According to a survey recently published in several newspapers, the organization or human team that generates the least trust in the Spanish State is that of politicians. It should be disturbing news, but nobody seems to have been surprised, nor will it change anything. We seem to live like oil and water next door, but in two different worlds, and the interests and needs of one and the other are very different.

One of the messages we have received in recent times from Spanish politicians is that which I am very concerned about, that of teaching. We have been hearing for years, decades, that teaching is absolutely necessary for the progress of society; advancing ideas, a more democratic, participatory and educated society, and advancing quality of life and economic development. Through education we will be able to reduce poverty (economic and cultural), improve living conditions and reduce economic and social inequalities between men and women.

We have had Finland and countries in northern Europe, an example of this in the development of education. Social services are highly developed, have help to have children (and then), the education system is highly approved, of quality and close to the family. Being a teacher is quite difficult and these people have great social recognition – they are responsible for the training of their sons and daughters.

For years, I say, we have been told that teaching is very important. That money spent on education is not spending, but investment; that in an increasingly educated society the quality of life is higher.

And along with all of this, now, without concealing or disguising, comes a brutal attack on teaching. Disregarding the work of teachers, rather than helping an increasingly less prestigious sector on a social level, we are hearing insults against it from some politicians. It is terrible, and I think it has only one interpretation: the intention against the democratisation of society.

They are not interested in people thinking, in reducing class differences, in improving the living conditions of those at the bottom. They do not believe in the democracy they so often demand... And yet, it will be the citizens who in Spain and in Euskal Herria promote this type of policy.