From the angry Catalan to the frustrated Catalan

After the hangover from the reform of the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia and while waiting for the ruling of the Constitutional Court that ended up cutting it, the image of the angry CatalanIt was a way of putting words to the accumulated weariness caused by Spain's systematic discriminatory treatment of Catalonia. That collective irritation was fueled by a historical grievance—fiscal, cultural, linguistic, jurisdictional—that seemed to have reached its limit. Catalan political movement knew how to channel this discontent into a shared cause, which culminated in the independence process, with the outcome known to all.

Since then, we've lived through a cruel economic crisis that lasted for years, we've coexisted with the effects of state political repression, and we've weathered a pandemic that brought the world to a standstill. Looking back, young people born this century, who are now 25, only have memories of difficult and uncertain times, and this obviously leaves a mark on society as a whole. From the angry Catalan, who saw the future with optimism if things could change, we've become the frustrated Catalan.

The world order has entered a turbulent phase. Russia has invaded Ukraine, reopening the ghosts of a war in the heart of Europe. The United States, with Donald Trump as an increasingly decisive figure, no longer acts as the guarantor of a certain global order, but instead projects uncertainty and ignores world peace. In the Middle East, the war in Gaza and the impunity with which Israel acts have fueled the feeling that human rights are worthless when they clash with geopolitical interests.

At the same time, migration crises have become a structural element. Wars, inequalities, and the increasingly visible effects of climate change are forcing millions of people to move. Catalonia, like all of Europe and now home to more than eight million people, is a direct reflection of this. Our cities and towns have been transformed by a diversity that is often seen as an opportunity for economic progress, but which also generates tensions because it comes at a time of weakness in our welfare state.

This is probably the heart of the problem: the healthcare, education, and housing systems are showing signs of exhaustion. Hospital waiting rooms are overcrowded, classrooms are crowded with students whose diversity is difficult to manage, and the price of housing has become an insurmountable barrier for thousands of families.

The consequence of all this is a climate of unrest that particularly affects the younger generations. Years ago, they were told they would live better than their parents, but today the general feeling is that this promise has been broken. With low wages and unstable jobs, independence has become a privilege that breeds frustration.

This collective disenchantment is fertile ground for populism. It is no coincidence that, according to recent polls, one in four citizens in Catalonia is willing to vote for far-right parties like the Catalan Alliance or Vox. These parties offer no concrete or realistic solutions, but they connect with the most primal emotions: fear and insecurity, the sense of losing traditional values, the threat of external enemies, and gender politics are some examples. Far-right rhetoric speaks to people's guts with grave and inflamed words of pretended dignity. They often offer simple diagnoses that border on caricature, which hardly offer any feasible solutions, and they always point the finger at the establishment parties, forgetting that these, with all their flaws, are the ones who have contributed to forging the welfare state now being championed.

History has many examples that remind us that extreme responses to times of crisis do not solve problems, but rather exacerbate them. When governments are driven by fear, social and democratic consensus quickly collapses, and rebuilding it takes generations.

Catalonia has gone from anger to frustration, and this is fertile ground for embracing those who have answers for everything. Hopefully, we'll have time to recover the value of politics with a capital P, speaking more clearly and eschewing the politically correct rhetoric that no one believes anymore. We can't allow collective frustration to be capitalized on by those who only know how to add fuel to the fire. The way out, as always, lies through politics: more complex, slower, and less spectacular than populism, but also the only one capable of building a shared future.