THE VALUE OF TRADITIONS

In a distant month of May of the year of Our Lord's grace of 1589, a group of Corunguese, fearful of God, went to prostrate themselves at the foot of the image of Our Lady of the Rosary making vows that it interceded and protected the city of the English mob that surrounded her by land and sea.

The relationship of assailants and defenders was overwhelming in favor of the first, but the miracle worked.

Many will say that the cause was none other than the massive ingestion of wine by the English after the assault, take and plunder of the Fishmonger; Others minimize the figure of Francis Drake whom they call a pirate, no doubt to ridicule the Corunna's deed.

The truth is that Drake was an English Admiral and that the worst enemy the British found was none other than the people of La Coruña who, side by side, with the Army not only repelled the attack but managed to flee the Invaders.

In this heroic gestation, in which men and women of our city stood out, the great popular Maria Pita, who is said to have killed a Lieutenant with a certain blow of the sword, excelled in his bravery and bravery Mayor Fernández de la Cámara and Pita English who carried the banner.

Since that date, the city, headed by its Municipal Corporation, in solemn civic entourage, has been coming, year after year, to revalidate this Vote made before the Mother of God in that distant date, turning this act into an inveterate tradition in La Coruña.

However, today, after 428 years, those who occupy the municipal government have given up this custom with the only claim to eliminate it for the simple fact that they do not like or because its meaning does not marry with its exclusionary ideology.

Traditions, like History, can not be rewritten; Can not be adapted to the tastes of each to deal with it to make disappear feelings that are born from the soul of peoples or truths contrasted with the passage of time.

The tragedy of 1589 was the result of the efforts of a people who knew how to perfectly combine the values ​​of faith and hope with those of courage and pundonor; The fruit of those who, looking back at the image of Our Lady, knew with gallantry to take up arms and climb the wall to dislodge the invader.

Let us not pretend to caricature the tradition with acts that are the product of imposture, let us simply refer to the historical facts and here the only contrasted is that in which a group of first Coruñeses and his Council then went to implore the Virgin her holy protection.

That is the centenary Role of the Vote that we have celebrated in our city for more than four centuries and that its regidores, if they really are, must remain faithful to the fulfillment of the tradition. The rest are pimples, impostures of those who raise the principles of disunity by banditry. Exclusion and sectarianism more stale with the ultimate purpose of distorting history.

To all the good-natured Coruñeses, happy Voting Day.