Everyone helped kill her, and she died alone

Maricarmen died at 87 after an eviction no one stopped

An 87-year-old woman, evicted and, by all accounts, already with one foot in the grave. Her death has sparked a political war in which each side claims the body as its banner. The question hanging over the whole affair is not who wept the most, but whether anyone did anything for her while she was still alive. The answer, judging by what is being reported, is uncomfortable: no.

What peine with Maricarmen's eviction

The facts, as they are told, are simple and brutal. An 87-year-old woman is evicted. Shortly afterwards, she dies. Within hours, the case moves from the local news section to the front line of the partisan brawl. The autopsy becomes the new battleground: some demand an inquiry into whether she was terminally ill, others directly accuse their opponents of exploiting the body. Some argue that, at that age and in that condition, the eviction or lack thereof hardly changed the outcome. It is an argument that, put that way, sounds like a deadbeat's excuse.

The political fight over an old woman's body

The pattern repeats itself with a fidelity that is frankly embarrassing. One camp claims the death was convenient for certain interests, and that the reaction of the TV pundits was a display of professional prostitution that made one want to gag. The other side replies that it is always the same people who show up when there is a death to cash in on. And in the middle, the feeling that with the media we have, it is impossible to speak of democracy, for many reasons and not just this one. The level of manipulation, it is said, is so crude that it no longer works. Though no one is quite sure of that either.

The precedent nobody wants to remember

There is a comparison hanging over the whole affair that deserves to be brought to the table: Aylan. That photo of the little boy on the beach stirred consciences for a week and was then filed away in the drawer of lost causes. As you sow, so shall you reap. The difference is that here there is no photo, but an 87-year-old body and an autopsy awaiting self-interested interpretation. The conclusion drawn is that the system does not fail by accident: it fails because nobody has any interest in fixing it as long as the dead body serves a purpose.

---

The case remains exactly where it was: a dead woman, an autopsy under way and two camps that will keep throwing the body at each other's heads until the next one comes along. No one has yet explained why an 87-year-old person ended up evicted. That question, the only one that mattered, is now answered by no one.