A success of the Catalan language in dark times

Taking a look at reality, I think today a reflection is needed on the discomfort that the world we live in causes us. Every day gives us a different reason. For example, I find the cyberattack that has affected dozens of supermarkets in Europe to be of a particularly refined malice. At night, someone ordered the machines to go from sub-zero temperatures to 50 degrees. The result is that tons and tons of food have been spoiled. I say that I find it of a particularly refined malice in the psychologically refined sense. No one was hurt, the attack caused financial damage, but above all, it made us feel vulnerable where it hurts the most: making the dystopia of going shopping and seeing that there is no food a reality. If someone wanted to send the message that they have us in their hands with a simple cyberattack, they have succeeded.

It leaves us with a bad feeling similar to the one left by this whole Blocus story and the destruction of storefronts in Barcelona. This past Saturday, a large police deployment was required and a lot of work involving police identifications was needed before and after to neutralize the danger. But they did not neutralize the anxiety, or the uncertainty. Besides, look at the outcome: five minors remain interned in a closed regime and 72 on supervised release, half of whom are prohibited from attending demonstrations. What conclusions have these boys and girls reached? And in case everything is superficial and poorly thought out, have they lost their fear of punishment?

Another cause of distress, of course, has been the high-speed rail accident in Toledo, with its 69 deaths, with the lost trust of passengers and the evidence that we are paying with our taxes for a pharaonic train project, and that if the PP and Vox enter now they will not fix it, because the PP is just as co-responsible for the project as the PSOE.

We are going through especially dark days of a season that was already dark. One only needs to look at people like Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu.

By the way, Salvador Illa's chief of staff, Eduard Rivas, has resigned, who is being investigated by the justice system for the period when he was mayor of Esparreguera. It was already known since March that he was under investigation. It is surprising that he is stepping down now, in the middle of the Spanish pre-campaign, and that he is giving arguments to the adversaries of Sánchez and Illa, both in Spain and in Catalonia.

Of course, green is able to sprout between the tiles. Great news, this one:

Eva Baltasar, with the novel ‘Ocàs i fascinació’ [Sunset and Fascination], has won the Médicis Étranger prize for best novel translated in France. It is a prize that has been awarded for 56 years, and it is the first time that a novel written in Catalan has received it (‘Jo confesso’ [I Confess], by Jaume Cabré, had been a candidate). It is an award that had previously been received by writers of the stature of Milan Kundera, Julio Cortázar, Doris Lessing, Umberto Eco, and Philip Roth. The talent that exists within Catalan culture is not exhausted, even though we are always playing with one hand tied behind our back. Irony: Baltasar’s books allow us to close the circle of this analysis. ‘Ocàs i fascinació’ is a novel starring a woman who has no name and is alone in the world. After sharing an apartment with strangers and being thrown out of a rented room, she will have to live on the street for a few days. Her story presents the reader with a world in which madness is the only way out of the suffocation caused by savage capitalism. Eva Baltasar says that “the novel portrays fragility, the feeling of knowing that today you have security and tomorrow you could be on the street. This happens in Barcelona, in Catalonia, and in any large, medium, or small city in the West. It is part of our day-to-day life”.

So Baltasar has put into words these evils that we said afflict our world. Meanwhile, in Catalonia we are 8,237,683, as of July 1, 2026, according to Idescat data provided yesterday. And surely full of different stories and shared hopes for progress.

Good morning.