accumulation of circumstances and the correct and timely analysis of the facts. An analysis that allows us to know from what material the foundations of history are built, but what ultimately resolves – in one sense or another – the outcome of history itself.
I have to admit that right now, I am in awe. I never thought that I would live in a time when electoral campaigns would never end. If you go and ask, you will discover that in the United States, more than 70 percent of the members of the Republican Party are convinced that in the last elections, they were robbed. It is clear to them that Joe Biden did not beat their leader Donald Trump, but simply that the elections were a complete robbery. It does not matter that the leaders of the Republican Party with government responsibilities in states like Georgia or Arizona maintain the opposite. That 70 percent of party members prefer to believe – beyond all reason – that the world would be better if the American president remained their leader.
However, the truth has nothing to do with what you really have to look for in collective happiness. Insane? I do not know. What I do know is that this is the situation. Currently, the United States lives in a permanent campaign. But it is not the only country. Without going any further, other countries, such as Spain – not to mention Israel – that are in a similar situation of endless campaigns. In addition, the political instability is so great that the only constant thing is the confrontation and the brink of uncivil wars. If one takes a good look at the international scene, one will realize that – except for the dangerous game in which it is all or nothing and which means drawing a scenario of warlike confrontation between China and the West – everything else, what is and supposes to be the political action, is based on the war of extermination against each other.
Democracies are no longer inclusive. Democracies have become something that is used to inaugurate the dance, choose someone, and choose one to do what matches their interests. In this sense, the person who is elected acquires not only a license to govern, regardless of what he swears to govern – under the supposed safeguard and protection of the Constitution that they promise to defend – but also these persons feel that they have carte blanche to represent a new time, their time. It seems that from the moment they take office, the vote that their citizens granted them ceases to be valid for four or six years, as the case may be. From that moment, the vote they were given becomes a tool to rewrite history from beginning to end.
As historian Paul Brown recently stated, there is only one thing worse than not knowing history. It is to reinvent or twist history to increase resentment between one another. If we add to that the origin trap – the same one that applies according to the electoral legislation of each country – of being able to create a police force or a kind of Frankenstein that allows you to come to power and then force the institutional and legal machinery, we find two relatively new elements due to their size and presence. First, we would be facing the crossing of history to increase resentment between peoples. And, secondly, we would find ourselves facing the creation of mechanisms of temporary interest to cover the process and do – once in power – exactly the opposite of the rules established before being elected.
These types of circumstances and scenarios are something that is constantly repeated. The trends, the abuse of power, and the permanent search that there is always someone who understands that he is the man chosen to enforce the historical destiny of nations have lately become elements that are above the laws and above what is common sense. That there are these types of leaders who believe that their word is the last and the only thing that matters is something that does not surprise me. What does surprise me is what the rest of us do. And it is that the rest – for example, that 70 percent of the Republican Party – we get used to living normally with the denial of common sense and with a social structure in which, inevitably, although we do well, we will end up in a civil war. However, in the worst case, we will end up generating a permanent dependence on societies that cannot tolerate each other and whose model will not convince, but rather will defeat each other.
On June 6, 1944, the Nazis and authoritarians lost the war or began to lose it. But at that time, beyond the factors that were presented and that ended up deciding the fight in favor of the Allies, the objective was clear: to stop the increasingly forceful power of Adolf Hitler. Here and now, I think it is important to understand that there is a clear feeling that, if the landing occurs, the end of the war is served. For this reason, I am not surprised by anything that is tried to be done by the government or by those who were at some point in power. What you need to know is that right now, every day is D-Day for the defense of democracy.
Election day is not only the day on which one vote – which is also a crucial moment – but it is also the day people live, administer and govern themselves according to certain game rules. Although there is the right to change these rules based on the popular mandate, this is possible to do as long as people have not been misled or cheated under this same mandate. Winning an election is not the same as winning a referendum to change a Constitution and transform a country. Going from law to law and respecting the legal system is not only the right thing to do, but it is surely also the only thing that guarantees the survival of political systems and the organization of society.
In the age of social media, confrontation, and the age of annihilation of the social order, all of this is nothing more than empty words that will probably go nowhere. But what is important is that we know that – just as some do not care about the absence of evidence that proves that there was theft in the United States elections – we are living through political processes in which we will not have any possibility of being able to change or alter if we do not understand that the problem is that we have entered a wicked game. A game in which those who have to defend legality not only dream of changing it – which as long as they have the votes, instruments, and procedures, without a doubt they have the right and the capacities to do so – but they play at twisting it now and using it from within to give birth, out of time, to a new legality that is not announced.
June 6 is and will continue to be a key date in the history of humanity, but especially among European nations. Now we will also have to see why and for what reasons it will be in other countries.
