Spain: The Poster Man

Seneca said that art imitates nature.

But last week in Madrid, nature followed art in one man’s brave and ec centric act of self-fulfilling prophecy. Precisely at noon on Sunday, 42-year-old Gonzalo Arias hung a brace of white posters over his shoulders and began to stroll down thronged Calle de la Princesa. The message, in black letters fore and aft, was simple: “In the Name of the Spanish People, I respectfully ask that free elections be held for the head of state.” It was not the sort of thing that happens every Sunday afternoon in Spain, and heads spun as Arias paraded past crowded cafe tables. The consensus was that the man with the sign was out of his head.

Nine minutes after the start of his walk, a black sedan zoomed toward Arias. Three plainclothesmen got out, collected Arias and drove him off to police headquarters. And that, it seemed, was that—unless one had read a novel published in Paris last spring, predicting on a specific October Sunday, in a city exactly like Madrid, a man wearing posters calling for free elections would stroll down a crowded street. The author of the novel was, of course, Arias.

Nonviolent Ideals. Was his gesture merely a publicity stunt for the novel? Or was Arias, for twelve years a translator for UNESCO, simply a trifle loco? Jean-Marie Domenach, a French Catholic intellectual, calls Arias a “deeply convinced, well-balanced man.” Arias himself, who is devoted to the nonviolent ideals of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, feels that “if I ask other people to be active in a nonviolent campaign in Spain, no one will do anything. That’s why I must set an example.” His wife says: “He simply has the courage of his convictions.”

Those convictions, as his novel, Los Encartelados (The Poster People), makes clear, center on the theme of democratic government for his country. And his hopes, as outlined in the book, are that a few, then hundreds and eventually thousands of Spaniards will follow in his footsteps. Eventually, so his vision goes, the streets of Spain will be jammed each Sunday by the encartelados bearing silent but effective witness to the dream of change. Initially, just as his book predicts, the public reaction in Madrid was sympathetic but skeptical. “It might work elsewhere,” a student said, “but it’s like a fly running into a stone wall here.” Indeed, Arias was quickly indicted for two violations of the penal code. His brief walk for freedom could cost him from one month to six years in prison.

As the week ended, Arias was still in police custody, as was Felix Villamedial, a 32-year-old teacher who donned a poster shortly after Arias set off. There were reports that more encartelados might be appearing soon in other Spanish cities.