What the 'Cabalgata' says about Seville

Seville's reputation within Spain for being capable of organising great events has been well gained. Around one million people are said to gather every year in its famous Madrugada, during Holy Friday's religious parade at Easter. It ocurrs quite the same every Feria de Abril: then people keep drinking more than 10 hours every day through the whole week and rarely any incident happens. This capability was questioned last year when the very Sevillian authorities considered if the city was prepared to hold a football game (Sevilla FC vs Tottenham Hotspurs in last year's UEFA Cup) during a massive religious celebration. The people showed to be more sensible than its governors as they were responsible for the only harm caused on the city's image. Sevilla should never have hit the headlines throughout the continent over unjustified fears about the arrival of the spurs' hooligans and the threat to the religious parade apparently they posed.
Popular enthusiasm is always Seville's most valuable capital. Three days ago we could check, one more time, the two sides of the Seville coin, the best and the worst of the same city. The Cabalgata de Reyes, on every January the 5th, represents the arrival of the Three Wise Men from the far East to bring kids their anual presents. It is a massive parade consisting of 33 floats, each representing a famous childrens' icon. Over 2.500 people participate every year to guarantee the security and perfect organization of the event.The director of the Cabalgata assured three days before the parade the perfect messurement of the Christmas street decorations, one of the most important things to be checked on previous dates.
January the 5th. The Cabalgata has just started 20 minutes ago. Thousands of people gather at El Porvernir district to enjoy the colourful fiesta holding up their children to pick as many candies as possible. Then the most ridiculous and sad surprise (?): three of the floats collide with the lights by near 50 centimeters. Ridiculous. It is the first street on its way. The Cabalgata is stopped for one hour. It is delayed over one hour and a half later on. Seville has assured to be in the national headlines again. The Sevilla style.




The Cabalgata, as the religious parades every Semana Santa and Feria celebrations are not definining landmarks of the city's future and its role in the country and Europe for the XXI century. But they are very important to find out what the city is like today, its strength and weakness. Three days later neither the mayor of the city, Alfredo Sánchez Monteseirín, nor the rest of organisers claimed their responsibility on the Cabalgata's serious mistakes. Anger amongst the crowd as they waited the arrival of the delayed parade and their sudden forgiveness represents the best and the worst of the city: a healthy and democratic criticism over incidents as those happened that day versus a sense of indiference and public apathy when it comes to get the indignation further. Nobody has resigned since and nobody is expected. Nobody is going to demand the authorities any political responsibility over the facts. We could see it on the big supper hold at the Hotel Meliá on Sunday: total armony between the City Hall, the Ateneo -the institution which organizes the parade- and the rest of theS Seville high society. Cinicism and flirting. One Guardian reporter put it like that on an article about the city: "Seville is the most flirtious city in the world: every one want to see and be seen".
Harm on the city's image has been important and evident. Politicians do not learn the lesson from time to time: investing public and private money on expensive touristic campaigns is useless if Seville stands out as the city of the 'shoddy' work (chapuza) . Joy, our most distinctive feature and, possibly, our most important active overcomes again the need of complaining beside the public sphere. Once again.