How could one of Donald Trump's decisions end up with homeowners in the Axarquía losing a chance to legalise them? Unlikely, as it might seem, one has.
It works like this: Trump, in an all out policy of unashamedly giving Tel Aviv everything it wants, convinced and even bribed as many Muslim states in the Middle East and North Africa as possible to normalise relations with Israel.
One of them was Morocco. In exchange for their new ‘friendship’ with Israel, Trump recognised the Moroccan king and absolute-ruler, Mohammed VI’s, claim on Western Sahara (formerly Spanish Sahara).
No matter that no US president had ever gone against the UNSCR or the International Court of Justice, which both stipulated that there should be a referendum to decide the Saharan people’s future, Trump just went ahead and gave the King US recognition over the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.
Trump probably assured him that the rest of the West would follow his lead, but they haven’t, just the same as they didn’t follow his lead on recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
So, the King, disappointed that the EU hadn’t fallen into line with Trump, started making his annoyance known, which led to Germany and Morocco withdrawing ambassadors and finally, the Green-March-style swamping of Ceuta’s border, which was not only orchestrated by the Moroccan Government (read: the King), but the opportunity was also taken to infiltrate Moroccan intelligence officers within the migrant surge to check out the Spanish enclave’s defences.
Patience – we’re getting there.
Just about every adult was immediately returned to Morocco but minors can’t be handed straight back, so mainland Spain would have to find room for them.
Enter the extremist, right-wing party VOX, who immediately threatened the Junta PM that if he agreed to take any of these minors, VOX would withdraw its support for the ruling coalition in Andalucía to pass any legislation in the Andalusian parliament, as VOX is needed to vote in favour.
The Junta PM, Juanma Morena, at last, showed some backbone where VOX is concerned and told them that Andalucía would accept 13 immigrant minors.
VOX then made good its threat and withheld its votes in favour for the passing of the Ley de Impulso a la Sostenibilidad del Territorio de Andalucía (Lista) and completely scupped it.
And this is where we arrive at the homeowners in Axarquía, for example, who were eagerly awaiting the bill, which would have given them a chance to legalise their homes.
The butterfly metaphor was created by Ray Bradbury in the 1952 short story A Sound of Thunder – many will remember Ray Bradbury for his Fahrenheit 451, however. The theory really explains how a small change locally can have a ripple and snowball effect affecting a larger event elsewhere. In the case of this article, it is the opposite: a large event, ripples down to bring about a minor change in a distant place. But why let accuracy get in the way of a good headline, right?
(News: Andalucia)