ABSTRACT
With these words, echoing verses inscribed on the walls of the Alhambra in Granada, a representative of the Spanish Socialist Party ended his speech to the Senate in 1980, in a debate on the future of ONCE. The Senator urged the centreright Unión de Centro Democrático government to reform the organization and let it pursue the goals for which it had been created. This was not to make the blind into lottery sellers, but to encourage them ‘to work and practise a trade’ like in other countries. In his reply, the government representative agreed that the sale of lottery tickets was not helping the blind to integrate into society, but given the high level of unemployment in the country he understood that they had little option but to earn a living in this way. As to how the government could ensure that ONCE would not be deflected from its true aims, he declared that the best solution was to democratize the organization so that ‘the blind themselves will answer the question.’1
