A priority of democratic culture is to seek conciliatory solutions to conflicts, to try to bring things to a point where they can reach an agreement and avoid the path of violent confrontation. With the rejection of the amnesty, the Spanish right and much of the judiciary have unleashed their authoritarian impulses, which divide society between friends and enemies of the homeland.
From the outset, the unwillingness of the right, then in the hands of Rajoy, to politically manage the independence challenge was clear. It immediately prioritized a repressive response. It is evident that politics in the calculation of the balance of power is essential. When one believes they have found a moment of opportunity and decides to move forward through radicalization, they must be very clear about how far they can go. The independence movement, after having accumulated a certain political capital, entered a phase of acceleration. The street pressure was mounting, and some leaders, who, a pity for the human condition, played the game of who is braver, exposed themselves pathetically. After proclaiming unborn independence, on a night when many voices called for a timely stoppage out of basic common sense, the next day almost no one was in their offices and some were already running abroad, while the rest waited resignedly for the police to come looking for them. Two ways of understanding responsibility that will make his memoirs interesting: some of those who stayed, after serving time in prison, are back in action, while those who went into exile have faded away, and now only the shadow of Puigdemont remains on the screen.
The Spanish reaction was unleashed with the courts in full swing. Mariano Rajoy, the most colorless of the PP presidents, who had let things happen, transferring the burden of the battle to the courts, was unexpectedly overthrown by Pedro Sánchez, one of the most outsider who, with all due respect, had ousted the old guard of the PSOE, which failed to understand that its time had passed. And when the courts entered into action, a way out began to emerge: amnesty. What was it all about? Simply accepting that we were facing a political conflict and that recognition of our adversaries was necessary if we wanted to move from the repressive phase to the return of democratic normalcy. This path involved amnesty, which the right has made a mortal sin and turned into a weapon of battle, managing, of course, with the complicity of a good part of the courts, to delay its implementation and prolong the state of emergency.
Now, desperate, under pressure from Abascal and the far right, Feijóo is making the fight against the amnesty his strategic weapon, the way to crown an opposition effort focused on discrediting President Sánchez, without offering any alternative political project or initiative. The Constitutional Court has done what was common sense: recognize a government's right to declare an amnesty, because there is no precept that prevents it. And Feijóo brings people out onto the streets with the slogan "Democracy or Mafia," in a blatant exercise of political impotence, with the far right riding on his heels and increasingly setting the agenda.
Much remains to be resolved in the practical application of the amnesty, due to the resistance of the courts, the short-sightedness of a narrow-minded right, and the use of the confusing crime of embezzlement to limit its effects. And yet, it is undoubtedly already fostering a certain level of détente, amid the process of assuming the independence movement's role of having gone beyond its own forces. And right now, Catalonia is far from the tensions of 2017, with a range of real and potential alliances beyond the black and white. What's needed is to comply with the amnesty—there's still a long way to go—and restore the democratic normalcy that will allow us to confront the coming threat: post-democratic authoritarianism from the Catalan and Spanish far right.
