If you allow me, I’m going to tell you about my vacation. I use to spend my summer vacations in Catalonia, and, on the beach, I have coincided for a decade with people who have bought apartments in the same area and who come from France,Andorra, Extremadura, and, above all, Catalonia. The group includes some independentists and a couple of members of the Rues CDRs.
When I first appeared in my swimsuit and with the orange bracelet of Ciudadanos, there was a small revolution in the fish tank. Some took it better than others, but all ended up accepting it as I calmly accept its yellow bows. There’s nothing wrong with personal expressions of political affiliation. And a curious ritual began. Every year, the bring me some relative or friend who defend nationalism to talk to him. A TV3 presenter, or such a notorious son. Everyone come in waiting for a tart debate, and, so far, we’ve always ended up as friends.
And i’m going to say more. Although the two CDRs gets hives from orange, the youngest one has it very well taken on board, and tries to prove by talking politics with me at least one time every samer. The oldest, why deny it, looks like she squeezed a lemon (another) as soon as she sees it.
What usually surprises the most to the newcomers is not that I don’t bite them (also, honestly) or greet them with my arm up. It’s just that, as soon as we talk, they see that we agree in almost everything.
The success of national radicalism, of separatism, resides in the fact that it has sold its believers that the solution to real (and less real) problems consists in separating from Spain. That this union is the only thing that prevents them for solving problems, and be happy and eat partridges.
We are not going to enter into the discussion about why the same people who have dominated so many governments in 40 years, conditioning left and right parties and concealing themselves with the same corruption, are not going to show capable of saving them from what has not saved us all. Also we are not going to enter into false history rubbish, or (worse) sentimentalism about “the mother language, which is nursed with milk” and which must be defended in anyway. Honestly, these debates are easily won when there is a bit of calm.
My separatist neighbours want a working administration that allocates funds well. A fast and efficient justice, and a prudent and a updated laws. A democracy that give voice to all and doesn’t allow itself to be manipulated by the interests of the powerful and the big media. Respect their right to be as they want as long as they don’t hurt anyone. A economy which works and a Social Security which offers assurance.
I am convinced that most of the separatist voters today are not supremacists. The don’t think that only catalans have the right to have things done their own way. Nor that this land is the exclusive property of those who only feel that land (and not part of something larger). No. The simply believe that things are wrong because “outsiders” have damaged them and keep them that way. And they believe it because they have been mashed with that message since more (quite more) than 40 years.
Most of the separatist voters today are not supremacists
The responsibles of that are supremacists. Because they are convinced that the world, and specially Catalonia, has been done for them to be comfortably, and not for all of us to live together. Generations of descendants of immigrants have been tinted catalan, and half their population have been tricked, only to be able to continue ruling and serving of the pot. The same, ¿you know? that makes PNV party. For example.
But if one deactivates the mines that have put these spitefuls, what remains is normal people looking for a solution to real problems. People perfectly willing to accept that the issue of secession could very well be put on hold if there were a credible regeneration project for Spanish democracy, which would clean it of cronyism, scabs, imbalances, drains and entrenched inefficiencies (including the servitudes of myopic nationalist interests).A project in which one could aspire to be separated one day, perhaps, but without it constituting a matter of survival, of getting rid of a stifling slab.
Yeah, right, there’s a part of the slab that doesn’t exist except in TV3’s calendar. But there is another one that does. That’s why I used to wear that orange bracelet. There’s a lot to change. And not only on TV3.
The last planning of Rivera is not a bad start. Almost any party could sign what it proposes, if they read it camly and wisely. But they are not going to receive it with that emotions. I wager a vacation.
