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Derroteros: El Olivo, con Santiago Alba Rico (CARNE CRUDA EXTRA) · Carne Cruda Podcast

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Good- bye is also going the way the middle direction taken to reach the
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end, proposed set of data that indicate the way to reach a place that
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we go, direction that is given in writing for Maria Vieja, in addition
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to the book that contains a defeat then a line marked on the map of
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tides to guide the pilots broken course, let you take two courses to think
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walking with Santiago Albarrico, as it does in every week many and many.
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In fact, this week I met in Zaragoza a girl who went to Tunisia
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and was there received by Santi who took her in her house, gave her
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scenes and taught her the city santi and how you are, how I don
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' t know who she will be, because I don' t remember what
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her name is, because I have a bad memory for the names and more
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yesterday I met many people in Zaragoza, Elena or Laura. I think he
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will warn you these days that we have met and told me about your hospitality
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and that since then he listens to the courses with great devotion. Well,
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from here the greeting also how good morning, very well pleased to greet you
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today with what letter of the alphabet we are going to go. I think
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it' s the wave that touches us right today. Today, after leaving
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aside some very tempting words, either for their sound, or for their sense,
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such as hatred or forgetfulness, or ear or bill or pipe, bear,
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origin or even orgy, I saw inclined by a word that designates a
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fundamental object. What in everyone' s life, at least in this part
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of the world and in the Mediterranean, which is the olive tree, which
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is more than just a tree. Not sure, you tell me and tell
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me a descendant of Scientians that you want me to tell you if I have
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grown up surrounded by olive trees, the seas of olive trees, because I
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already tell you, then with more reason you will like that we talk a
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lot about this. And well, in principle, as we would always wonder
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where it comes from. And I think in this case, look at Javier,
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not just the object, the tree. The creature itself places us in
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an ancient and elementary world, because we could say that there are not four
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elements of nature, at least for the Mediterranean. We have enough air,
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water, escape and land, but we have to add the olive tree,
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but the word itself in Spanish and its derivatives or let' s say its
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ideas at ends write to us a very long history that is linguistic and that
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some time is cultural, shared on one side and on the other of the
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and linguistically realize that olive comes naturally from Latin, takes the word of Greek.
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But if you look at all its derivatives or related ideas and olive tree,
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go to olive and olive and go from there to oil and we find
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that the Castilian gathers or converges as two etymological trunks to the north and south
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of the Mediterranean that, outside of Spain, are in some way clearly marked
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by one of the two in most of the Romance languages. Olive olives come
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from Latin and if you go to Tunisia and right away, I' ll
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tell you a story. Or to the Arab world in general, or to
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the Semitic world in general, for all the words that have to do with
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the olive tree, with its fruit or with the olive juice that we call
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oil, comes from the srade root from itun, which gives rise to the
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olive tree, but also to olive and olive. And only in Spanish does
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it happen that these two historical etymological currents converge, on the one hand,
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throughout Spain. Those who speak only Spanish say olive, we call the olive
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tree. It is true that there is then the wild olive trees, which
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is the olive tree, whose root, whose etymological root is Arabic. But
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let' s say that when we refer to the tree, the already domesticated
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tree we call it olive in Spanish and oil. To the ambrosia that we
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extract from pressing olives or olives we call it oil in Castilian everywhere, while
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in other languages romances or even because in Catalan, of course, in French
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or Italian, because it comes from the same root as olives, spoli,
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huil oil and, nevertheless, notice, the fruit, the fruit in Castilian,
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according to the regions we call olives or olives. For example, I
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do not know in Murcia, in Aragon, in Catalonia, in Valencia it
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is predominantly called olives, while the rest of Spain and of course, in
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Castile and Andalusia, we call them olives. And that' s very nice.
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We saw two words, the two beautiful ones that speak so well to
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us of a common history, of this reciprocal fertilization and of an overlap of
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two etymological or linguistic traditions that converge in the same object and that have elaborated
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customs and practices around both the Olive and its products. And watch yourself tell
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a story that' s very pretty. Here, in Tunisia, where I
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live, as you know, there is a mosque, the most important in
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the capital, one takes away very old and very beautiful that is called in
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Arabic the mosque of abdeitún, that is, the mosque of the ace and
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tuna and why. And this is partly legend and partly something true will have.
