Letters to the editor

But I wasn't!It is what scared students say when you ask them who has harassed a classmate or who has thrown a paper airplane at a teacher. And, sometimes —which puts them in evidence— they add: “I haven’t seen it”. It wasn’t necessary, because the next question is inevitable: what you “haven’t seen”, what has it been?

We don’t usually feel guilty for the injustices we see: guilt corresponds to the one who commits them. But responsibility is a broader issue. When we remain silent in the face of lies, when we look the other way in the face of violence, or when we abandon the defense of an unjustly attacked person, perhaps we are not committing a crime, but we are contributing to creating a world where injustice becomes possible. Burke is attributed the tweet: “For evil to triumph, it is enough for good men to do nothing”.

Karl Jaspers had distinguished between guilt and responsibility, and Hannah Arendt recalled that, even if collective guilt does not exist, collective “responsibility” does exist. Many tragedies do not prosper solely through the action of the guilty, but also through the passivity of those who limit themselves to saying: “It wasn’t me” and wash their hands. As the director of a high school, I find myself facing this too often. And it doesn’t just happen among adolescents: it happens everywhere, among adults with astonishing moral immaturity.

Xavier SerraGironaGrow until burstingWe have been led to believe that more tourism, more globalization, and more growth are always good news. But when a city becomes overcrowded, housing becomes inaccessible, residents leave, and quality of life deteriorates. Economists like Herman Daly and Serge Latouche have been warning for years that unlimited growth is not sustainable. And thinkers like E.F. Schumacher already argued that small is often more human and livable.

Perhaps the time has come to stop obsessing about growing and start worrying about living better. Because a city should not be a business. It should be, above all, a place where people can live with dignity.

Cesca BartiBanyolesI don't need permission to be CatalanI was born in Morocco. And, yes, I am also Catalan.

I say this because too often there are still those who believe that Catalan identity has a single origin, a single surname, or a single skin color. As if being Catalan were a matter of blood and not of shared life, language, culture, and will. I have fallen in love with Sau's songs, I have discovered reading through the books of Mercè Rodoreda, I have been moved by the works of Àngel Guimerà. I have danced sardanes in a circle that represents the union of a supportive country that has welcomed and embraced me at every step I have taken. I received my education from great teachers in public school and I have taken to the streets to fight for the rights of my country, Catalonia.

Identity is not an administrative border nor a genealogical tree. Identity is also affection, commitment, and coexistence.

Being Catalan is part of my shared identity between Ramadan and the luminous Christmas. I have sung in churches and prayed in mosques, I have cooked cannelloni for Sant Esteve and couscous on Good Friday. I am a sum of identity experiences cohesive in a single heart. Denying me a part is not allowing me to live my authenticity.

And while I hear words of hate, I hold onto words of love, simple and tender...

Imad El Bouchaibi DaaliMataró