Juan Claudio de Ramón (Madrid, 1982), diplomat and essayist.
A democracy needs quality public space, a vibrant civic debate and intellectuals committed to democratic values and principles.
All of this is rare nowadays. For this reason, we must thank Juan Claudio de Ramón for his determination to bite his own words, as if he were biting coins, to separate false ones from real ones. A diplomat by profession, but a philosopher and essayist by vocation, he offers us in his "Dictionary of Stereotypes on Catalonia" (Deusto) the tools with which to navigate through the confusion of the Catalan 'Procés' and dismantle its clichés and more clichés. His book is not for or against the pro-independence movement but, as he says, a mirror in front of which non-independentists should look at themselves if they want to defeat the independence movement.
Why this book?
Because I felt dissatisfied with the discursive apparatus that we use when addressing the Catalan crisis. It is a set of phrases that seek to convince us that people become independentists due to external causes and not because of Catalonia's own internal dynamics. They give reason to the independence movement and they excuse it. It is a mistake: in order to win a discussion one has to dare pointing to the other party where they are wrong.
What is the topic that makes you feel more desperate?
The one which maintains that politics cannot be considered under judiciary scrutiny is the most destructive of all since it undermines the foundations of liberal democracy. Politics cannot consider itself outside examination by justice. The judicialization of the Catalan conflict is not the result of a political strategy but the consequence of the violation of laws.
Which topic has cost you the most to argue against?
The topic of "Catalanism". For many people, the "Procés" (Comment: the pro independence process) is a heresy for Catalanism. Although many Catalanists have opposed the "Procés", I think it is its natural evolution. Maragall (comment: ex socialist mayor of Barcelona and ex president of Catalonia, not an independendist) once said: «half of Spain does not like us and the other half does not understand us».
Neither is true: neither Spain is the monster drawn by the pro independence movement nor the stepmother depicted by Catalanists.
Catalanism is the fruit of a problematization of Spanish identity defined by Catalans regardless of whether there is a problem or not. In the past (comment: during the Dictatorship) it was the manifestation of necessary militancy, but today, when objectively there is no problem in combining Spanishness and Catalanness, it ends up being an obstacle to developing a dual and balanced federal identity. Catalanism may not be a form of nationalism, but it is a a form of hypochondria that makes belonging to Spain manifest itself as an ailment, something which today is imaginary.
Does Catalanism require that Catalonia remain as an Ortega-type problem? (comment: philosopher Ortega y Gasset)
Exactly, it is a Catalan "98-ism" (comment: The 1898 generation when the last colonies were lost to Spain and as a result Catalonia lost markets and the nationalist movement was created) which prevents doing away with the problem. It is a melancholic loop, as Jon Juaristi would say (comment: Basque writer who diagnosed Basque Nationalism), a collective self-induced frustration into which all of Catalan society is introduced.
Why do you argue that the right to decide is undemocratic?
Because I define democracy as the universal extension of the idea of citizenship. What is democratic is that which equates citizens' rights as well as broadens the social base which enjoys them. If what you propose is cutting the citizens´ body into pieces and as a result turning part of the citizens into foreigners, then you are acting against democracy.
Is the independence movement a legitimate idea if it is defended via democratic channels?
That is a dialectical concession that should not be made. Nationalism is an ideology based on the production of lies and ethnic antagonism and I do not wish to call that a legitimate project, even if it is legal. By saying that it is legitimate we reduce all reproaching to a question of forms, as if there were no political program which is deeply undesirable.
Was there a Coup in Catalonia or was it just a bluff?
I think there was a Coup. It was an attempt against the Constitution and all have penal systems contemplating norms against such types of violations of the law. It is a disgrace for the independentists since they did too little to succeed but enough to step right on established criminal norms. Although it is true that in the penal code there is no crime labeled as "coup d'etat" judges will have to determine if their behaviour fits into some of the types that are contemplated in the code.
You say you're a federalist, but you're against plurinationality and the idea of (Spain as a) "Nation of nations":
I do not know of any successful federation in the world which declares itself multinational. Such a principle introduces a factor of disarray. Nations, especially during their nascent phase, are excluding. One of the advantages of the Spanish nation is that its aggressive phase ended in 1978 (comment: date of voting of the new democratic constitution).
As writer Arcadi Espada says, its lies were told a long time ago. However the other nations within Spain are still in their nascent excluding phase. I am afraid that the idea of establishing plurinationality in Spain will give birth to a form of plurinationalism which as Josu de Miguel (Basque professor of constitutional law ) says, which would lead to one being possibly Spanish in many ways, but Basque, Catalan or Galician in only one way: the nationalist.
What problem do we have in Spain with its languages?
The Spanish liberal nation has welcomed and accepted its linguistic diversity. The same cannot be said of the regions with languages. In the same year in which school textbooks in the Balearic Islands state that their only legitimate language is Catalan, the (Spanish) "National Essay Prize" was awarded to work written in the Galician and the "National Poetry Prize" went to a Mallorcan poet writing in Catalan. There you can see how each of these nations is in a different stage: one has become inclusive, whereas the others are excluding.
And why do you say then that Babel can defeat Leviathan?
Because in the last 200 years languages have been vectors of identity formation. Modern nation-states are, to a large extent, language-states. Spanish elites have not fully understood that Spain has a common language but not really a national language which fulfills the role that Portuguese or Italian fulfill in their respective countries. By not having a national agglutinative language, the (Spanish) state needs to absorb the potential of belonging represented by the other languages.
