The beauty of the other

I spent 7 nights in four different hotels, 2 three-star, 2 four-star, all equipped with large flat-screen TVs at the foot of the bed and, as is customary when I travel, every evening I dedicated some time to the local TV programming. Location: Andalusia (Spain), type of trip: tourism, duration: 8 days, means of transport: plane + Kia SUV rental car, Km traveled: 846. But let's start with the TV, on all the latest-generation screens, the program pre-selection is Fixed-line TV, with an average of around forty active channels, almost all of them Spanish. Foreign satellite networks are practically non-existent, and RAI is always absent—strange for the statistically most visited nation in Europe—but it's certainly a choice, like selecting and offering only leisure and pure entertainment channels, quizzes, talk shows, packages, and the local version of Temptation Island. Never a news broadcast; tragedies, wars, accidents, floods, threats, tariffs, and environmental and global disasters are banned from the pre-selected channels, much to the chagrin of those who enjoy anxiety and tears even on vacation. Those who can't give up their daily dose of bad news dished out in their own language have no choice but to use their cell phones in roaming mode, and Italians, though there are very few of them we've met in this period, are practically the only tourists to display them on the restaurant table or to use them aloud during their visit to the Alhambra. We have long been accustomed to the compulsive use of our cell phones, and, totally focused on the small screen, especially among young people, we construct and live in a sort of parallel reality that numbs and almost erases our perception of the world around us. Then one day you arrive in this wonderful part of southern Spain and, as you travel, you slowly discover another world. You look around and discover portions of reality that don't correspond to your daily experience back home, and finally, you discover that you are better off, living better. You discover with amazement and a little envy that people are simply inclined to follow the rules, and this propensity transforms society. in a disruptive manner: cars go through green lights and stop at red ones, pedestrians cross at crosswalks, in 846 km of road we haven't encountered a single checkpoint, not one accident, never a speed camera (pure fantasy for us), in large urban centers there are no traffic police, never seen a soldier, never a single interruption for roadworks on the highways; the cleanliness of the streets is impeccable and continuous, the people are polite and smiling, never seen a business with the usual "hiring" sign. Looking around, it's clear that the workers you meet are practically all Spanish, young people in the lead, helpful, willing, and happy. Very few foreigners are employed, Africans and Arabs practically absent. No cell phones ring on the streets, no graffiti on the walls of the city center, no type of vandalism, no gang of maranza perched on park benches. All coincidences? I struggle to believe it, a perfect world? I don't think so, but certainly a world that is polite, respectful of others, and positive in its daily lives; light years away from the Italian nationalist whining. ps. Spain has by far the highest GDP in Europe and the only left-wing government... Are these also coincidences? I don't think so.


Michelangelo Dotta
NP April '25