La Cataluña insurgente (The insurgent Catalonia)

03/04/2018

PRESENTATION IN MADRID OF

 'LA CATALUÑA INSURGENTE' Gabriel Colomé: 

"We have the most mediocre generation of politicians, and it is a drama"

The political scientist, creator of the Catalan CIS, argues that the only way out of the conflict lies in the constitutional reform, but requires leaders with "high-mindedness", a Gordon Brown, and there is not.




"There is not a Gordon Brown here." There is not a political leader capable of spinning an emotive, passionate, convincing, overwhelming speech at a time of crisis, at a decisive juncture, as it was in that 2014, on the eve of the referendum in which in the end the permanence of Scotland within from United Kingdom. In Spain there are "mediocre politicians", "and that is a drama" right now, when the State is going through its biggest bankruptcy since the Transition, with the threat of secession of Catalonia still burning and an unstoppable emotional breakdown.

Gabriel Colomé is the one who signs the reflection. He is a an associated professor of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and a columnist for El Confidencial, former mayor and president of the Socialist Group in the city council of the Catalan capital (2011-2015) and campaign manager of Meritxell Batet, head of list of the PSC in the general elections of 2016 and today deputy in the Congress. Colomé presented his latest book on Tuesday, 'La insurgente Catalunya' (Carena, 2017), at the Blanquerna cultural center in Madrid, together with Batet, the journalist Josep Cuní and the editor of this newspaper, Nacho Cardero. The four talked for almost two hours about the situation in Catalonia, the relationship between journalism and the media and the crisis of the social democracy and the PSC, a party to which Colomé dedicates several pages of his work.

The author, director and creator of the Center d'Estudis d'Opinió (CEO) -the Catalan CIS- considers that the way out, the only way out, of the sovereignty conflict is a reform of the Constitution, the text that three of the four leaders of the main parties -Pedro Sánchez, Pablo Iglesias and Albert Rivera- did not vote, representing a generation that deserves a Magna Carta "of the 21st century, a new pact of coexistence", not only to unclog the crisis in Catalonia, but to draw a new lace in which everyone feels at ease. But, in his opinion, the problem is that in Spain, and in Catalonia, "there is no Gordon Brown". "We have caught the most mediocre generation of politicians of any line in history, and that is a drama, the 1978 Constitution, with these mediocre politicians, could not have been made," he argued. And today more than ever a constitutional reform is needed, for which a "sense of state", "height of view" is needed.

"The Constitution of 1978, with these mediocre politicians, could not have been done," says Colomé, exconcejal of the PSC in Barcelona

Colomé started his dissertation with the question, suggestive and already classic in him, what Donald Trump, Pablo Iglesias and the 'proces' have in common. The economic crisis, populism and post-truth, with the distinctive note that the 'proces' is before the president of the United States and the leader of Podemos, and that it has become a "great laboratory of populism and post-truth". For starters, the independentists have been able to generate, invent, new words capable of painting their reality better, he said. Expressions like 'right to decide', 'plebiscitary elections', 'democratic mandate', 'road map', 'procés', 'voting is democracy', 'ballot boxes' ... They have known how to "twist the words and political concepts in his favor".

Another characteristic note for the political scientist: the independence movement works like a religion. "It's a church, they have faith, they're believers, and that's why you're not going to convince a believer, they'll say, 'You do not believe?' Colomé stressed that they, the independentists, have an idea, an "armored, solid and hermetic" message. And in front, on the constitutionalist side, they have "four parties and a lot of noise". "It is very difficult to oppose speech to noise, Moncloa could have a speech, but knowing Mariano Rajoy, that would be news, his is more silence."

It is very difficult to oppose speech to noise. The Moncloa could have a speech, but knowing Rajoy, this would be news.

For the political scientist, the "big mistake" for the secessionists came in 2015, when the then 'president', Artur Mas, "the great responsible for the disaster", opted not to repeat the elections and give in to the "blackmail" of the CUP , who asked for his head and imposed his road map to Junts pel Sí, the coalition of the old Convergència and Esquerra. "If we had been a country that had suffered World War II, there would have been no mistake, we would have marked a red line: here the democrats and then the non-democrats, and with them there is no agreement, even if you need them." But CDC and ERC "played" and agreed with the CUP, an "anti-system and undemocratic" formation, which has ended up leading them "to ruin". And the collateral effects "were the CDR [the defense committees of the republic, which have excited the tension in the streets] and what will come." "They bought something by agreeing with the CUP: one-sidedness, disobedience and republic." Although neoconvergents and republicans "went bluffing". But it was already late.

