On: Spanish PM calls for urgent EU meeting after ‘selfish’ responses to Ceuta crisis

“Selfish.” “Polarising.” “Unlawful.” Three adjectives flung like stones - each one a shield against the question of why the enclave exists at all. The grammar of crisis management: first the moral condemnation of those who react, then the passive construction (“mass crossing”) to obscure who crossed, from where, under what conditions. The crossing did not happen; it was “mass.” The reaction is not policy; it is “polarising.” The adjectives do the work of analysis so the analysis need not be done.

And the call for a meeting - always the meeting, the urgent convocation where nothing will be decided except the need for further meetings. The crisis is not in the crossing but in the language that describes it: “enclave,” not colony; “reaction,” not violence; “urgent,” not overdue. The words are the crisis, and the crisis is the words.

They will meet. They will speak. The adjectives will multiply. The enclave will remain. The crossing will be “managed.” And the language will again have done its only real work: to make the intolerable sound like policy.