Why lie: I was not very optimistic about the Dialogue Table between the Government and the Generalitat, and not only because the two apparently inalienable demands of the Catalan Government (or of the part of the Catalan Government represented in the Table: ERC) are unacceptable by any democratic government: the amnesty is unacceptable because it is more than 40 years since Spain ceased to be a dictatorship;
and the right to self-determination is unacceptable because what the secessionists demand is not the right to self-determination but the right to secession, which is not a democratic right.
I was not very optimistic, I already say, but, after the meeting of the Table in La Moncloa on July 27, I see a reason to be.
The meeting produced two documents: one dedicated to the Catalan language and another entitled
Agreement to overcome judicialization and reinforce guarantees
.
The label is grim: “dejudicialize politics” is one of the most successful expressions of the jargon imposed by the secessionists to mask their outrages;
according to it, politics is prosecuted when a secessionist politician who has broken the law is brought to justice, so deprosecuting politics is equivalent to accepting that secessionist politicians are not the same as other citizens and are not obliged to abide by the laws that the rest of us abide by;
In other words: dejudicialize politics —exclude it from the control of justice— is to proclaim the impunity of secessionist politicians.
Incredibly, the anti-democratic outrage hidden in that expression is a common currency in the political discourse on Catalonia.
That said, let's read point 2 of the Agreement,
which establishes "the political and institutional commitment to legal certainty, order and democratic principles", and where it is stated: "The improvement of institutions and their procedures entails the commitment of the parties to conduct political and institutional activity in accordance with democratic institutions and procedures.
Under normal circumstances, this statement would be superfluous: the first duty of any democratic government is to “conduct political and institutional activity in accordance with democratic institutions and procedures”;
If this is put in writing in the document, it is because, during the procés, the Generalitat did not comply with that elementary obligation and, consciously, publicly and repeatedly, violated the laws, including the Constitution and the Statute, which repealed the brave ,
without having the slightest legitimacy to do so.
Acting in the purest national-populist style —or Trumpist, if you prefer—, the Catalan autumn of 2017 basically consisted of that: a cynical attack on democracy in the name of democracy (which brought Catalonia to the brink of civil confrontation).
That is why the Moncloa Agreement, although wrapped in the usual euphemisms, does not seem irrelevant to me: for the first time, the Government of the Generalitat, at least part of it, implicitly recognizes that the autumn of 2017 was a mistake and explicitly declares that it won't repeat it again.
After the fall of 2017, the only known secessionist slogan was: “Ho tornarem a fer” (“We will do it again”:
a slogan sustained in the tons of lies that were told during the procés and that allowed feeding the poisonous fantasy that the fall of 2017 was a display of democratic radicalism, when it was exactly the opposite);
Whichever way you look at it, what the Generalitat is saying in the Agreement is: “No ho tornarem a fer”.
As if little by little the truth was making its way.
Am I seeing the glass as half full?
It could be: after all, half of the Catalan Government —Junts×Cat— is still in the bush, and the other half —ERC— could go back;
After all, setting up a lie is easy and dismantling it is very difficult.
But in the charitable lethargy of this August Sunday, while the world is on vacation and a hopeful verse by Paul Valéry betrays me (“Le vent se lève!... Il faut tenter de vivre!”), I prefer to think that for something one starts.
50% off
Subscribe to continue reading
read without limits
Keep reading
I'm already a subscriber
