If I said that this text is green, I should keep it for myself and work on it further. But if I were to say that this text is green, maybe I could sneak it in like everything has lately: under the pretext of protecting the environment. Or, if anything, some old man would suppose that it is erotic: dirty old men, dirty stories, all greenery will perish. So I could give it the green light, and see if I publish it. Or not: doubt has always turned me green.
The word green says so much and has —they say— a confusing origin: the most opportunistic suppose that it comes from the Latin viridis, “young, vigorous”. Verga, virgo and executioner also come from there: from each trunk many branches. In any case, green has always been associated with the idea of a plant at its best, thriving strongly. Green was, therefore, the color of hope: what is going to be, something that grows. But also the color of envy, because the bile generated by that unfairly disdained emotion dyes green, they said, the skin of the person who feels it.
For centuries green did not have a great place in our culture. The first great Western and Christian invasion—failed, crusade—was launched against green, which was then the color of Islam because Muhammad had used it often. Perhaps for this reason —among other things— the kingdoms of these parts preferred white, the color of purity and totality, one that only the richest could wear because it got too dirty. And perhaps that is why the revolutions that cleaned them up clung to red, the color of the blood they had to shed to wash them away.
There were attempts to unite whites and reds: the French flag, the first bourgeois national banner, united them with the blue of the common people. Red moved on. It was, perhaps, the color of the 20th century: the most powerful countries of those years —England, the United States, the USSR, China— had it; the most ruthless movements—Nazism, Communism—as well. And now some still have it, but if this time has a color it would undoubtedly be green.
In two very different ways. There are, on the one hand —minor, decisive—, the traffic lights. Nobody really knows why or who decided that, in those apparatuses that regulate our lives, green should be the color of permission and red that of prohibition. When he was a boy he imagined some act of anti-communism: it is not probable. They say that the first red and green traffic light was installed in London around 1868 to control horse-drawn carriage traffic. The light was gas and, after a month, it exploded in the face of a policeman and everything failed. It was only 50 years later, in different North American cities, already full of electricity and motor cars, that the idea was tried again —and it was installed: green was you can, red no. Since then, the idea that green is a friendly light, that lets you do what you want, spread non-stop. Giving something the green light is, we know, giving it way, allowing it to happen: almost nothing exists without a green light. Seeing green is, in truth, feeling welcome, green.
But now the great champions of the green word are, of course, environmentalists. It was logical that, from the beginning, they chose the color green to represent themselves: the plants, once again, the emerald grass. But perhaps they did not imagine the diffusion that this would have. Countries were inundated with green parties, green industries, green initiatives; There is no politician that does not offer greenery and vegetables, there is no company that does not boast of its verdigracia, to be green is to be good, good, good. To be green is to stand above the divisions — that political nonsense — and dedicate yourself to what really matters: saving the world from ourselves. Saving the planet, they say, as if the planet were in danger —when what could be, if anything, is our ability to live on it, to use it. But being green looks good, it allows you to show interest in the common good without neglecting even a shred of your own. For this reason, being green is often being superior —believing oneself superior: looking at others as if from above. So much so that here in Spain, for example, two new parties —one Francoist and one slightly Peronist— coincided in adopting green for their banners.
We live, it is clear, a green age; it will mature And, then, what color will the world be?
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