On 28 June 2016, ten years after the Partido Nacionalista Canario embarked on a new unity agreement with Paulino Rivero's Coalición Canaria, in my capacity as president of the PNC I sent letters to José Miguel Barragán and Román Rodríguez to open a broader and more ambitious nationalist dialogue. I never received a reply from either of the two addressees, who are the heads of their respective organisations.
Politically retired to my winter quarters in Laguna for the last two years, I have no choice but to acknowledge, first of all, the crisis suffered by my organisation, the PNC, after the break with the Coalición Canaria of Fernando Clavijo and Ana Oramas in the elections of 2023, the crisis that means for Coalición Canaria the fact that in the last European elections it was the fourth political force in the Archipelago, being surpassed by PP, PSOE and VOX! and the other crisis that has reached my ears in Nueva Canarias, where the historic leaders of that organisation are being questioned by new generations of militants and officials. Three organisational structures defending a nationalism for the Canary Islands, at different speeds, it is necessary to remember, doomed to unquantifiable but evident disasters.
I had a front row seat at the creation of the Canary Islands Coalition, where what prevailed was a spirit of unity in the nationalist struggle, perhaps more pragmatic than ideological, but generating a climate of future understanding, where each organisation analysed and sought to find common ground with the others and put aside differences, All in favour of creating a Canarian national conscience and facing the real problems that lay ahead, starting with the REF, which had been called into question by the socialist ministers of the time, and which led to the creation of a parliamentary majority in the spring of 1993. Everything seemed to suggest that "rational" Canarian nationalism was making headway and expanding its forces.
But then came the egos and ill-will and everything that seemed to be on track was cut short and the ruptures began. Rifts that today have only worsened, not only between them but also within each of them.
These are the reflections of a witness to all that has happened, a witness overcome by events, scepticism and self-criticism.
I trust less and less in writings like this, nobody reads anybody. We are buried by an avalanche of daily information that no one is able to digest.
But if the few of us who still believe in the nationalist solution in the Canaries have any use for it, I do warn that we are losing precious time for the future of our generations.
Unpostponable tasks await us. Tasks that will decide the life and dignified survival of our Canary Island nation. These tasks and these responsibilities cannot be solved with repetitive and bureaucratised parliamentary committees, nor with lamentations invoking the wickedness of the metropolis.
Problems must be tackled by conceiving nationalism as a responsible defence of a territory, a society and a cultural heritage. In this sense, we must continue to defend, side by side, each of the organisations mentioned above, our priority and basic political objectives: delimitation of oceanic waters, internal security and control of our borders, rationalisation of the population and environmental burden (which has repercussions on health, education, social coverage, justice, mobile parks, housing, all kinds of waste), the fight against unemployment in general, and youth unemployment in particular, and against the uncontrolled influx of foreigners into the Canary Islands every year, economic stability and a renewed and mixed economic model - the Canary Islands as a logistical and strategic base for intervention and cooperation with the developed world and developing countries -, restoring the quality of education in our schools, extending and improving social coverage (health, pensions, shelters for the elderly and drug addicts...), and support for our creators, and for the Canary Islands as a centre of excellence in the field of education.), and support for our creators of culture and our scientists... This is a minimal list of urgent issues that will not be managed from divisions, confrontations or personal pride.
If it is now said that Spain has betrayed what is called the spirit of 1978, the Canaries, the Canarian nationalists, have betrayed what we undertook in 1993.
