Filling Potholes with Empty Promises

Writing in the local paper. Local Issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs, which can now be seen online as well. 

We had just crossed the street when my youngest daughter looked up at me
and said, “Daddy, why is the whole city being fixed? Was it so broken before?”
I smiled to myself as I fondly thought back to the fact that she would have
just been learning to walk the last time the election repair cycle had taken
place. At five years of age, she had just had stumbled upon her first political
insight. A realization that, long before the smiling yet anodyne faces of
candidates adorn the lampposts and the official political campaigns begin,
roads begin to get torn up in a clumsy attempt to remind the electorate that
those in charge are in fact getting things done. A political maneuver that is
definitely not case specific to Caceres, nor even Spain. I’ve seen this crude
sleight of hand the world over, but it is a phenomena that seems particular acute
here due to the strong association that Spaniards seem to hold between roads
and progress. In the months and weeks leading up to the elections, political
agendas brim with openings, rushed inaugurations and the plaques that accompany
these ceremonies and it’s precisely the wording on these dedications that pique
my curiosity. The words ‘excelentisimo’
and ‘ilustisima’ may seem normal to
Spanish speakers but to someone new to the language like me, they have always
struck me as somewhat noble sounding. I’m certainly no Spanish major, but these
routine protocol formulae appear to me as though they are titles bestowed onto
someone born into a royal bloodline rather than someone who has been elected into
public office by their fellow citizens. I’ve lived here long enough to know
that the black legend of a supposedly anti-democratic Spain, propagated by
those like the Catalan separatists, couldn’t be further from the truth, but
words have power and often betray perspectives. In a country that doesn’t allow
for open electoral lists and abhors the liberty to vote against the Party, I
wonder if indeed there is some truth to my hunch. From the mouths of babes come
damning truths and there are deeper things that need addressing than patching up
patches.