Two hours of Messi

China has taken two hours away from Messi at the passport control at the Beijing airport. He was missing a piece of paper, the visa. They made him a special one but it took two hours.

Dictatorships, to imitate democracies, work with papers, visas, stamps, accreditations. If it's not you or similar, you don't enter. But Messi is the most famous and appreciated kid in the world. He doesn't mess with anyone. He sneaks the same in life as in area. He has left Paris Saint Germain and has signed for a team from Miami (United States). Inter Miami. Messi is world champion with Argentina. Messi and Argentina, World Champions. China is only champion of the Wuhan coronavirus, in that it is unbeatable. There the already forgotten virus was born. Whether it's from the Wuhan lab or a twisty bat, the virus is a total Chinese export. There is no comparison between what Messi brings to the world and what China brings.

However, and for this very reason, China has retained Messi for two hours at a counter. to what end? Don't they know him? Perhaps China only wanted, like Teruel a few years ago, to exist. China is a great world power without interest, perhaps it has already surpassed the USA in many or all headings. But, like everyone, he needs a Messi (a popular messiah) to appear in the memes and suck a bit of popularity, glamor (Pure glamour, by Aloma Rodríguez).

Dictatorships are less cool than nothing. Totalitarianism, the more it spreads and tempts with its tyrants, the more rejection it gets. It will be an internal, intimate and not very showy rejection, but the invisible rejection, perhaps cowed, still generates more volts and more resentment. If you take it out it ventilates and evaporates a bit. If you keep it, it ends up crashing. The natives are silent out of fear (in Russia or China, for example). The neighbors of countries with democracy always roaming and threatened, say nothing and allow themselves to be seduced and entertained by the claims of tyrannies, who try –and in general succeed– to sign their declining stars. Xavi defended the viziers of the Gulf. For whatever reason, nobody says anything and thus the star system is degrading, always in danger. Türkiye, Poland, Hungary, Russia… China!

What is the message that the Chinese dictatorship wants to send to the world by holding Messi for two hours in an airport?

China, like Teruel before, needs to exist in popular affective zones, let's put soccer. In this case, he needs it to be known that Messi is there, oh. And that is why he has kept it on a counter under the pretext of a pretext. A visa. The strategy is not successful but it can be forgiven. The same thing happened to Russia, it could not exist even with shots. So he invaded the neighbor next door, Ukraine.. It is better to retain Messi than to invade Ukraine.

Saudi Arabia and the other Emirati abominations of the Persian Gulf, also manual dictatorships (or more) fail to launder their image no matter how much money they throw into the world. We all carry or see their logos, Formula 1, soccer, airlines, even a soccer World Cup! But they get nothing. They spend enormous amounts and don't get an iota. It would be enough for them to call elections. Cheaper and more effective.

But they have to sign poor Benzemá to get a brief at Marca. What a mess. Messi has resisted, he has preferred to go to Miami, which is something else. Saudi Arabia not even with Benzemá will be able to wash Khashoggi's thing. Well, yes, it's already washed. Who remembers the guy who went to the Saudi embassy in Istanbul to get a visa and was cheated? To something else butterfly. Also the USA, our beloved current metropolis that perhaps has already been superseded and we don't know it, has dropped more bombs and invaded more countries than the rest of the universe, including from here to Andromeda and beyond the Kuiper Belt. But it can be said, and there are choices. Assange is a martyr, but he hasn't been nailed down… yet.

What is the message that the Chinese dictatorship wants to send to the world by holding Messi for two hours in an airport? That China is a legal country, with legal certainty and papers and policies and visas. In other words, it is like a democracy. But in dictatorship. Well, call elections.