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There is a Santa Palermitana in Sicily, it is very close to Tunisia,
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which is called Santa Olivia or Santa Oliva, totally legendary, because,
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of course, the geographies because they place them sometimes in the xv century other
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times in the nine. In any case, I tell you the story in
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two strokes. She is a young virgin, of course thirteen years old,
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who is kidnapped by Saracens and taken to Tunisia, where, after some miracles
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and some conversions, she is martyred. Martyrized It is already quite striking how
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by submerging your body in oil, boiling, I understand that it is olive
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oil, but then the case is that it is buried there where the mosque
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of olive will then be built. In such a way that we say the
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tomb of the Santa de la Oliva of San Diego constitutes the foundation of the
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mosque of the olive, so we have there an overlap of the two,
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of the two linguistic etymological currents. The olive is on top of the olive
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and in Spain they are next to each other olive and olive. And you
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see that also in linguistic terms, but also because it is of great beauty.
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I believe this is how to say this sometimes difficult marriage between words of
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Arabic origin and words of Spanish origin. This alternation of the voices from Arabic
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with the voices from Latin. We see them, for example, in Miguel
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Hernández' s famous poem. That haughty olive trees of jaen. Tell me
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in the soul who raised the olive trees in the same stanza you have,
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on the one hand, the three olive trees and, on the other hand,
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you have the olive trees a term that is of Arab oil origin like
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the olive itself in some regions and, on the other hand, the link
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that is always he with this name, already in some way oily, oily
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and whose history in the Mediterranean and, of course, in our Greco-
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Roman tradition, for it warns us from what point it is sacred. Before
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we move on to that and since we are all very affected and it is
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almost impossible these days, no matter where you start talking about Palestine. Of
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course, the olive tree, as you know, in Palestine is fundamental.
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The olive tree is, from a cultural point of view, symbolic, but
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also food, because it is one of the very conditions of Palestinian cultural existence.
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And it is terrible to remember that since the year in a thousand nine
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hundred and sixty- seven, Israel has destroyed, that is, plucked,
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burned or felled, eight hundred thousand Palestinian olive trees, Javier, if you
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think that an olive tree can last years, twenty years, to grow another
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year, to bear fruit, if you consider that from a single tree can
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be extracted, for between fifteen and forty kilos and of course four or six
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tros of oil that are used as fuel, but also for other things,
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obviously to cook, but also as medicines and therapies, because you can imagine
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what it means, but I think more than in terms of food or materials
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what it means in symbolic terms. Of course we think she' s a
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Lucia. There is one in an ongoing cycle in which thirty- five zero
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Palestinians have already died, fifteen zero of them children. Let' s worry
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about the olive trees. But Israel does not know very well what it is
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doing, what it has been doing since the year sixty- seven, uprooting
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and destroying olive trees, because what it is doing is to fight against the
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link between the Palestinians and their land, a millenary land in which it has
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been for centuries and centuries and where, moreover, it is one of the
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oldest colives in the world. It is very close to Jerusalem, in a
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village called the Walaya and unesco estimates it has about five zero years of life.
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In such a way that I believe that there is a symbolic carnising of
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Israel to break, to break this link between the Palestinians and their land.
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Olive trees are memory, they are in his memory. It slows down the
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slow and difficult memory of a land in which, as Miguel Hernández reminded us,
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there is no property other than that of work, that of the same,
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that of caring for these olive trees than Israel. Israel destroys clear even
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those twisted trunks of the olive tree, so full, of wrinkles, of
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clefts, of reveques, represent the passage of time that, in a harsh
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and rough way, is opening, step from the roots to the branches,
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that is how beautiful the trunks of the olive tree, which are very old,
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also have. And yet the branches are always remaking and rejuvenating completely.
