Against nostalgia in Catalonia and Europe

Any policy driven by nostalgia is doomed to failure. We observe the temptation of nostalgia throughout Europe, including in Catalonia. It is a form of escape from reality and is not an attitude exclusive to far-right formations. The paradox is that this drift reaches us when the present demands greater capacity to rethink changes, to prevent the future from becoming only threat and fear. And it is time to rethink because it is time to rebuild. The hour of a reconstruction policy arrives. Without solemnity, but with commitment, with a vocation to conjure the mixture of irrationalism and fatalism that fertilizes the ground for anti-politics and, in turn, for populist and reactionary options.We are experiencing collective discouragement and democratic malaise that call for a combination of self-criticism, listening, and reform. Self-criticism of some premises that have underpinned basic policies to date, listening to citizens who express various forms of disaffection towards institutions, and decisive reform in those areas where problems demand a change of focus, not just the allocation of more resources. From here, we will have to assume the risk of reconstruction, especially on two overlapping fronts.First of all, a national reconstruction, indispensable after the stage of the sovereignist process, which ended badly as long as it is not possible to ask again —without baton blows— what citizenship wants. But today's Catalonia is not that of the post-civil war, nor that of the eighties, nor even that of the 92 Games or the events of 2017. Three issues that are part of the daily agenda clearly show this: housing, economic model, and language. The world of Jordi Pujol and Pasqual Maragall —to name the two most important Catalan leaders of the second half of the 20th century— no longer exists, nor will it return. It remains basic to assume the framework of "Catalonia, one people", but this cannot be used to stop analyzing the great social transformations that challenge us.

Furthermore, the post-Process scenario has coincided with the emergence of problems that indicate unprecedented material wear since 1980; the protests of teachers, doctors, and farmers are just the tip of the iceberg. On a layer of powerlessness, a generalized suspicion is settling, leading to a growing distance of the citizen from the self-governing institutions. Also, with respect to the very idea of politics as a tool for transformation. It is not anecdotal that, according to the latest barometer from the Centre d’Estudis d’Opinió (CEO), the main problem mentioned by the population is access to housing (28%) while the last place in the ranking is occupied by Catalonia-Spain relations (2%), despite support for independence growing by six points. And this connects with the second reconstruction that, in one way or another, this era demands. I am referring to the rebuilding of trust in politics. The failures of the democratic circuit are evident and their accumulation has a highly demoralizing impact, while at the same time provoking reactions of all kinds, from disconnection to rage. CEO data indicates that dissatisfaction with politics is the fourth biggest problem for citizens (8%), only behind housing, immigration, and citizen insecurity. Common sense tells us that reversing this panorama involves exemplary conduct, honesty, empathy, accountability, greater severity against the corrupt and those who corrupt, the elimination of much bureaucracy, and more real dialogue in the face of citizen protests. But it is not an easy task. Because social disappointment does not only stem from what doesn't work. We must consider the loss of prestige of truth, which is linked to the exaltation of arbitrariness and the decline of Enlightenment values. This is why the map of minimum consensuses has disappeared, and politics then appears as a mere theatre of power, a circus that operates outside of everyone's lives. Here is the unsettling lesson that Trump and his emulators offer us. Our condition as Catalans obliges us to rethink all this, but so does our condition as Europeans. The cracks and weaknesses of the EU are considerable, especially when faced with the role of China, the United States, and Russia. However, it is only on the back of the ideal —critical but firm— of a united and more democratic Europe that Catalan reconstruction makes sense, if we want to rekindle hope. And if we want to conjure away the specters of a residual, marginal homeland imprisoned by the folkloric fable of a past always better than the uncomfortable present.