For the second year in a row, Constitution Day events are being doubled. The delegation of the government and the Community of Madrid honored them on the same day. Led by the Delegate, Francisco Martín, and the Minister of Regional Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, this event was developed with a clear guiding theme: Criticisms of Ayuso’s executive management of public universities. During the meeting, they warned of the dangers posed by the deterioration of the quality of higher education in order to defend rights and freedoms.
This double action began last year as a result of the deterioration of relations between the central and regional administration. In this context, it was the society’s decision to remove the traditional delegate speech from its programmes, that made Moncloa decide to name its own event. Under the slogan “Everyone has the right to education”, the 47th anniversary of Magna Carta was celebrated. The choice of the topic coincides, whether coincidentally or not, with demonstrations against the Community of Madrid for drafting its Universities Law and criticisms accusing the regional executive of underfunding public centres. On the occasion of this theme, the event was held at the headquarters of the National Telematic University (Uned) in Lavapiès.
At approximately 10:00 a.m., the assembly hall was filled with a group of students from the 1970s who had organized a protest. They called for the re-creation of transitional mobilization Basic freedoms that were punished during the dictatorship. “Free yourself, your body is not your prison for anti-fascist gays,” “Total amnesty!”, can be read in the leaflets they distributed. Afterwards, the government delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín, gave a speech in which he considered public education as a pillar and guarantor of the Constitution. However, he warned of the risk of missing out on “the greatest social boost”.
“The public university, especially the one in Madrid, Today it faces real threats, such as a crippling lack of funding Or the accelerating creation of pseudo-private universities of questionable quality,” he warned. In his view, these measures “are direct attacks” on the constitutional model. Along these lines, he reiterated the central government’s commitment to maintaining the quality of the model and preventing higher education from becoming a market. “This is not educational freedom. “This weakens the social leverage that the Constitution is mandated to protect.”
In this thematic line, the researcher in theoretical physics, Irene Valenzuela, was invited to the event held to commemorate the Magna Carta to talk about the situation of the Public University of Madrid. “That is the university where I started my career Today he doesn’t even have money to pay the bills. We have a public system that we envy and now we want to destroy it,” he said, expressing his rejection of the draft law prepared by the Madrid group to regulate higher education. He added: “It is not progress, it is a setback for the Madrid system, close to what is happening in the United States.”
On the other hand, the government delegate referred to the criticism leveled by the regional executive authority in recent weeks over its decision to hold the event in the United Nations building that burned during the civil war. “Another event will be held after that for what was 0 km of torture And repression in Madrid. and? What’s the problem? He asked, “Why this fear of acknowledging our history?” When speaking about the importance of democratic memory, Martin noted: “Madrid does not deserve to be forgotten.”
The government delegate called on all departments to restore the spirit of dialogue that characterized the transitional period and progress on important issues such as housing or combating sexual violence. “Some consensus that has been untouchable for decades is being broken by a very specific side of the board.” Martin has pointed out. He thus took the opportunity to question the fact that regional governments, such as that of Ayuso, pretend to defend the Constitution, while declaring themselves in a state of rebellion and deciding to break laws such as the one that includes the obligation to create a registry of conscientious objector doctors. “Perhaps, in fact, what they did not want today in Puerta del Sol was to hear this very constitutional reminder,” he noted.
At the conclusion of the event, the Minister of Regional Policy and Democratic Memory, Angel Victor Torres, spoke to highlight that criticizing the Democratic Memory Law is a contradictory act for those who call themselves democrats. “The transmission of the doctrine of democratic values should not be a cause for concern For a democrat. He added that the indoctrination of anti-democratic values should raise alarm bells. Likewise, he focused on the entire path still to go on issues such as equality, although he warned that if “we give space to those who deny the obvious, to those who deny sexual violence due to climate change, we will not achieve it in a democracy.”