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I remember one. Four or five years ago visiting Huescala, the south of
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the Aragonese Pyrenees in a village called Columbgo, in the region of Somontano,
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in Barbastro Altayu, in an olive millenary also that I invite anyone who can
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visit it impressive because it is large, old and hollow, but at the
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same time alive does not have like a little port below. And it'
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s already big, but then what you say is full of live shoots,
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of sprouts that are greening and growing and struggling to come out. And as
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if in the same tree the great- grandparents were living together and the grandkids
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were tattooed ex exactly. It is true that it is like a living synthesis
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in plant generations. They are not there in grandparents teaching grandchildren how to care
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for a tree and how to care for life. And it is not strange,
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therefore, that it is a sacred tree. You remember another story that
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I think one of you told here, because it' s very pretty.
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It is this famous dispute between Athena and Poseidon, to see which of the
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two gods named the city. Then he' d call Ate. Obviously,
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by the outcome of this li won. Obviously, whoever bears his name Zeus
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will bear the name of the God who gives men the most valuable thing.
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And Poseidon, for from a twilight he gave birth to the horse that then,
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as it has lost war value, has acquired as a human nobility,
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but that then was basically a test that since Idon, what he provided to
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human beings was an instrument of the tools he has, because he created the
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olive tree and the symbol of peace. It is the symbol of peace.
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In Greece the olive branches were used, first to reward the winners of Olympic
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fabrics, but then also to reward poets And then as a symbol, as
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a symbol of peace, the olive branch and at the same time, then
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also of wisdom, because keep in mind that Athena, who was a warrior
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in her own way, but it was the cunning war, the strategic war,
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rather than the violent war of ares, therefore, at the same time
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tending to the goddess, the wisdom of sophia. And what relationship this has
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with olive trees, then, notice, you close here on the road,
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because Athena with glaucos eyes creates the olive tree and among the olive trees who
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live the mochuelos. Sometimes they speak of owl or owl, but the symbol
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of Athena is not an owl or an owl, but a owl, and
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remembers the saying of every young man of his olive tree, his olive tree,
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because in every young man there was a young man in every olive tree,
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a floor with glaucos eyes that, as Heggel will then say, started
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the flight at dusk and represented human wisdom. In fact, Plato derives the
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term Athena a little forcibly from Atenus, and Estenus would be thought or understanding.
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In any case, there is a clear opposition between peace and war,
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between Athena and in this case, possession. And this makes the olive tree
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a sacred tree for the Greeks and, in general, I believe, for
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the Mediterraneans. Fa you who count aristoteles in the Constitution of Athens. In
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previous times, to his, earlier times, to the fourth century B C
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E, there were laws in Athens that punished with the death penalty one who
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cut or plucked off an olive tree, one of the sacred olive trees that
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were almost all. No. But even as Lysias later recounts in a text
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he has in favor of the sacred olive tree, for he realizes that even
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in later times, when we had already said private owners of olive trees,
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the private ones, the owners of olive trees, could not destroy more than
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two olive trees a year and if they cut or trolled or destroyed an olive
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tree, they were obliged to pay a hundred drachmas of fine. So,
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well, it' s pretty obvious that olive is very important. Well and
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before you spoke of Palestine and of course I could not stop thinking about the
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moment when Christ retires just before his ordeal, to meditate and pray on the
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Mount of Olives, where he is exactly caught. There you have it once
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again, because this is a north and south of the Mediterranean, it is
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Jerusalem, a mountain called the Olives. That should be precisely the thousand-
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year- old olive tree that UNESCO badly protects and that, well, because
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it does not remember, in fact, this relationship to the sacred, the
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religious, the olive. And then, because the most elementary culture, at
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least for us Mediterraneans, Apparently, is attributed the first production of oil from
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olives or olives to aristeo a lesser God son of Apollo, to whom we
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owe many things, many important things, because it is the one who taught
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men to do that to make honey and make oils and less cheese and lay
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the wine was of bacon. But if you add wine to it, because
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we already have practically the four fundamental elements of the Mediterranean with which we have
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built, on one side and on the other, a common culture. And,
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at the same time, as you know, I always like it,
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not in a forced way, to relate and to what has been done about
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Palestine and the Israeli genocide. But to make as a reflection from the chosen
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object, from the chosen voice, a broader and more current reflection. I
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would ask myself a question that may seem a little strange, and it is
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to see what action there is between oil and power, oil and power.
