1/1: The year of the pardon

Pardon is not the solution, but it would be a bomb. If it arrives.

Vicenç Villatoro
1 min

It may be that this year that begins will be the year of the pardon of the Catalan political prisoners. If it is - it is not at all certain -, it will be a bomb for Spanish and Catalan politics. In Spanish politics, because there would be a harsh confrontation with the pardon as a reason or excuse - they are confronted by many other things already - between the right-wing opposition and the ruling left. While one would present it as a betrayal, because it wants humiliation and revenge to have no faults, another would present it as a sign of détente that would help, in practice, to deactivate independence. And the pardon would also be a bombshell in Catalan politics - marked by the forthcoming elections -, where, with the prisoners on the streets, two conceptions of sovereignty would collide even more: the one that gives up what we call the Procés - the Catalan independence bid - and believes that what is needed now is to manage the day-to-day as best as possible in order to try again when one has more strength; and the one that believes that the Procés is neither liquidated nor defeated and that it would be useful to keep it open with the maximum degree of confrontation possible. Pardon is not the solution, but it would be a bomb. If it comes. And if it comes, what will happen to the rest of the present and future repressed people who have not been pardoned?

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