Saturday, February 09, 2019

The 'counter-procés'

Carles Francino


Spanish nationalism, which exists and is transversal, and which is as legitimate a feeling as any other, is copying step by step the strategy of the 'procés'

No matter how hard we try, and be sure that I try every day, it is impossible to escape the explosive cyclogenesis that Spanish politics has become. The resounding derailment of the proposal to place a rapporteur in the negotiations on Catalonia is at the moment the last chapter. But, in line with this explosive cyclogenesis, wanted to refer to the next Sunday demonstration in Madrid against Pedro Sanchez as a big storm, because there will be lightning and thunder everywhere, and just as by now the storms are known by specific names, I think we could baptize that call for demonstration with a very significant name: 'counter-procés'. The 'counter-procés', in case there was any doubt, is already a reality in Spain. Do you want a very curious detail? Since 2014, in all the independence demonstrations in Catalonia, the motto has been:  'Fill the streets to fill the ballot boxes’.

The article that this Friday publishes Pablo Casado in the newspaper 'El Mundo' is entitled: "Fill the squares to fill the ballot boxes". Someone might say: coincidence? No. Spanish nationalism, which exists and is transversal, and which is a feeling as legitimate as any other, is copying step by step the strategy of the 'procés'. Banners on the balconies, emotional appeals, appeals to the common homeland, demonstrations on the streets, general mobilizations; and those who do not agree with this will immediately be treated as "traitors, not patriots, felons ..." Exactly the same thing that the independence movement in Catalonia has done in recent years; only with some linguistic nuance: in Catalonia the traitor, the not patriot is also called 'botifler'.

However, ¡watch out, very important!, this 'counter-procés' covers a huge space. Toni Martinez describes it splendidly in the 'Huffington Post': "This story -he says- is not of Vox, neither of the PP, nor of Rivera, nor of the old guard of the PSOE, nor of the pro-Spain sectors of Podemos, nor of the socialist barons, neither of the King, nor of the powers of the State, nor of the mass media, nor of the taxi drivers, nor of the pub conversations; it belongs to no one and belongs to everyone”. Because that story arises from the fact that the Constitution of 78 was drafted at a time when screaming "Spain" was embarrassing because it was associated with the Franco regime. Therefore it was a hung up Spain which remained. And, on the contrary, it was a moment of sympathy towards the peripheral and progressive nationalisms.

But some of these nationalisms did go too far; we must punish those responsible for this disloyalty and redistribute the cards of 1978. This would be a little bit of a summary, and I am convinced that this discourse, this idea -with all the nuances if you want- is subscribed to by the right, left, through the center, from north to south and from east to west all over Spain. But there is something else, and I want to say it: just as in the Catalan sovereignty drift there were too many people, for too long a time, who kept silent for fear of the hegemonic discourse of independence, now I also find clamorous the lack of reply or alternative to this tsunami, which might end not with independence but with less self-government. In short: 'procés' and 'counter-procés'. May god catch confessed those trapped in the middle - we are quite a few -.


https://www.elperiodico.com/es/opinion/20190208/articulo-opinion-carles-francino-el-contraproces-conflicto-catalan-nacionalismo-espanol-pablo-casado-7294138
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