Smoke curtains | Opinion

1. For those of us who dedicate ourselves to artistic creation—and also for those who do not do so on a regular or professional basis—one of the basic principles that we practice, even without thinking about it, is to have assimilated the certainty that art always imitates life. Even the most fanciful or abstract manifestations or realizations start from a connection with objective realities that have affected our sensitivity, have lodged in our subjectivity and seek expression through aesthetic resources. For example, for the novelist, an artist who must create universes more or less concrete or imaginary in which more or less credible characters move, is always present the challenge of generating verisimilitude, that is, that discursive artifice through which what is narrated manages to shape the intimate logic of that created universe, and in this way, its own reality.

This purpose works this way because, at the end of the day—as Milan Kundera reminded us, relying on Henry Fielding, the author of Tom Jones—, The novel is an act of discovery and knowledge, since its reason for being lies in the reflection of the conflicts of the human condition, which is universal and permanent and, although it has a subjective origin, it affects our actions and, in that way, acts on objective realities.

Much has been said in recent years about such an amazing reflection of our reality of these times achieved by the futuristic plot of 1984the novel that George Orwell published in 1949, long before the existence of the digital gadgets that surround us, monitor us, and even attack us today. Citizen control mechanisms, the falsification and rewriting of History, the restrictions on individual freedom that prevail in the social fabric of that fictional and fictional Oceania where the plot takes place are too similar to many manifestations of our contemporary societies in which, for example, the truth has become decentered until it is blurred on occasions and has materialized one of the great mottos of the Ministry of Truth when manipulating information: “Ignorance is power.”

2. The events of global repercussion that have taken place in recent months, but especially what happened with the war unleashed by the United States and Israel against Iran have shown how much reality can resemble fiction. And in this case it is a conflict that, due to the circumstances that give rise to it, is too reminiscent of the plot of a work of art: life imitating art —almost replicating it— instead of art imitating life?

Surely, many have remembered the movie these days Wag the Dog (The smoke screen in the Spanish version, Lies that kill in other countries of the language), a work based on the novel of the same name by Larry Beinhart, released in 1997 and directed by Barry Levison. To its glory, the film stars two acting monsters, Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, who embody the characters of a public relations specialist and a Hollywood producer. Summoned by a White House official, they will be in charge of creating a smoke screen to distract citizens’ attention from the scandal in which a candidate for US presidential reelection is involved, accused of sexual abuse of a minor. The smokescreen that these two architects create is a virtual war, and they choose Albania as the enemy to fight!

I think that synopsis of Wag the Dog: sexual scandals of a president and provoked wars, only in this case the war has been real, not like the one planned by the public relations specialist and the Hollywood producer, something that also reminded me of one of the creations of the comedy group Les Luthiers, which in a tone of total parody, determined to update the national anthem are going to declare war on Norway, since the previous historical enemies were no longer attractive. And it is already known that for power it is a blessing to have an enemy, better if in hostility. Right now it is for the ferocious Iranian regime.

What happened to the president who was going to end all wars and strutted around even finish some that didn’t even exist? Which of the five or six reasons given was the one that finally decided this military operation? And Russian bombs are no longer falling on Ukraine, as promised? Or is that president now being true to his word of promise? ignore peace because he had not received the Nobel Prize that he so desired and, according to him, deserved?

It is very risky to be certain about ongoing processes and express opinions or ideas with some advance notice. Such a dilemma has become more generous today, since we live in the most overwhelming uncertainty, fueled by a political, economic and military power that, in addition to being erratic, has proven to be above all the conventions that were considered firmer. What is certain is that what is happening and will happen in the Middle East with the development of this war is going to have many consequences, some of them extremely dangerous, since there is already talk, quite seriously, of possible nuclear escalations of the conflict. And anything can happen, as the Spanish already know.

The truth is – and we can assert this certainty without fear – that the smokescreen has been deployed with premeditated intention and solidity. With military affairs on the front page of the media around the world, with the economic consequences that the war is already causing due to the increase in the price of oil (always oil), with the pools burning about the Iranian political future, with the accumulation of consequences that this event is going to have throughout the Middle East, with Europe also playing the drums of the war, with the fear of an increase in possible Islamic terrorist attacks anywhere in the world, with Spain economically threatened and with Putin dying of laughter at what he is seeing while almost no one talks about the war in Ukraine, and – I finish without finishing a list that could be extended – while it is even considered that a state of emergency could be declared in the United States that gives more powers to the president who (with the approval of his party) declares wars without asking anyone’s permission… Who is going to invoke more transparency in the publication and management the damned Epstein files?

Not even the most imaginative artists could have conceived such a scenario. The current war is not against poor Albania, nor even against Norway. The terrible thing is that right now reality is far surpassing art, and the dramatic on this occasion is not fictional, because it is the darkest reality. But what hurts most is knowing that behind everything—or perhaps at the center of everything—is the possible sexual predator past of a politician with the power to destroy any norm of coexistence, arguing that he does so to restore democracies and make America great again. At any price, including the lives of so many people. In short, the smokescreen is not credible, like those in a movie or a novel, but rather very material and can suffocate many.