There are people who do not leave at all. That, although time passes, they continue to breathe in the stories that others tell of them, in the silences that left full of meaning. It was – and will continue – one of those people.
His unmistakable figure marked an era in the. For those who did not know him, he might seem an English privateer, with that grumpy tone, that haughty and distant air. But it was enough to cross a few words with him to discover a human being of great sensitivity, capable of getting excited with a machado verse, and to rise vehemently before an unfair parliamentary chronicle.
Especially if he touched one of his own, one of those colleagues with whom he shared battles and coffees at the Sweden hotel or in the historic “Bar Manolo”, together with the Congress of Deputies, that refuge of gathering and thought, where he tried to reflect his friends “Los Plumillas” that the next day filled the most influential newspapers from the beginning of the transition, although some years later, although some years later, some years later. will dedicate an unknown deputy award.
Pepe was no stranger, he was not an any figure. He was a fighter with Alma. A reference for many, indifferent to anyone. Even those who fought politically, deep down, ended up respecting – and admiring – their intelligence and their ability to see the soul of things.
He always preferred the depth to noise, the reflection to the easy shout. And that is why he taught us to read between the lines, to always put “the long lights” and to use a cryptic language for every moment, to invite to think before judging and never give up.
In the difficult years, when thinking was almost an act of courage, he was one of the architects of the PSOE in hiding. He was in the southern Alfonso Guerra and Felipe González and opened the doors of Madrid to hundreds of companions who fought against the dictatorship, from the inside, and wanted to affiliate discreetly to the PSOE.
That Madrid breakwaters of all Spain that hurt so much, and from which each town of the town opened a door, sowing socialism with their hands and with the soul, in each municipality of this Castilian province.
He was Secretary of Organization of the Madrid Socialist Federation of the PSOE from October 1975 to January 1978, Deputy Secretary General from January 1978 to December 1981 and President from 1981 to 1997. With the arrival of democracy and polls, he celebrated the victories without vanity and learned from defeats without resentment. Because for him the important thing was not to win, but to continue raising the flag of freedom.
Today Pepe has left us, but his legacy will never leave. It leaves us a way of living socialism that is not in the manuals, but in the bowels. A way of understanding this old party as it is: a tool at the service of the humble, sustained by women and men like him, who gave their lives to this noble cause.
“When you doubt, think of them, on ours, whom you represent and do what they would do. You will never be wrong,” he explained. Today remembering his memory, we have his example, his critical gaze, his hidden tenderness, his hoarse voice, his eternal nonconformism. And that way of reminding us that not all past time was better, or worse … it was only. And that “every moment has its eagerness”, in each era you have to find a way to fight, to think, to feel what we are, what we do.
Not to be, not to resist but to be, to be what many were – as he – being what many will be, because everything is ephemeral and we are all expendable, except the Spanish Socialist Party, his party, his life that has been extinguished today.
May the earth be mild, dear partner, and yet friend. Until always, companion of the soul, companion.
