Add, Commitment and the others

Finally, the crisis between Sumar and Compromís has been postponed, or shelved in the drawer of inopportune crises, until further notice. Compromís has said, however, that it soon plans to "reevaluate" its agreement with Sumar and maintain its demands for freedom of vote and a voice in the Congress of Deputies. This is particularly understandable when dealing with issues that directly affect the Valencian Country, such as the management of the DANA (National Anti-Terrorism Act) and reconstruction, or the dirty war that the Mazón government, propped up by Vox, is waging against the Valencian language, public education, and the media.

This (that Compromís doesn't break with Sumar) isn't happening because the people in Compromís are naive, freeloaders, or have settled into their seats and their pay. Talking is easy, tweeting is even easier, and disregarding or belittling the work of others is extraordinarily easy. But Compromís is a very worthy party, full of people with whom it's not necessary to always agree to appreciate its importance. Something similar happens with MÁS por Mallorca or MÁS por Menorca, parties without which the political reality of the Països Catalans would be even more precarious and screwed up than it already is. I didn't always like Mònica Oltra's statements or decisions when she was vice president of the Botánico government, but that doesn't mean that those eight years of progressive governments were more valuable than some armchair patriots would like to believe and make us believe. Obviously, this doesn't take anything away from the current painful situation of Mònica Oltra, who is still awaiting a new trial in the judicial ordeal and defamation inflicted on her by the ultra-nationalist right.

As it happens, things tend to be a bit more complicated than the lapidary phrases, relentless judgments, and anathemas suggest. Sumar was a candidacy that was prepared in just over a month, so that the left across the country would have an instrument to somehow respond, in the general elections of July 27, 2023, to the defeat suffered in the regional and municipal elections of May 28. They had lost, precisely, the Valencian Generalitat and the Balearic Government, and they hadn't exactly lost because of a landslide by the PP, but because the voters of the areas usually called "to the left of the PSOE" had been demobilized. In the general elections, the results made it possible to build the fragile majority that once again swore Pedro Sánchez as prime minister. Now, the prospects are even more uncertain, with Sumar's performance in the polls clearly slipping. However, the path that avoids falling into the cesspool of Hispanic Trumpism continues to involve the unification of progressive forces, necessarily including the Basque, Galician, Catalan, Valencian, and Balearic left. This also includes Junts and the PNV, as well as the Spanish left capable of defending linguistic, cultural, and national diversity. Otherwise, we can argue all we want, but—in a context of illiberal, authoritarian, and neo-fascist resurgence throughout Europe and the West—we will only facilitate our own destruction.