Volodymyr Zelensky and the spirit of Ukraine were named ‘Person of the Year 2022’ according to TIME magazine. Iranian women ‘Heroes of the Year’. Zelenski values something as simple as staying. Do not run away, despite the risk of being targeted by the invaders. The captain should always be the last to leave the ship, but of course there are captains and captains. The magazine also underlines that Ukraine has managed to “unite the world in defense of freedom and remind us of the fragility of democracy and peace”.
It’s 95 years since the release of the first cover of ‘Man of the Year’ at the time, when we Spaniards once had the privilege of playing the lead under the title The Protester (El Indignado) in 2011. The historical significance of the popular protests that began with the Arab Spring and repeated in Madrid, London, Athens… on a planet grappling with economic and humanitarian crises has been recognized. It had already had enough of the austerity policies imposed by some politicians in Spain, which were punctuated by corruption cases. The 350,000 evictions and boredom of seeing how the public sold out turned into waves of white, green, orange, and burgundy that TIME honored on its cover.
But in 1938, Hitler was also on the cover. The magazine described the laureate as “the greatest threatening force facing the democratic and freedom-loving world today.” Because the ‘person or persons of the year’ are the most influential. The ones that affect our lives the most. For better or worse. They are responsible for what it is to ‘write history’, but it is enough to open any random newspaper to see that history is not always good.
Being on the cover of TIME can be an honor or a shame. In Spain, this recognition of disgrace is given by the Association of State Social Services Managers and Managers. The ‘Corazón de piedra’ award recognizes “persons or institutions who have shown the greatest insensitivity and whose ideas or actions have caused the most helplessness and suffering to the most vulnerable individuals and families”. In January this year, the “Heart of Stone 2021” was announced, awarded to Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid, “in recognition of his notorious management of the Community’s nursing homes during the pandemic and preventing transplants”. By applying patient selection criteria based on age, level of addiction, or intellectual disability rather than clinical criteria and objective survival expectations, it has caused the deaths of thousands of residents to hospitals of geriatric centers residents”.
A very current award this week, marking a thousand days since the Ayuso Government ratified the Protocol that caused 7,291 elderly people to die without medical attention between March and April 2020 alone. A triage not practiced in private centres, although the Community Council also has sole command over privately owned health services. Elderly people living in dormitories with private insurance were transferred to hospital centers. However, the Madrid Supreme Court’s decision forcing them to seek medical treatment was also violated in residences.
Ayuso defended himself in the Madrid Assembly against accusations that he had mismanaged the residences, claiming that “We must not make the joke a category”. Anecdote. Amnesty International condemns five human rights violations in housing: health, life, non-discrimination, private and family life and an honorable death, and the report by Envejecimiento en la Red reveals that Madrid has a sad track record. Excessive mortality in nursing homes: 53% higher than the Spanish average.
The Ayuso government refuses to set up a commission to investigate these deaths because, in the words of vice-president Enrique Ossorio, “the families have long exceeded that, and opening an investigation sends the wrong message that the deaths can be prevented.”
And so the story is formed. Sometimes with unexpected heroes, such as an actor playing a president in a television series and girl wearing dog social media transformation of a president into the same presidents.
This is how time places the true defenders of freedom and democracy. What was the anecdote and what is the history? Heroes and villains. As some leave their hair open; others, because they stay. Others dressed in white coats or, on occasion, heroes in a wave whenever the (bad) story repeats itself. As in the first major mobilization against Ayuso’s policies last November 13, hundreds of thousands of exhausted healthcare workers and angry patients held an emotional minute of silence for all the elderly who died in residences during the pandemic.
It seems the heroes haven’t gotten over it yet…