I'm aware it is not the type of art I usually share here but, for me, it is important to share it w/ whoever knows or wants to know what happened in my València.
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One year ago, the worst flooding ever known struck my land, my city, and the surrounding towns. October 29, 2024, is a date that no Valencian will ever forget. A catastrophe that still makes us look to the sky with even more worry and anxiety every time it rains, because, as the Valencian singer Raimon said: "Al meu país la plutja no sap ploure" [In my country, the rain does not know how to rain.]
A natural disaster, worsened by the climate change affecting the Mediterranean Sea, which claimed 229 human lives due to the fierce and lethal incompetence of the Generalitat government and its president (and his far-right accomplice), who only alerted the population when most of the victims had already drowned in the mud.
Personally, I find it very difficult to be far away, to not be able to be there physically. Now, the rage is immense every time I uncover new lies from those responsible, new manipulations from the public television service that is at the service of power, not its citizens... Just as my eyes still well up and my heart still shrinks when I see images from a year ago...
But I also feel immense pride in the strength of my people—in every massive demonstration, in every cry of #Mazóndimissió, #Mazónapressó, #Nioblitniperdó, in every image of the river of people who crossed the bridges on foot the day after the tragedy.
This is my tribute to all those who lost loved ones, their homes, their way of life; to a land of orchards and water that was filled with rubble; and to all those people who, without a second thought, gave their soul, their body, and everything they could to help. In doing so, we demonstrated that only "the people save the people."