Greetings to all

Last Monday, a comedian from Murcia received a couple of slaps during his performance from a supposed ultra with whom he had surpassed himself on Twitter, insulting his son.

The fact itself seems irrelevant. One more altercation, like the many that populate our timeline. But it began to resonate beyond digital borders when everyone (including myself) began to see in that battle archetypes of the great civil conflict that we suffer.

That if one represented the family defense integrity. What if the other wanted to defend the future sexual freedom of a baby. What if one was ultra. What if someone else had collaborated with Broncano (!).

And there, in that moment, the fight became a metaphor for all our philias and phobias. Of good and evil. We all took sides and felt that one of the sides represented us more than the other. We laughed at the comedian lying on the ground after the punch or we said that the ultra was a Nazi. Gatherers of all kinds and types they began to justify or accuse. We created mental arguments to shed light on the part of the story that suited us. Some even began to seek their own grievances with “well, they once told me…they’re going to find out.”

We understood, together, that that was the dynamic. There had been a fight, how could we not all feel like victims of aggression? Weren’t we all a victim? Each one identified the aggressor within their particular fight. We did not understand the reason of any other than our own. We behave as we do with everything public. We are all already trained in binary logic.

And when the conflict began to become Goyesque, when it was already bordering on the boredom to which we are accustomed, when it seemed that all hope was lost, at that precise moment the illusion arrived; an apology message from the comedian understanding that his joke had crossed all limits and an acceptance on the part of the other stating that he also defended his freedom of expression.

All that anger ends with “Greetings.” Two words, spare and dull that seem more typical of a email of customer service, but which, in this case, contain in their meaning the beauty of someone who understands what they have done wrong and recognizes it.

In the end, we were all trying to teach one of the two characters in this story and we have received the lesson. Because they have been the ones who have decided that, sometimes, the brave and fair thing to do is to take a step back. Recognizing the reason in another is much braver, much more honorable than encouraging one’s own. Understand that “a greeting” is worth gold when you offer it to someone who has hurt you It is understanding those hackneyed and overused words like concord and coexistence.

So from this platform I would like to say thank you. I want to give the thanks to inappropriate comedian and father ultra courage. Thanks for the lesson. At least I take note. I hope that in these dark days of cudgels and reasons we can say “greetings.” Greetings to those in front. In the end I can’t think of a more Spanish way, more ours, more sober and beautiful way to end any discussion. So from this rostrum… Greetings to all!

*Abelardo Bethencourtgraduated in Law from the Autonomous University of Madrid and co-founder and general director of Ernest.