It’s hard to write with a broken heart. It’s hard to write about a friend who is leaving. When you know that those long conversations, that those always correct advice, that those deep reflections raised from humility will not be repeated. It’s hard because Xisco Antich was not only my main political reference, he was above all a friend.
Xisco was brilliance in analysis, commitment to justice as a guide to each step. But, first and foremost, Xisco was a good person. The president capable of empathizing and loving at every moment. He was the general secretary who crowded the newbies, the friend who was always there and the colleague who never lacked a good story to learn from. It was the verb capable of transmitting peace and excitement at the same time. Xisco was, in short, the biggest heart, with the most beautiful vision.
He imagined us better and, precisely for that reason, he made us better. Because in the honesty of his gaze and in the love for this land and its people is his legacy. No one believed as much as he did in the possibilities of Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera nor did he make as much effort to weave this community with feeling, culture, language and diversity. Only he so firmly defended the future of these islands that, together with the committed men and women who made up their governments, propelled us to a present of modernity that 25 years ago was just a dream.
A dream that was his and that he transmitted to every member and sympathizer of his party, our party, the PSIB. The same Socialist Party that he opened to the whole world, to entrust us with a mission that, today and always, we assume and will assume with passion and feeling all of us who are part of the socialist family: always work to make these islands a society better; always believe in the talent of the citizens of this small country in the middle of the sea; never forget our history and what democracy cost us; fight for every just cause, and do so from the conviction that dialogue and words are always our best allies.
For all these reasons, Francesc Antich was the president capable of anticipating the future. A man of the left, who knew that equal opportunities and social justice are won every day, that public and inclusive education is always the best social elevator or that only with free and universal healthcare or quality social services can guarantees assistance to those who cannot afford it. A politician who understood that the future is built by protecting the environment and with a fairer economy, and that freedom is guaranteed with more training, more culture, more science and for everyone.
There will be time to analyze the legacy that President Antich leaves us, so immense that it demands affection, attention, serenity. The decades that Xisco dedicated to converting the best values of this society into policies capable of improving everyone’s lives invite us to reread each moment. Because in every pact he forged, in every speech, in every debate, in every law ahead of its time, President Antich will continue to help us find our best version. It will help us to see again what he showed us that we are: a supportive, affectionate, close, diverse, talented, brave and full of heart, a people that wants to progress through coexistence.
The people who today, from the diversity of political ideas, acronyms and sensitivities, express their pain, their respect and their admiration for the president who, with his bonhomie and his ability to understand everyone, continues to put us in front of our best version.
You leave us with a broken heart and a full soul, friend.
Source: www.eldiario.es