Is that a reproach to the State? Do you have to do more?
Yes, because the state protects and guards its linguistic diversity but does not really manage it; it allows it to be managed by sub-national nationalisms, with the expected results. What must not be allowed is letting languages, which are wells of wealth and culture, become the engine of segregationist projects. This can only be achieved if the state regulates all linguistic rights also becoming the guarantor of minority languages. Many Basques and Catalans will stop feeling that they need a state to protect their languages if they see that the Spanish state does so. And it's not enough to actually do it, it has to be seen doing it. An effective gesture is an exhibited gesture.
"Something must be done with the two million Catalans who have opted for independence." Is such a phrase a common cliché or a legitimate question to be answered?
It is a phrase that reveals an understandable concern that I also have. Now, living in a democracy requires training oneself in the exercise of frustration. Part of the solution to the Catalan problem is reformist: reforms must be made for the whole country. But another part is purely psychological: it consists of accepting that the wish to have a Catalan monolingual state is not going to be fulfilled. Many of these two million will have to assume the congenital limitations to democratic coexistence, which consist of accepting that one does not get everything he/she wants.
What problem do you have with Ortega (y Gasset)?
Ortega put us in the impasse of "conllevanza" (carrying on resignated) when affirming that the problem between Spain and Catalonia has no solution because they are two metaphysical entities condemned to orbit one around the other without ever integrating. But it is not true.
And with Cambó?
It is the other side of the paradigm. As the problem has no solution, we must sublet the governance of Catalonia to a moderate nationalist who promises that he will not break up. The events of last year show how illusory it is to think that this stable transaction between elites in Madrid and Barcelona, can be maintained indefinitely.
What would you put in place of the Ortega-Cambó paradigm?
Instead of a transaction, a transformation. To turn the narrative of an inclusive Spain much more seductive for the independentist citizens than the one of segregation. Instead of devolving even more competencies, decentralizing state institutions (for example, transferring the Senate to Barcelona and others to other cities), generating a nation without a center that deactivates distrust. Instead of shielding autonomous, intransigent and intolerant regional linguistic policies, adopting federal language management, regulating by law the use of all official languages. And changing the rhetoric: our speechline must constantly disqualify any form of speech which impoverishes the individual.
Was the independence movement definitively defeated last year or is it only temporarily deactivated and can it resurface again?
I am part of the dominant consensus which believes that the independence movement, in its insurrectionary version, has been defeated. However if we continue using all the phrases which I pinpoint in my book, I am afraid we are going to see more and more independentists. Because if we keep telling them " you are right" in the end they will have no reason to change their minds.
Are you more worried about the weakness of constitutionalism than by the strength of the independence movement?
I have always thought that the problem is us more than them, that we do not believe in our project as much as they believe in theirs.
You diagnose the Spanish as having low national self-esteem. But is not a statetement such as the nation "without complexes" somehow proof of an inferiority complex?
There is a series of expressions associated with Spanishness, such as that one, which I do not share: having complexes is not bad. Another is "being proud of being Spanish," an expression that squeaks and which I never use. I cannot be proud of something which is not my merit, although I can feel fortunate if I compare my state with others and acknowledge that mine is democratic and that having been born in Spain has put at my disposal a vast cultural tradition of which I benefit every day.
Being Spanish is not a source of pride, it's luck, but certainly not something embarrassing, as the left often feels.
What happens with the Left in regards to Nationalism?
The Spanish nation, defined as a solidary community of equal citizens, is a creation of the liberal left, specifically of the Spanish progressives of the nineteenth century; Basques, Catalans and Galicians included. Azaña (President of the Spanish Republic in the 1930s) was the last great representative of such a tradition.
After the civil war, the nation is no longer Liberal but National-Catholic. The Constitution (1978) retakes the spirit of liberal nationalism but political practice does not. That led to an eclipse of the Spanish liberal nation, which is buried by the memory of the dictatorship and by the prestige of peripheral nationalisms. Until 2017, when the paroxysm of the "Procés" favoured a return to a liberal nation that now feels legitimated to defend its legacy and to oppose the dismemberment of the territory.
But what seems to have awakened is not liberal nationalism, but the 'illiberal' of Vox.
True. It is another byproduct of the "Procés": identity and defensive nationalism, by nature essentialist. Fortunately, it is not easy, because the Spanish nation as such, as configured in 1978, can only be civic and pluralistic. It has overcome its ethnic and excluding cycle. The proof is that many of Vox's proposals are openly unconstitutional.
What role does the Left have in the struggle against the pro independence movement?
A fundamental one. The left has the power of prescription, it sentimentally educates people. If in Spain there is today an open consensus acknowledging that in September 2017 something very serious happened in Catalonia, it is because someone like (Joan) Coscubiela denounced it (Comment: Leftwing MP in the Catalan parlament who publicly denounced the flagrant ilegality of the independentist government in the act of voting its own laws "of disconnection" with both the Spanish Constitution and the Catalan self-government regional constitution).
It is important that the left condemn nationalism because young people listen mainly to the left. Its task is twofold: to discredit the secessionist processes and to re-believe in Spain as a vector of progress. People must know that Spain is something valuable, that it is stupid to throw it overboard. The challenge of the left is to convince Spanish youth that Spain is worthwhile even when it is governed by the PP.
https://www.elmundo.es/opinion/2018/12/22/5c1a805bfdddff87aa8b461d.html
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