Security is generally thought to be only physical, and in some cases logical if it affects programs or technology. But people are always the ultimate target, so there is not only a physical side, but also a logical and emotional side.
Moreover, they are connected to each other, because when one is secluded for a long time his emotional processes are clearly affected. But the reverse is also true, with examples like the Nazi death camps, Stalin's gulags, and Mao's cultural revolution. Many years before Nazism came to power, anti-Semitic feeling was evident throughout Prussia.
Although there are many examples, some are occurring in Spain. When a minister, a mother of three, says that she is better off alone and drunk, would we go to a doctor, knowing that she is or is drunk? Can a minister of equality, who is supposed to be in the service of the Spanish, be a drunk?
The thing does not stop there, her husband, vice-president of the Government, swears or promises the Constitution and the constitutional order, while the next day he says he is a Republican. What is the point? What is his final objective?
The Minister of Universities, a native Castilian, an independentist, says that his Ministry has no powers. If he is so dignified and moral, why doesn't he resign?
The problem is that the opposition is not very strong either. Can you pass sixteen subjects in four months? Why does the former president of the Community of Madrid or the former minister of Health of this government need fictitious master's degrees?
A few days ago, I was sent a message justifying the failure to pass from Madrid to phase 1, against the criteria of the president of the Community. I saw them as logical and reasonable, what I did not see as reasonable was that the same people who said that made no mention of the people who had made the report, nor did they publish the lists of the Ministry's mask suppliers. Why?
All these events, and many others, make me uneasy, disorientated, disorganised and difficult to carry out my normal activity. My mother used to say that: "deeds are love and not good reasons". Here it seems that it is a matter of saying one thing and doing another.
This emotional insecurity is going to lead us to another physical one with unsuspected consequences, since the worst instincts will be unleashed, committing the known atrocities.
For a few years now we have all been familiar with the phenomenon called balconing, whereby some people jumped into the pool from floors in the hotels they were staying in. The result was broken arms or legs at best. All this happened because it was against a law of physics, that of gravity, by which all bodies are attracted to the earth. If someone who is intoxicated dares to go against it, he will have to bear the consequences.
On September 23, 1999, the Mars Climate probe crashed on Mars, and the reason was that the programs it carried were written in the Metric System, while the artifacts understood it in pounds and feet. 125 million dollars wasted. The dialogue between the Community of Madrid and the Government is similar.
These examples make me think that the bill we will pay will be more than expensive, and it will not be just money.
How can we recover our emotional security? By avoiding emotional disorganisation, by resorting to our traditional values, the ones that have been proven to work like gravity, and by speaking a single language. It seems we are in times where the end justifies the means.
That is why we should ask ourselves and answer ourselves: What if they did it to me? Is it reasonable? Can everything be said and done without responsibility?
Manuel García Ramírez
Independent consultant
Director of MGR Consultores IT y Seguridad. Former Director of IT Production in Financial Entities. Director of Security at the Catholic University of Avila. Degree in Physics from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.