The gathering of nearly six thousand young people around bonds certifies a social and spiritual change
The poster hanging at the bar’s entrance was too optimistic: “Due to tonight’s event, service will only be at the bar, not at the tables.” The venue presented a sad emptiness at an hour when it would be packed if a salsa concert or a Podemos or Vox congress were being held. The surroundings of the Palacio de Vistalegre (Madrid) conveyed an unusual peace, which made me think of a report from the previous night on La Sexta, where they explained how Donald Trump had looked to Richard Nixon to rescue the concept of the ‘silent majority’ (ordinary people who in the sixties didn’t burn flags, bras, or become ‘hippies’ to overthrow the government). Does El Despertar represent the silent majority of Spain in our time? Very likely, although inside a specific and homogeneous look of a CEU-San Pablo university student dominated. The stadium was full of well-dressed people who listened respectfully to each speaker. I bet the beer sales record for a Saturday night was broken downward (it’s not a criticism, but a symptom of change).
Despite the success, we must speak plainly: the format didn’t quite work. Grouping conservative speakers three at a time, voices that spend many hours each week on our screens, is doomed to failure because they can only say the same thing in a shorter version. Those who paid for a ticket to see them will already know almost everything they’re going to explain. Plus, it didn’t foster debate, but successive monologues. The formula is too soft, which also has its advantages: attracting an audience without so much combative spirit. El Despertar showed itself too concerned with avoiding tension, and its problem was just the opposite: an excess of education. Neither the novelist Juan Manuel de Prada nor the French philosopher Fabrice Hadjadj raised any objection to the cheerleading speech of the economist Antonini de Jiménez, who defended such deranged premises as “Jesus Christ was the first entrepreneur because he sold a commodity no one had: salvation.” Pure neoliberal nonsense.
In any case, the “The awakening of work” panel was the most substantial of all. Juan Manuel de Prada even managed to respond to speakers who weren’t sitting with him. He replied to a video of C. Tangana where the trap superstar recommended bypassing institutions and dedicating oneself to “direct action,” a strategy that De Prada condemned as individualistic and misguided. He also responded to the essayist and communicator Jano García—from the previous panel—for defending that the system can never destroy human nature. The ABC columnist reminded us that one of C.S. Lewis’s best essays is titled The Abolition of Man (1943) and is dedicated to the ways in which earthly power can destroy eternal virtues.
Hadjadj offered a lesson in wisdom and humility. He apologized for his level of Spanish, which is actually very high, noting that he still speaks “like someone having a stroke.” He championed an essay by the anarchist professor David Graeber, titled Bullshit Jobs (2018), explaining that we live in a society that wants workers more concerned with their income than with their personal progress. Moreover, in every office, we should all be clear about the purpose of our efforts. Then he criticized the manure pile of our labor market with a bullfighting metaphor: “Whoever doesn’t grab the bull by the horns can only pick up its shit.” Hadjadj confirmed a love for Spain greater than that shown by many Spaniards, not just in his speech, but by moving his family home of ten children to Madrid to direct the Incarnatus institute, dedicated to training Catholics capable of facing the hostility and meaninglessness of the current world.
Father Jacques Philippe, pastor of the Community of the Beatitudes, was one of the most anticipated voices. He managed to summarize his defense of interior life in a couple of sentences: «Our attitude toward silence is usually ambiguous: we desire it, but at the same time we fear it. The void, solitude, boredom scare us, so it’s like a threat,” he laments. For Philippe, the importance of silence lies in the fact that «in the moment I am silent, I can welcome the other.»
It’s about finding a source of «peace and reconciliation» to reach God, an «infinite love where we can abandon ourselves and give ourselves with trust.» His experience tells him that «whoever seeks God in good faith finds Him.» His essays have had a great social impact: translated into more than twenty languages, he has sold nearly a million copies, with standout titles like Interior Freedom (2003, Rialp) and Interior Peace (2004, Rialp).
The panel that conveyed the greatest sense of shipwreck was “The awakening of spirituality.” It was composed of the evangelical Sarab Rey, the Catholic René ZZ—too similar at times to a Protestant preacher—and the political advisor Pedro Herrero, who had been tasked with representing the voice of atheists. It’s impossible to reach anything substantial in a half-hour dialogue, so it devolved into vagueness, personal anecdotes, and some confessions of vulnerability. They talked about the central role of the family, which may seem too obvious, but it’s being attacked by a left that seeks to destroy it, deconstruct it, and dilute it. Rey sang a very beautiful psalm against the rich, which says “the opulent man does not endure/ he is like the beasts.”
I don’t want to seem like a defeatist or a party pooper. It was exciting to be in a venue where the charismatic Ana Iris Simón championed the defense of roots, based on Simone Weil, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and her grandfather who passed away on Three Kings’ Night. It’s also important to hear De Prada praising “the anthropological resistance of founding a family in Albacete or Cuenca and wanting to stay there.” The faces of the attendees were happy, silent but happy.
Saturday’s gathering was possible, in large part, thanks to the work of hundreds of volunteers who for months organized thinkglaos (meetings with anti-progressive speakers) throughout Spain and abroad. It’s an undeniable triumph that big companies like Infojobs and La Caixa get involved in financing this project, but we must ask ourselves if it doesn’t already need a bit more voltage and what the limits are of working so in tune with the system. El Despertar is a field that we must all care for, contributing, debating, and deepening.