The Extremadura countryside says goodbye to Robe, who entered politics in his own way | Extremadura Elections 21-D

“Land of conquerors, we have no more balloons left”, sang Robe Iniesta in Estrémaydurefrom Extremoduro’s first album, transgressive rockof 1989. Although inclined towards the transcendent, the philosophical, Iniesta’s songs also had an immediate political significance, like these verses with a touch of sad humor about the lack of opportunities in his city, Extremadura, where to his status as a legendary rocker Iniesta adds that of a popular icon. A dose of Iniesta is in the memory of every Extremaduran with the ability to remember something. It’s rare that if one of his songs plays in a club, several throats don’t burst into song. It is impossible that the death of such a person would not shake up his country’s electoral campaign.

“His impact on the popular culture of Extremadura has been enormous. Not only is he known, but he is also an artist who has broken molds and clichés. With a rural and archaic anchoring, he has projected at the same time an avant-garde and different image of his land, rubbing shoulders without complexes with any rock character in Spain and in the world. Although he has transcended borders, his significance in Extremadura is very particular”, explains César Rina, originally from Cáceres, professor of contemporary history at UNED, who researches culture, religiosity and popular myths.

If every time a prominent personality in the world of arts and culture dies, social networks are filled with messages from political representatives, how could this not be the case of the charismatic Iniesta, known almost to the last household of a community that votes in eleven days. “The voice of my generation and my land has disappeared. A poet has disappeared. The rebellion and the talent of Extremadura”, wrote the president of the community, María Guardiola, candidate of the PP, a party with which the leaders of her town, Plasencia, Iniesta had serious disagreements. “I like the city better now,” he declared in 2004 to The Extremadura newspaper when the PP lost power. The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, was also encouraged by a brief message about the “indelible mark” on “entire generations” of an “unforgettable artist”.

That he has an air of artist in his world does not mean that he is not involved in matters on the ground. Robe had no initials, but he said what he thought and engaged in politics, in his own way, without seeming too affected by the consequences. In 2008, he clashed with Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra, who had already ceased to be president but was still a heavyweight in regional politics. In a newspaper interview Todaythey asked the musician.

—Twenty years ago you claimed that radioactive acorns left us without pigs, what do you think today of the proposed refinery project for the region? Will we have black tassels?

At that time, the Gallardo Group refinery project was a big topic of debate in Extremadura. And supporting or defending it meant taking a relevant political position. Robe rejected him. He replied to the journalist that they placed projects like this in Extremadura because, as there are few young people, it is “where people will complain the least and where the government will have the least problems imposing what it wants”. And he added that, despite the jobs, the refinery was “harmful for the environment and for the future”. This stung the PSOE, the main support of the project. Rodríguez Ibarra spoke out in an article in the same media, saying that Robe was “a little confused” about what was happening in Extremadura because he lived in the Basque Country: “Do like many of us when we were tempted to succeed outside our land; we have been less successful, but we can talk about Extremadura without demagoguery.”

Of course, this Wednesday was not the day to cool these frictions. Miguel Ángel Gallardo, PSOE candidate, dedicated words of affection to Robe: “Robe has left us, a poet capable of transforming the everyday into poetry and the difficult into truth. His music will continue to do what it has always done: expand us internally.” Their leader, Pedro Sánchez, also said goodbye, sharing a video of Extremoduro playing The back door sidewalkone of his most emblematic songs, from the album Me, absolute minority (2002). He sang Robe “with truth, with rage, with beauty,” the president wrote.

When he received the Extremadura Medal in 2014, with the PP of the Regional Government, the most common comment was that he was late. The musician was already a myth in his country, and the ceremony was a reward more for the president, José Antonio Monago, than for Robe himself, who received the recognition with humility. In a brief intervention, imbued with his characteristic dark humor, he addressed a request to all parties: “I will not ask for peace in the world, nor a ban on the killing of elephants, nor an end to hunger or unemployment. There are already many people who ask for it. Nor will I ask for an increase in funds for basic income, there are already people who ask for that too. (…) I will ask all musicians and all creators of Extremadura We need places, places for rehearsals, places to organize writing, painting and sculpture workshops, places for creators, places for children, so that they can go and speak or do what they want “And concert halls”, he added.

The triumphalist exaltation of the territory was not his thing. The artist tended to present his country as a troubled country, from which he himself had had to leave. Once again, in Estrémayduresaid: “He made the world in seven days, Extremaydura on the eighth, let’s see what happened, and that day he had done nothing. Damn it to Cáceres and Badajoz.” But Robe could allow it, because he was attacking his own land – “our land”, he said of Extremadura – and in Cáceres and Badajoz, his verses do not sound to the majority like an insult but rather like a denunciation.

Until this Friday, the campaign group consisted of Leeches of Guadiana, three young people in their twenties from the Siberia region who claim the right to stay in their village and demand more opportunities. Many analyzes have relied on this group to explain the tensions in a region which, while progressing and modernizing, still bears historical deficits. And who are the Leeches influenced by? Of course, by Robe, for whom they declared themselves “marked for life”, to the point that it was the day after one of his concerts in Mérida that Carlos Canelada, one of the members of the group, wrote his first song.

Irene de Miguel, candidate of Unidas por Extremadura, the coalition that brings together Podemos and IU, who was present on Tuesday at the Sanguijuelas concert, also dedicated this Wednesday a farewell message to Robe, from whom she recovered some verses of her song Ellipse: “Remind me of what life is made of, that sometimes I forget reason, and comfort me with this bitter farewell.” “Fly high Robe! You leave our hearts broken,” he dedicated to her. IU leader Nerea Fernández called him “a poet of the earth and weaver of dreams.”

Vox candidate Óscar Fernández said in Cáceres that Robe was “an icon,” “a pro Placentino” and “an Extremaduran who carried our region as his flag.” In 2021, in an interview with EL PAÍS, Robe expressed in a few words what he thought of Vox: “That a party like this emerged at this stage surprised me, but I am even more surprised that it continues to win votes. Four years later, Vox, so inclined to deviate from any consensus, argued that Robe Plasencia was the favorite son. That’s how hard it is to oppose Robe in Extremadura, no matter how much he sings about God ruling this land, or precisely because of it.