Republic without fraternity

Republic without fraternity

Many of us could not and cannot get on an artifact that divides rather than unite civilly, which makes impossible the debate on reforms undoubtedly necessary both in Catalonia and Spain


Josep Maria Fradera

20 MAR 2019 - 00:00 CET


The most intriguing concept of the French revolutionary triad is undoubtedly that of fraternité. Concept used profusely during the Great Revolution, its consolidation as part of the revolutionary emblem was not achieved until the revolution of 1848 that liquidated the monarchy of Louis Philippe of Orleans. It was in that brief experience when the canonical currency of freedom, equality and fraternity was definitively established. Certainly, the consecration of the first two concepts never caused great ideological complications among the republican factions. In the criticism of the nobility monarchy and the Church, freedom and equality were ideological pieces whose legitimating function offered few doubts. Fraternity was something else, starting with its very presence in the culture of sensibility at the end of the Enlightenment. With the affirmation of workers and socialist societies in nineteenth-century France, the concept of equality reached for obvious reasons a dimension only hinted at during the events that took place between the taking of the Bastille in July 1789 and the 18th Brumaire of the year VIII (November 1799).

The triple motto covered old achievements and established new promises of greater social and cultural depth

If the very notion of fraternity was incarnated in such an erratic way in the French revolutionary dynamic, it is due, as we indicated, to its origin and diffuse meaning. As Marcel David explained in a book devoted entirely to the word and concept, the revolutionaries of 1789 tried to give a life according to the times to the old idea of natural law and Christian iusnaturalist law and its logical corollary, which referred to the idea of common benefit. It is understandable that some of the revolutionaries most sensitive to the problems of a broad consolidation of the revolution, such as Jacques Pierre Brissot, leader of one of the Girondist factions who ended up in the guillotine, a politician with a close relationship with the abolitionist Quakers of Pennsylvania, were very receptive to a concept of that style. Anyway, the radicalization of the revolutionary process put aside those differences for more than half a century. Revolutionary war and the elimination of the adversary, a dynamic reminiscent of similar experiences in the 20th century, closed that stage until the change of regime in February 1848 placed the idea of the emancipation of slaves on the table again, the working population and women. In short, of those who had been excluded from voting and political representation in earlier stages. The triple motto of the revolution embraced old achievements and established new promises of greater social and cultural depth. In that context, the fraternity was called to endure in close association with the French republican idea, to powerfully influence experiences inspired by it, including contemporary Spain.

It is to be powerfully noticed the absence of the idea of fraternity within the common ideological and cultural substrate of the imagined republic to which an important part of Catalan politics aspires, as well as its passionate and numerous followers. Being like a late formulation of a century-old political tradition, a tradition that had succeeded in merging elements of the old and new Catholic tradition, a discreet mesocratic ethnocentrism, a dose of republicanism prior to the Civil War and a justified claim of language and culture after 40 years of intolerable crushing, the recent nationalist radicalism has modified the elements of that synthesis. In effect, the idea of a republic offered not long ago to legitimize a different cocktail, neither of the right nor of the left, neither trade union nor employer, nor xenophobic nor solidary, but quite the opposite, with the result of a complete disorientation of supporters and adversaries. In short: substantially altering the culture that underlies any political movement. As this alchemy is not included in the political programs that the parties exhibit, the definition of instrumental independence, as it was also the case before the word separatism, makes it even more difficult to describe what was happening. Added to this confusion is the impossibility of defining the ideological nature of populist movements in the past and now in vogue, for which the usual definitions do not work.

It is striking that the biggest event in recent Catalonia has become less important

Digging under appearances, the imagined republic of the last stage presents a notorious absence of the idea of fraternity. In at least two main meanings, without which the rest is hardly identifiable with a mature republican experience. Two facets of these meanings are obvious. After a trajectory that claims without truce a historical foundation that goes back always until the war of Succession, it is striking that the biggest event of recent Catalonia discreetly becomes secondary in these tragic avatars. I am referring to the arrival between the years 1960 and 1970 of an unprecedented wave of emigrants from other peninsular regions. The decisive work force for the disorderly growth of the economy and the Catalan society of that time is a fact of the greatest relevance since it constitutes the community fabric on which grew the fight against the dictatorship and the re-founding of trade unionism in a society of deep-rooted traditions of social struggle. The one and the other were inextricably fused in the life experience of several generations of Catalans who learned effective solidarity - that is, fraternity - in those ties, without renouncing their own language and culture.

Replacing this lesson with a hollow appeal to the integration of the outsider, be it Spanish, Latin American or Maghrebi, demeans a legacy that should not lead to condescension but to distinguish between the obviously perfectible political system and the Spanish society as such.

The second shortage refers to even more recent events, those that are enclosed in the word procés. Its leaders know well that they have never enjoyed the social majority. At this point, it does not matter the percentage of votes or the mobilization capacity that, driven from above with the acquiescence of a blind left, they could have achieved. What matters is the silencing of the other half, of people with diverse ideas, people incapable of responding to a challenge that is based on the exclusion of others. In short: an inverse operation to the moral meaning of anti-Francoism and the imperative of reconciliation that gave it moral impulse and superiority over a civil-war regime until the end.

Fraternity (and loyalty, which is one of its components) must emerge from the entire political body and not only from Catalan society, it also appeals to the rest. Meanwhile, a republic without fraternity is an empty shell, an artifact that divides rather than unites civilly, thus precluding the debate on reforms undoubtedly necessary in Catalonia and Spain. For this and not for reasons of opportunity many could not or cannot get on a ship that leads to shipwreck.https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/03/19/opinion/1553013558_654471.html