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Well, you used to say that the biggest ones were crowned with olive crowns
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with olive branches. I don' t know if he' s going around
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or going with a gir that according to ge with the oils to which they
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' ve been chosen exactly I think you' re very well on your way.
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It' s the one I' d set up. Don' t
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you watch what and gather a little. You all know that Christ means exactly
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that the anointed. Messiah in Hebrew or more in Arabic means also the anointed.
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And why Christ was the anointed, for, naturally, the tradition at
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that Hebrew time inscribed the figure of Christ as king of Judeo of Israel,
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king of the Jews, in a tradition in which kings were anointed monarchs through,
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in effect, the anointing of oil and oil, obviously, of olive,
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sometimes mixed with balm of the one whom God had chosen the case,
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for example, which count the books of Saul, who is the ancestor of
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David and who is chosen by God and anointed king by the prophet, by
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the prophet Samuel. From then on it is done with successive kings. But
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that custom passes into Christianity and Christianity, into the European political tradition. All
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Frankish kings are anointed kings in ceremonies in which oil plays a fundamental role.
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But I believe, if I am not mistaken Javier, that still today in
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the coronations in England, the coronations of new kings and few years ago was
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crowned, if I am not mistaken the current king, to Charles, And
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there still is linked the power to the anointing of oil. Naturally, religion
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you know that Catholicism is still used in its ceremonies uses an oil called chrisma,
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which has been used in what is before. It' s called extreme,
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anointing, confirmations, etcetera. And this chrisma has to do with the
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oil. But one cannot help but be led by the temptation to associate him
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with charisma. It has nothing to do with chrisma and charisma. But if
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we think the operation of a gir king is to infuse charisma or a mortal,
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for it is very saying to think charisma, the charism has to do
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with the term. Then the Eucharist, which has to do with grace,
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with favor, also with something that produces sweetness, which attracts irresistibly. But
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it is true that the chrisma and charisma are so united that somehow we end
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up thinking that the one who has been anointed is invested with a grace or
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a Baraca, as the Arabs say particular that somehow legitimizes his mandate, that
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is, our beloved leader. He was a leader for the grace of God
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and he used much, even the term rod expensive for his relationship with the
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Muslim world to refer to this election. To this good divine choice, and
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I suppose you know that he himself presumed and those around him that rod that
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protected him. Of those who tried to kill him badly to kill him,
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in fact, they said that he was immune to the bullets that had never
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managed to remove him from the middle that none of the attacks that were planned
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against the warlord succeed, because he presumed to have Baraca clear and notice you
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curious this relationship that is suddenly reversed and when Aznar survives that attack of eta
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leaves the car saying already I have charisma. Then Franco was protected from the
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attacks and Aznar is an attack that instills charisma. In any case, the
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important thing where I want to go is that this tradition in which we say
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the king or the leader, the head of a state is chosen by God
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and anointed as the highest authority, is happily broken from the French Revolution,
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which, with many interruptions in successive centuries, imposes a tradition that is secular
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in which power no longer emanates from God and is not consecrated through such a
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ceremony, through an anointing it is no longer a Christ, a messiah,
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a caudillo chosen by God and a sanction by his priests. That is the
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great victory or illustration and the French revolution, which is to separate God from
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power and to hand it over to human beings, to people who eat cheese
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and oil and who, in their meetings, while sharing cheese and oil,
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decide, or if it should be, decide who is going to represent them
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or will manage the affairs of the Republic commissioned by them. And that'
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s a wonder when it comes to conceiving power is to wonder if the ruler
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is anointed by a god or anointed by those who feed on oil. And
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I think we' re going back to a time when they' re calling
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themselves anointed again. There is a temptation, even through the vote, to
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appoint anointed rulers or as managers of the affairs of the Republic, which is
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why it ceases immediately to be a republic, even where it is called a
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republic, to return to theocracy or theology. And I' m very afraid
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to see how precisely we' re democratizing oil to give it back a power,
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a religious power that is entirely against that Nine Nine.