In the same way that DANA alone does not kill more than two hundred people without the collaboration of negligent rulers who do not notify the population in time, neither is DANA alone the author of the destruction of so many homes, businesses, infrastructure and vehicles.
We love metaphors based on natural phenomena, especially meteorological ones, and we apply them to any political, economic or cultural event. Whether it is an electoral result, a financial crisis, the increase in unemployment, the arrival of immigrants, a sporting victory or the latest musical success, we always draw on the repertoire of the most impetuous nature: hurricane, storm, tsunami, earthquake, tide…
I suppose it is because we are still insignificant humans who look with amazement and horror at the anger of nature, equated to a terrible and capricious divinity, and is our unit of measurement for every extraordinary event. The truth is that the use and abuse of these metaphors contributes to naturalizing events that are not at all natural, making those responsible invisible, and spreading fatalism and resignation: who can resist an economic crisis or an overwhelming victory at the polls, when They are narrated as cyclones, waves or earthquakes.
If events of human origin are seen as natural phenomena, what are we to think of a phenomenon that in origin seems undoubtedly natural to us, without the need for metaphors: a DANA like the one that devastated Valencia. Water coming from the sky, without figurative meaning: clouds that form in the sea, that the wind moves, that the shock of temperatures revolutionizes, that drains over the land, that swells rivers. Everything is pure nature, who is going to doubt it. We can blame Mazón, but deep down we assume that the destruction was caused by DANA, that is, nature.
And yet, the DANA is us. It’s us too. I paraphrase the title of Dario Adanti’s brilliant comic about the climate crisis, “The meteorite is us.” The UN Secretary, Antonio Guterres, said the same thing a few months ago: if we talk about the deterioration of the planet, this time “we are not the dinosaurs but the meteorite.” And the same can be said about DANA: it is us.
We are in the first place for the same reason that Adanti and Guterres say: because we are the climate change, and the violence of this DANA, and of others that may come, is linked to the anomalous warming of the Mediterranean, and other climatic agents that increase the frequency and intensity of this type of phenomena.
As there will be those who question it (and not only the official deniers), those who remember that there has been a “cold drop” in the Levant all their lives, and even those who, despite climate change, continue to consider DANA a phenomenon of nature, only intensified by human action but of nature at the end of the day, let us insist on the idea: we are the DANA because the devastation of so many towns was not caused by the rain alone, nor by the overflowing water from the ravines, but by the political carelessness that has allowed massively develop floodplains, which still allows it today, and does not take the necessary measures to address threats that have been warned for years.
In the same way that DANA alone does not kill more than two hundred people without the collaboration of negligent rulers who do not notify the population in time, neither is DANA alone the author of the destruction of so many homes, companies, infrastructures and vehicles: Without the hard help of successive municipal, regional and central governments, urban planners and builders, I would not have achieved it no matter how DANA it was. It’s like earthquakes: the same seismic intensity does not cause the same death and destruction in Japan as in Haiti, since each country offers very different resistance. The same goes for our terrible DANA, which we left rivers and ravines with no escape to overflow, and we put many houses and industrial estates in front of it for it to destroy.
If the Valencian catastrophe has any positive effect (to say the least), it is that suddenly all administrations begin to review their territories in the most sensitive areas, most exposed to flooding. That attempts to develop flood-prone land, such as Tablada in Seville, be abandoned; Projects such as the expansion of the Prat airport are questioned, for the same reasons, or those who until yesterday intended to relax restrictions in risk areas reflect. Hopefully it will serve to accelerate the necessary measures, rethink the urban model, completely disavow the deniers and stop voting for rulers whose negligence always appears in catastrophes.
Because DANA is us, yes, but some more than others.
#DANA
