A uchrony or counterfactual consists of take historical elements and build with them a literary reverie. In other words, it is about building a past that never existed taking certain historical elements as a base. Obviously this process can be done with love, with care, with a critical spirit and even with very bad temper.
In the world of celluloid we find welcome examples such as Long live the Republic!, by Jaume Grau, which recreates the most important historical events in Spanish history from the victory of the Republican side in the civil war to the present day. Another recent example is C.S.A., from Kevin Willmott, in which, from the point of view of a BBC documentary on slavery in the Confederate States of America, it goes back to the days of the Civil War to turn the tide of it. The South wins the war and slavery continues to this day. It should be noted that both examples have been conducted with certain gifts of prudence and wonderful narrative agility. Recently, Quentin Tarantino showed us his Malditos Bastardos which, based on the Second World War (IIGM), proposes us to change events and have the war end suddenly in 1944 with the assassination of Hitler at the hands of a commando of Jews aided by the opportunistic Nazi colonel Hans Landa.
In the world of literature, examples of the work of Philip K. Dick stand out, such as The man in the castle that, continuing with the theme of the IIGM, presents us with a world in which the axis has defeated the allies. Without a doubt, the theme of the IIGM is one of the great veins within this type of literary construction, but not the only one. Ken Grimwood at Start Overexplores a new vein, within the uchronías, proposing a jump back in time to his character who, after his death, returns to his university youth and relives the second half of the 20th century, altering, in some cases, the course of certain events that already has lived.
Without a doubt, this type of literature, which falls under fantastic literature, provides us with peace of mind on the one hand and on the other fosters a healthy spirit of historical self-criticism, which has often been buried in the pits of collective oblivion.
But even if it is from the prism of a distorting closeness, are we capable of imagining how the world would have evolved, until today, if in 2008 the word crisis had not flooded our daily lives? How would the central banks have reacted if in September 2008 the investment bank Lehman Brothers had not fallen along with the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or the insurance company AIG? Or if the federal reserve had not had to acquire 80% of AIG’s assets by injecting 85,000 million dollars?…
Would others have been the chisels that would have carved the stone slabs of history?
Suppose then that all this has not happened, that we are in September 2008 and that the price of oil continues its vertiginous upward path and that the rest of the raw materials, including steel and gas, accompany crude oil in its unstoppable rise.
Suppose that after an electoral campaign focused on the end of the Iraq war and without the crisis as a backdrop, Obama loses the elections on November 4, 2008 and, consequently, McCain is proclaimed president-elect.
The stagnant cogwheels of history have changed the course of events!
On January 21, 2009,
After taking office as the 44th president of the United States, McCain mobilized more than 150,000 troops for Afghanistan. Most of the contingent was deployed in the western regions of the country, such as the Herat region, where the detachment of the Spanish army was located. In the middle of the border with Iran, the answers were not long in coming. On the one hand, the Taliban carried out, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, numerous and bloody combats in which they were continually subdued by the powerful Yankee war machine, on the other, the president of Iran, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, led a media crusade against what he considered a provocation by the American army, which he accused of leading incursions into Iranian territory with the clear objective of arming the opposition. Consequently, at the end of March, the price of crude oil reached $200 per barrel, dragging the rest of the commodities towards a vertiginous rise, which meant the beginning of a long inflationary period, the likes of which had not been seen in decades.
As was to be expected, critical voices also arose in the US against the warmongering policy carried out by President McCain. Barack Obama himself began a hunger strike on May 16 with the aim of asking his government for a more peaceful and less belligerent position in the Middle East. 
Throughout the 27 days of voluntary fasting, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Obama’s pacifist speech managed to mobilize more than 750,000 people who occupied the Memorial esplanade reaching the President’s Park in front from the White House itself.Finally, McCain gave in to popular pressure and on June 18 signed what was called the “Silk Agreement” in Congress. In this agreement, the US promised to respect the decisions made within NATO and not to attack any country unilaterally as a result. This agreement meant the end of the US foreign policy based on the principle of preventive defense. The outbreak of war was over for Iran, but the drums of war beat loudly and shook the red land of Afghanistan, where, in the months that followed, thousands of Taliban were captured or fell in bloody combat.
The feat committed by Obama brought him international recognition and reached its maximum exponent when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Since then he began to be known throughout the world as the “black Gandhi”.
The Nobel was awarded to him at the ceremony held on October 9, in icy Norway, and in which the great relevance in the world of Don Miguel’s letters was also recognized Delibes awarding him the Nobel Prize for Literature. Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain attended the event, accompanied by the President of the Government, Rodríguez Zapatero, who, with a healthy economic situation in the state coffers and after the resignation of his main political opponent, was going through one of his sweetest moments politicians. A few days before, on September 24, 2009, and in the middle of the inaugural session of the National Convention of the Popular Party, Mariano Rajoy surprised everyone by announcing his withdrawal from political life. His resignation as President of the PP and his resignation from the act of deputy, although unexpected, was seen very close from the circle of collaborators close to Mariano Rajoy. Everyone knew the weakness of his state of mind after finding his access to Moncloa impossible and being completely sorry for the internal disputes led by the President of the Community of Madrid. Don Mariano left political life completely and as an expert on ball issues, he took over the management of Deportivo de la Coruña, with which, after a magnificent qualifying phase, he would manage to win the European Cup on May 22, 2010 in the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.
After the ceremony of Nobel Institute in Oslo, Zapatero strengthened his international presence and launched the “Living in Spain” campaign in which, with the support of the Royal family, he visited more than 38 countries in less than 3 months, showing the benignities of a life in the Iberian Peninsula that had experienced GDP growth regimes of 4% and 5% during 2007 and 2008 respectively and that in 2009 would be close to 8%. The miracle was blamed on the policies with which the Zapatero government counteracted the vertiginous rise in the price of raw materials and which had strong investments in R&D in the construction, tourism and renewable energy sectors as a fundamental pillar. Although it seemed impossible a few years before, the Spanish industry, in the renewable energy sector, demonstrated its capacity for international leadership in changing the energy model. Shortly after, in February 2010, Spain achieved international ratification by being admitted to the G8.
But also, from the sporting point of view, Spain would establish itself as the world power it had always dreamed of being when, after the numerous successes achieved by athletes in all sports disciplines, on July 10, 2010, La Roja was crowned world champion. football in South Africa.
Fortunately or unfortunately, nothing or little of what these lines have recreated has happened. We can smile and even heave a bitter sigh when rereading some of the preceding paragraphs. And although this uchrony has not had a more ambitious objective than to elicit some timid and even bittersweet smiles, as citizens we must not divert attention from our present, avoiding harmful defeatism, nor waste any opportunity to contribute a healthy critical vision, avoiding the formulation of summary judgments. And perhaps in this way, we will be able to govern our lives in a more complete and intelligent way.