And they found that the weight of the State fell on them. "The independentists confused the Government of the PP with the State, A Government may be weak, but the State is not." And less Spain, he argued, that is not the oldest nation, as Rajoy tends to say, but the modern State with more tradition. Another of these "collateral effects" is that he encouraged the constitutionalists, "the majority of Catalans", to take to the streets to demonstrate in defense of unity with the rest of the country, something that had never happened, he stressed, since 1977 "And for the first time you see two flags together, the Spanish and the Catalan, and the Spanish is not the Franco, it is the constitutional." The last great derivative is the victory of Ciudadanos in the elections of December 21, possible because "people understand them, they are subject-verb-predicates", and "other parties are very complex". "The more to the left, the more complex". The logic would foresee, believes Colomé, that as the economic recovery consolidates, populism and independence will retract, because the democratic malaise is a consequence of the crisis situation.


  
Russian interference?

The professor outlined during the presentation - which also attended the parliamentary spokesman of the PSOE, Margarita Robles - a provocative reflection: "Who viralizes the images of 1-O?", The police charges. "The same people who won the elections for Trump, the Russians, this game is also played in other countries," which try to destabilize the EU. And, 'sensu contrario', "who is going to save Catalonia and the EU from this disaster, the US and NATO", because they can not afford a weak and vulnerable "southern flank".

For Cardero, Colomé's book is an "instruction manual" to know what has happened, but also "serves as a bridge between two realities"

Colomé sees light at the end of the tunnel. And that is, for Nacho Cardero, one of the virtues of 'The insurgent Catalonia', a book that is at the same time an "instruction manual of what has happened", which is also "self-critical" and which is also " hopeful ", because it is a" meeting point "," serves as a bridge between two realities ".

But not only that. According to the director of El Confidencial, Colomé's book contributes something very important, the context. Because we live in a time of "simplification of messages", with "excess information", with "a lot of data and little interpretation". And in the Catalan crisis "there is an excess of information, perhaps too much noise, and there has been a lack of context". 'Insurgent Catalonia', recalled Cardero, "talks about the past, present and future of Catalonia", looks back to analyze the trajectory of a key party like the PSC, returns on the steps of the ruling of the Constitutional Court that dismantled part of the Estatut, it goes back to the massive demonstration of the 2012 Day and the elections that Mas called next. "From those muds, these muds, and now we see the CDRs, how article 155 of the Constitution continues, how the independence formations do not agree to appoint a new candidate for the investiture", how the sovereignist leadership is in prison or flight. Faced with the "Matrix full of lies", Colomé's book, he stressed, "offers answers from a federalist perspective" and makes proposals such as the constitutional reform.

The three paradoxes

Batet preferred to shed other aspects of the work (not only Catalonia) and also took up the thread of simplifying the messages. The "excuse" of "simple messages", the servitude of "speak clear and short" to get better in the radio and television news, which require voice cuts of 20 seconds, "can not lead us to simplification, make hollow phrases ". For the same reason, the member defended, one can not go beyond the "political educator" - "politics is pedagogy", said the socialist historian Rafael Campalans, who gave his name to the foundation of the PSC- to the "seductive" politician, plate". "I'm not saying that politicians do not have to cover that flank, but it is important not to lose sight of everything else," he warned.

Batet charges against the simplification of the messages and doubts that the opening of the primaries in the end will give votes to the parties that make them

The parliamentarian stopped in some of the paradoxes described by Colomé's monograph. The first is that although society connects with the demands claimed by social democracy (now pensioners, women, young people ...), it is evident that this is not "at its best" neither in Catalonia, nor in Spain or in the world.

Moreover, she said: "The same happened with the 15-M", movement that emerged during a socialist government that led not to a victory of the left, but in an absolute majority of Rajoy's PP.

Second paradox: citizens demand "transparency" and internal democracy to the parties, but then they punish those who deepen in it. "I do not know if making primaries gives a single vote, I think not," she riveted. A message that could be read as a reflection of what happens in the socialist courtyard: specialists in fighting internal struggles democratically, as well as in not winning elections (at least, lately). And third contradiction: the pro-independence have achieved that the PP, via 155, govern in Catalonia, that Ciudadanos be the first party of the Parliament and that the institutions of self-government that cost so much to regain, stressed Batet, "are in 'stand by".

Batet presented a final "commission", the review of press and political relations. A link "necessary, essential", but also "has its perversities, their pathologies", which must be clear to "combat". "The relationship between these two worlds is fundamental to have a quality democracy and return the prestige to democratic institutions, and restore the confidence of citizens in politics, and it is fundamental if we want these crises not to drag us to an implosion of the democratic system that is potentially in danger, "she concluded.















https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/2018-04-03/gabriel-colome-presentacion-libro-politicos-mediocres-cataluna-insurgente_1544456/