I fought for 20 years, 6 in prison, against the
dictatorship and I co-founded CC.OO. I was a member of Parliament, lawyer and
journalist. Today I go back to childhood, because I dedicate myself to reading,
speaking and writing. My niece? I have many. Evolve and evolve makes me leftist
and democrat. I publish 'The manipulation of the language'
"I suffered six years in prison to have a Constitution: read it"
It depends on us
"What happens tomorrow depends on our ability
to propose today. And Catalonia - says Sartorius - does not have the Statute
that voted. We must remedy it by improving it and also its financing. The
Constitution needs a review that makes it more federal and converts the Senate
into a territorial chamber. That federalism must be social and guarantee
health, pensions and housing. In addition, we must include in it the digital
revolution, globalization, the environment and the fit in the EU, where 60% of
what affects us is already decided. To update it, I would not go for a
constituent process, but rather for agreed reforms to be voted for. It would be
updating of the constitutional pact, because, after 40 years, everything has
changed".
What happened in Spain; what happens and what do you think will happen?
I am telling you what I experienced. I started to
face the dictatorship in 1956. And I was arrested in the Strikes of Asturias of
1962. They brought me before a court-martial and they condemned me.
Were you of good family?
Middle class.
Weren’t you an aristocrat?
For me that was irrelevant.
For those who believed it, it was relevant.
But not for me, although I can tell you a terrible
anecdote: one of the times I was arrested, a policeman who tortured me took out
a knife and shouted that he wanted to see if it was true that I had blue blood.
Why did you join the PCE?
I entered in the prison of Carabanchel in 1963, the
day they shot Julián Grimau.
Did you think then that one day the dictatorship would end?
I was afraid that Gil de Biedma was right and that,
of all the stories in history, the one about Spain would end badly again. But
60 years have passed and for the first time, this story of our history has
ended well, because we all live better than back then.
Well, there are many complaints.
Because people forget that by that time it was not
guaranteed that we would live better in a democracy. In the end, the outcome is
that the 1978 Constitution is one of the most advanced. The problem is that
many of those who criticize it have not read it.
In what is so advanced?
For the first time in the history of Spain there is
a table of fundamental rights that can be invoked directly in the courts. And
there has been a political decentralization that is a spectacular progress with
respect to our historical centralism.
Maybe it's more appreciated outside than here.
The unions are not only mentioned, but they are in
the preliminary title, the most protected and with the right to strike, which
in the dictatorship was a crime of sedition. And it is very progressive
regarding women.
In which?
Here the women voted for the first time in 1933,
but then Franco arrived. But in France, on the other hand, women did not vote
until 1944. We are an advanced country, but too many forget that we can go
back.
Why?
Because globalization changes the concept of
democracy: the economic and technological powers are global and you cannot
defend your sovereignty only from the national state.
Rodrick's ‘trilemma’: sovereignty, or democracy, or prosperity: 2, yes; 3,
no.
The solution is the European Union. Today, just to
be democracy, democracy must be Europeanized. Spanish, French, Italian or
German democracy alone can no longer solve the big global problems: climate
change, digital revolution, tax evasion...
Even the taxi depends on Uber and the US
Everything goes globalizing and if we do not also
globalize our democracies, we will lose them. That is why the extreme right
attacks and wants to destroy the European Union, the only one capable of
guaranteeing democratic progress.
Who are those ultras for you?
Trump, Putin, supporters of Brexit, Salvini, Orban,
the European extreme right. And here we have separatism, and now the Spanish
extreme right.
Well, they do not do so badly in the polls.
That worries me, because if the European Union
fails, everything will be at risk: the democracy, prosperity and well-being
that today many take for granted and guaranteed.
Couldn’t there be a Europe of nations and that they understand each other
without joining?
We would be confronting each other because of markets
and coins again and everything would turn into fighting.
History always alternates periods of globalization and nationalization.
You quote Rodrick and I disagree, because we do not
cede sovereignty to the EU; we share it instead. The peseta was a confetti and
today we decide on the Euro. And what before did not work in Spain today we
also decide it with the rest of the EU.
Catalonia couldn’t get along with Brussels without intermediaries: without
Madrid?
It is an illusion. The EU knows well that if it
breaks up into small states, it will disappear. To ignore it has been the first
mistake of the independence movement: to believe that Europe would listen to
it. And Clemenceau, when he was told about the Catalan independence movement,
replied: "Pas de bêtises!"
How many more mistakes do you attribute to them?
Just mixing up the Spanish Government with the
State. And making mistakes when defining progress. Dividing the countries is
reactionary, because you also divide the progressive forces.
They said the people pushed them.
National populism, in order to to succeed, has to
pull ordinary people, although behind there are less common people. Always, the
most effective way for these reactionary elites is just to take advantage of
the homeland they say they love, from Trump to Bolsonaro. When they know how to
move behind the flag, they win.
Where do you think we are going?
This is what his students asked from Immanuel Kant:
where Germany was headed. And he replied: "It depends on what you
do." Today should be the same.
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