Mónica Oltra resists and returns

We were saying yesterday (well, a month and a few days ago) that the judicial, political, and media persecution against Mònica Oltra constitutes a paradigmatic example of one of the preferred instruments of the far-right and certain right-wing factions: defamation, which we also know lately —also, of course— by an anglicism: lawfare, which we can translate as judicial dirty warfare. It consists of disseminating infamies, insults, and lies against a political rival, with the aim not only of discrediting them but also of destroying them: politically and, if possible, personally, in their most intimate sphere, which is usually family and affections. This practice is nothing new, and we can go back as far as we want: in Catalan politics, the alleged alcoholism of Pasqual Maragall would be an emblematic case, aired at the time by CiU and the PP, and later, the Alzheimer's posters that insulted the two Maragall brothers, Pasqual and Ernest, from within ERC itself.Without looking back so far, when ICE shot and killed activists Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the Trump administration's machinery rushed to publicize that they were dangerous individuals and to highlight aspects of their personal lives that, from a conservative perspective, could be considered negative (that Renee Good was a lesbian, for example). In Spain, defamation has affected everyone from independence leaders (the lies published at the time about Puigdemont, Junqueras, Jordi Cuixart, or Jordi Sánchez still resonate today, to the point that a good part of the independence movement has made them their own), figures of the Spanish left (Iglesias, Montero, Carmena), or even —this is a novelty in recent times— a president of a systemic party like the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, whom they try to destroy with accusations against his wife, his brother, or his deceased father-in-law, if it suits them.Social networks have multiplied the capacity for a rumor or a lie to spread and propagate, but the real qualitative leap is to judicialize the lie: that is, not for the defamer to be brought to court, as would be reasonable, but for the defamed person, in addition to the damage they suffer, to have to defend themselves judicially from the lie attributed to them. In this way, the harm inflicted is aggravated, prolonged over time, and becomes a nightmare that almost always affects the defamed person in both their professional and personal life.Therefore, Mónica Oltra's return to politics (she will run for the mayoralty of Valencia, against the current PP mayor María José Catalá) is good news. Even if she returns wounded, as she herself says, and that entails an added responsibility, such as managing resentment. But it is good news both for the Valencian left and for the politics of the Catalan Countries and for Spanish politics. It means that, in addition to the aforementioned Pedro Sánchez, there are other manuals of resistance. And that dirty play, in the long run, is the game of cowards and losers.