Mr. Fernando Ónega López enters as an Honorary Member of the RAED

Sr. Fernando Ónega

The Hon. Mr. Fernando Ónega López, Journalist, joins the Royal European Academy of Doctors as an Honorary Member, with his speech “La agonía del estado “.

Answer: Dr. José Ramón Calvo Fernández, Doctor of Medicine and Surgery

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Introduction to the speech “La agonía del Estado” (The Agony of the State) by Mr. Fernando Ónega

I have had the audacity to copy the colossal Miguel de Unamuno, because his appeal to the word “agony” in his “Agony of Christianity” is close to what I am going to tell you about the State. “Agony,” wrote Don Miguel, “means struggle. He who lives fighting is in agony, fighting against life itself. And against death. Agony is, therefore, struggle.” End of quote.

I take these reflections to the secular world, sometimes agnostic, of the State and I begin with a risky thesis: this period will go down in history as one of the times when we did not know what to do with it. Neither with it nor with anything, because I always thought that the next great war would be over water, and it will be due to the whim of two highwaymen called Putin and Trump.

Since I have doubt injected into my veins, I am the biggest doubter in the Kingdom and, on top of that, a Galician, I must begin with a question: “Does the State exist?” I hear it in my village when they ask and no one listens to them, but I also read it in a classic book, “The State”, by the classic Helmut Kuhn.

I say, Mr. Kuhn, with elementary peasant logic that, if so much is said and written about the State, it must have some existence. To be honest for once in my life, the same thing happens to me as to Saint Augustine with time: “If you don’t ask me what time is, I know; but if you ask me and I want to explain it, I no longer know.” Something very similar happens to me with the State. And surely the State, when it looks at itself and asks itself who it is, answers: “I don’t know who I am, but I am.”

The first impulse leads me to suspect that the State is, as they say now, “the most”, which in proletarian language was always “that of God.” When something of yours is soiled by dirty hands or contaminated by our weak judgments, the voice of the Almighty is heard: “Do not touch it, it is a matter of State.” When the hierarchy understands that something should not be known to us miserable humans, they stamp it with a seal that says “state secret.” When someone is disqualified, they are reproached: they have no sense of State. And when someone understands my needs, even if they do not satisfy them, that they could even govern a country, and that they recognize some social right – it is not necessary that they are all of them – they are honored as a “statesman.” Rarely is the word “stateswoman” said, God knows for what reason, tradition or marginalization.

Another less respectful but useful side: the “indepes,” especially Catalans and Basques, get hives at the word Spain (“the word is an all-powerful despot,” said Gorgias), they are relieved not to pronounce that name and to refer in rallies and other intimate matters to the “Spanish State.” Spain does not exist, the Spanish State does.

As for the Republicans, even those who have sworn or promised “loyalty to the king”, they never use the words “king” or “monarch”. They find relief for their conscience in the expression “Head of State”, even though it was Franco’s official title.

Second question: is the State important? I just pointed out that it is “the most”, “God’s”. Note how important it is and God’s, that Fraga wrote this apology: “As important as the compass, gunpowder or the printing press, the modern national State represented a discovery of the greatest significance.”