Although it may seem incredible, a large part of Catalan politics and society is still in a state of shock eight years after the failed declaration of independence. This is attributable to repression and exile, of course. But it's still a reality that a significant portion of Catalan society is struggling to escape a state of frustration, and its leaders are struggling to escape a cycle of melancholy.
Eight years later, there is a voter who was promised Ithaca and who is now on the cusp of voting en masse for the Catalan Alliance. Out of frustration, because of the accelerating change in the landscape's physiognomy, and because of punishing the failure to meet expectations by the protagonists of a process that they presented as far removed from the reality of the majorities in Catalonia and the power of the state.
Frustration is being channeled into populism quite naturally in Catalonia, too. A populism that, as essayist Giuliano da Empoli says in the interview we published today in ARA, sells miracles packaged as a spectacle.
The electoral expectations of the Catalan Alliance are not unrelated to the nervousness within Junts per Catalunya over the results of the negotiations with the PSOE. Former President Puigdemont's party wants to establish its own profile, which today appears blurred by an approach to the Socialists, which they believe complicates their opposition in Catalonia and from which they have not obtained the results they expected. Junts will probably disengage from the Swiss negotiating table, denounce the PSC's failure to comply with the Brussels agreement with the PSOE, and make every vote in the Congress of Deputies squander. But it will not bring down Pedro Sánchez. He has no capacity, unless he votes a motion of censure with the PP and Vox, and this is an extraordinarily risky move for his electorate.
It cannot be ruled out that someone within Junts believes a new Aznar effect is appropriate and that a victory for the right and far right in Spain could reignite the indignation of the sovereignty movement. But Junts cannot precipitate the end of Sánchez.
The split of Junts will increase the climate of failure in the negotiation process. Juntos will continue its battle with the Catalan Alliance, but things will not go well for them either in the PSC or ERC.
The climate that prevails in Catalonia will depend on the Catalan and Spanish governments. President Salvador Illa is comfortable in the Generalitat and has occupied the space with a management agenda that the country needed. But he would be wrong if he did not evaluate the importance of making progress on key issues such as financing and adapt to the needs of the PSOE. Demanding the management of its own resources to implement policies that are closer to the citizens is essential for any president of the Generalitat who does not see the institution as a regionalist appendage.
The new desert?
Gaziel, one of the great Catalan intellectuals of the 20th century, reflected with bitter lucidity on the nature of the country. InMeditations in the deserteitherWhat kind of people are we?, described Catalonia as a vital and cultured nation, but incapable of expressing this strength in the political arena. This inability, in his view, is not merely a historical accident, but a profound characteristic of the collective character of the Catalans: a kind of congenital evil that has plagued the country for centuries.
To explain this, Gaziel used the idea of hybridism. He meant that Catalonia is a mixed and internally divided society, a land that has combined two opposing souls without ever achieving a stable synthesis. On the one hand, the Mediterranean and rational spirit, characteristic of the old mercantile and civilized country; on the other, the Castilian and sentimental spirit, imposed by centuries of centralism and dependence. This mixture—halfway between two ways of understanding the world—gave rise, in his opinion, to an intelligent but indecisive people, active but disorganized, capable of great individual feats but incapable of maintaining a collective political direction.
That's why Gaziel spoke of the "congenital political incapacity of the Catalans" and of the "incurable hybridism" of Catalonia. He didn't speak with contempt, but with a kind of resigned sadness.
Today, Gaziel's Catalonia no longer exists, and there are more people born in Catalonia than ever before. Identity must be rethought, and it is made up of complex identities. If this is done by an exclusive political option and by a voter frustrated by unfulfilled expectations and convinced that its economic woes and disarray are the responsibility of immigrants, Catalonia will definitively lose the opportunity to be a single, plural, inclusive, rich, and exciting people.
