A necessary book arrives at bookstores
Finally something useful to drain emotions and vent false beliefs about Catalonia
Ángel Puertas (Madrid 1968) publishes a new edition of his essay CATALUÑA VISTA POR UN MADRILEÑO.
Angel Puertas. Doctor of Law. Madrid on September 5, 1968. Married and father of two children, Founder of Societat Civil Catalana- At present, he also acts as a writer and lecturer, as a procedural manager in the courts of Sabadell. He is coauthor of "Silenced History". Edited by the Associació d'`Historiadors d'Catalunya Antoni Capmany.
The author, one of the founders of Societat Civil Catalana, analyzes in the purest style of the German thinker Peter Sloterdijk the different spheres that have led half of the voters of Catalonia to want to divorce Spain. Ask questions Find answers and propose generous and viable solutions.
For Angel Puertas, the greatest grievance suffered by Catalonia, and the most silenced, occurs during the 50 years of Carlist wars. On the other hand the disastrous consequences of the "bullangas" made Barcelona, according to Engels, the only European city where it was not necessary to prepare for the revolution because it was already permanently prepared.
Later, the romantic intellectuals of La Renaixança reinvent the medieval past to make the dream of a reborn Nation flourish, free of the oppressive state that shows no signs of affection. Catalan nationalism, like the German, chooses the linguistic peculiarity as a foundation, an endearing frontier that serves to preach an indisputable creed of almost religious cut, based on the goodness of everything Catalan and, by association, of everything that means home, family and why not say it, casta. From those Carlist ashes, may still fan the flame of the current nationalist fervor that in the last decade has split in two halves the people of Catalonia. A social phenomenon that has revived the self-love of the Spanish. Catalonia never ceases to surprise. She surprised the young Englishman George Orwell in 1938, and 80 years later she continues to surprise.
Puertas has probably written the best tribute to Catalonia since Orwell's. With equal admiration and perplexity than the British but with the difference that the Madrid native has always felt Catalonia as his own. The author quickly passes the page of the twentieth century. Probably because the historical distance allows a better perspective. The Transition and the bipartisanship that has governed the State of the Autonomies, is no stranger to the manifest or latent errors or omissions that have been committed before October 1, 2017. Faults common to all the governments of the last 49 years that the contemporary reader knows well.
"Puertas goes beyond the facts that tell the history books. Look for the feelings that for centuries have moved to action and the reaction of its protagonists. An approach capable of paving the way to a conflict entrenched in the soul of Spain ". Óscar Uceda (President of the Associació d'Historiadors de Catalunya)
"A monumental work fruit of many years of research contrasted on the pending emotional accounts among Spaniards, result of hiding to all essential data to understand the reasons for the disagreements". José Rosiñol (President of the Catalan Civil Society)
INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
Son of a Madrilenian father and a Toledo mother, Ángel Puertas grew up in Aluche with his three brothers. He graduated in Law from the Complutense University of Madrid, with basic marks, as clever people usually do. He had as a teacher Íñigo Cavero (UCD Minister of Culture and Justice). The doctorate started at the University of Alcalá de Henares and ended at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. In the capital of Catalonia, he met his wife, biologist and mother of his two children. If you see him in one of his lectures, you may feel that you are with someone who, from being a journalist, could have Jordi Évole's profile, because of his youthful appearance half way between formal-informal, or the tone of voice, of which despite the low profile, he knows more than he wants to pretend.
Why do you have to read your book: What they have never told you. Catalonia seen by a Madrid native?
Because it shows the historical cradle of the emotions that generated the emotional conflict between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. Nationalism is impervious to rationing because the emotion is so intense and so rewarding that it shields itself against adverse arguments. If we do not know the origin of the narcissistic affectivity we can not get the right treatment right and remedy and will be making the same mistakes as always: useless contentment or enervating confrontation. After all, nationalism is a pathology of the soul, a disproportionate feeling for a national identity. Almost all of us have a national feeling, but when this prevents coexistence that feeling is a problem. The solutions can only come from audacity, greatness and generosity.
Is it a book for all Spaniards?
Of course. It offers the vision of a person from Madrid, which can be similar to how another part of Spain perceives the problem, someone who lives it with the aim of understanding the weaknesses of the national fabric and overcoming conflicts. Lets learn why a part of the great-great-grandchildren of Agustina de Aragón or the grandchildren of the anarchist minister Federica Montseny do not want to be Spanish.
Should foreign journalists read it?
Yes. To know the emotional depth of the wounds produced and suffered just a century and a half ago by our ancestors. If you want to understand the complexity of the solution, too. It would help to understand the uneasiness that shakes this part of the bull's skin. Something that can also happen in many territories of the EU if you do not give importance to the fact of recognizing guilt and working the discourse of empathy. From the understanding of pain and resilience.
Will the independentists read it?
From my experience with the first edition I know that the independentists who have read it are enthusiastic about the first chapters, perhaps because they discover that in Madrid they do not feel the hate against Catalonia that they suspect, and because it exhibits some interiors of the Catalan society that they themselves do not know and they like to contemplate. But when they realize that their sentimentality is based on myths created to get out of the traumas of a society disenchanted by Carlism and industrialization their enthusiasm crumbles when they read the book. They prefer to continue believing in myths that provide them with an ideal to fight for. And just as children get angry with the one who teaches them that Santa is the parent, many nationalists turn away from the one who shows them that their king is naked. It is painful to contemplate how dreams vanish. It is hard to discover that the firm ground one walked through for years are simple quicksand formed by fears and prejudices.
Should entrepreneurs read it?
I do not believe that it is a book especially destined to a certain economic or social sector. Perhaps it helps them to appreciate that the problem is not political, but social and that it has very long and deep roots.
Are the media responsible for the nationalist boom?
The Catalan media, yes, in very large measure by not proportionally incorporating the voices of critics with nationalism, but it is not entirely their responsibility, but of economic dependence on the Generalitat, since almost all receive copious grants and huge sums of money. Institutional advertising, and we already know that it is risky to question the one who is economically dependent on. Some media in the rest of Spain, to a certain extent, too, because of the bland tone they sometimes use, which does not help to resolve the conflict. "
What is the responsibility of the university that trains the trainers?
The university, like all intellectual and creative fields, is a hotbed of idealists. The logical thing is that academic training will help to question beliefs and serve as a filter to the prejudices and value judgments of those who have bequeathed developed texts more as desired thoughts than as irrefutable laws in areas such as history, economics, international law or constitutional ... but unfortunately it is not like that. Nationalist passion is stronger than reflection. That is why I think it is essential to understand and break that passion, objectively, but with love, without demonizing the one that vibrates in a different wave, because normally people feel in a way but do not know the reason for that feeling. On many occasions people are not owners of our feelings and our thoughts, but slaves of them. And how to condemn who is not fully responsible? I prefer to know why the seed germinated, how it developed and how it could coexist in an ecosystem of help and mutual trust, without exclusions or excommunications.
What are you not saying in the book?
The pain of the silenced, of the Catalans of second class.
Why?
Because I may also be prey to that hegemonic thought that gives priority to the most extreme sector of Catalanism and forgets about silenced Catalonia.
https://www.mileniarts.com/Lo-que-nunca-te-han-contado
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