Catalan right, Spanish left
Statements by the general secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, In the interview conducted last Sunday by Núria Orriols in this newspaper They've been leading the way all week and have rekindled one of the most entrenched and unproductive feuds in the Catalan and Spanish political world. It's the one that pits the Catalan right against the Spanish left, with mutual accusations that are always the same and are basically based on prejudices and commonplaces. Ione Belarra herself is one of those figures who loves to express herself with slogans, and she feels reaffirmed when she spouts the clichés that the Catalan right is more or less a reproduction of the Spanish right, because apparently their capacity for observation and analysis of reality is incapable of going beyond it. It's true that the rancid, poor-strangling Catalan exists, and these very days we've seen the president of the employers' association, Josep Sánchez Llibre, almost squirming in his simultaneous bows to the PP, Vox, and Junts for having voted against the 37.5-hour workweek. But it is absurd and unfair for Belarra, and those who think like her, to deny the evidence that a significant portion of the Catalan right (unlike the Spanish) played a fundamental role in the anti-Franco struggle, and that it has also contributed decisively, for better and for worse, to the construction of Spain's battered democracy. On the other hand, and as she has been reminded, it is in poor taste for Belarra to venture into conjectures about what the Mossos d'Esquadra would or would not do in a hypothetical situation, when the Civil Guard and the National Police have such a disgraceful and real history of racism and repression. Even if Podemos managed to force Marlaska to resign, Belarra's voice was barely heard within the Cabinet.
At the same time, the words of the secretary general of Podemos have served as a pretext for the victim-oriented independence movement to vent its mantra, according to which the closest thing to a right-wing Spaniard is a left-wing Spaniard. With minor variations, this idea has been repeated for days, accompanied by lists of grievances, etc. Taking a boutade Or an idea used as a tool for interpreting reality, or proclaiming that the political world of Podemos and Comunes is even more harmful and anti-Catalan than that of the PP and Vox, may perhaps serve as a way for someone to vent, but it is nothing more than an expression of the primary and almost infantile anti-politics of such immature people in Catalonia and Spain. Nor does it contribute to any positive political action, in any sense.
The differences between Catalan and Spanish political cultures are long-standing and deep-rooted. But the ultra-nationalist right is the same for everyone (and against everyone), and the first mistake one can make is wasting time on futile arguments and partial interpretations of reality.
