Dr. Javier López-Galiacho
Javier López-Galiacho, Professor of Civil Law at Rey Juan Carlos University, Director of Compliance and Sustainability at Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), President of the Association of Friends of Spain’s Historic Theatres and the Mazzantini Forum, and full member of the Royal European Academy of Doctors (RAED), reflects in his two latest opinion articles published on the El Cierre Digital portal on the farewell of renowned journalist Carlos Alsina, whom he considers one of the ten greatest radio presenters in the history of Spanish broadcasting, and on the success of certain colloquial expressions. Some of these are the result of literal and inaccurate translation, yet eventually come to permeate media language and, by extension, social expression. The articles in question are “Alsina: Knowing When to Bow Out on Top” and “A Window of Opportunity”, published on 17 July and 3 August respectively.
In “Alsina: Knowing When to Bow Out on Top”, the academic recalls listening with a lump in his throat to the journalist’s 20-minute farewell editorial, in which he reviewed the major current events they have both lived through. Particularly moving were the recollection of the pandemic and the moment when Alsina, demonstrating the independence of good journalism, asked Pedro Sánchez why “you have lied to us” so many times. The author confesses that Alsina has accompanied him for years on his morning journeys to work and forms part of his family’s emotional history: on 15 April, the broadcaster wished his daughter Gabriela a happy birthday. Like Ulysses on reaching Ithaca, Galiacho concludes, “we will tell what we have lived through on this journey of life. Thank you, Carlos.”
Carlos Alsina
In “A Window of Opportunity”, meanwhile, he explains how this expression, a calque from English, tends to appear precisely when things are going badly: after a forest fire, a migration crisis, a pandemic, a flood or a blackout. At such moments, someone proclaims that a window of opportunity has opened to rethink policies or strategies, giving a technical and modern veneer to what used to be called simply an opportunity or a favourable circumstance. López-Galiacho criticises this rhetorical cliché for replacing thought and functioning as a verbal crutch that makes it possible to say a great deal while communicating almost nothing. He compares it with other fossilised expressions such as adding value, roadmap, resilience or paradigm shift, and recalls José Ortega y Gasset’s warning against words that are repeated without reflecting on their true meaning.
López-Galiacho has been Director of the San Pablo University Hall of Residence in Madrid and Secretary-General and Head of the Law Division of the Cisneros Foundation at the Complutense University of Madrid, and was Director of the Official Master’s Degree in Access to Legal Practice at the Faculty of Law of CEU San Pablo University, an institution of which he was also a trustee. He has a long-standing commitment to culture and, in addition to being a researcher, writer and columnist for various media outlets, is the author of several books and a long list of research papers in the fields of civil law, good corporate governance, foundations, sustainability and business ethics. On 31 May he was named Favourite Son of Castilla-La Mancha by the Government Council of the Regional Government of Castilla-La Mancha in recognition of his outstanding teaching and business career and his firm commitment to culture and heritage, including his initiative to preserve the Albacete Teatro Circo, an emblematic performing arts venue.
