Prats de Molló, back to the future
We must turn back. November 4, 1926, which shouldn't have been, but it was. Courtyard of the Perpignan barracks. Look at them: "All the prisoners are gathered, in formation, with the flag. When Macià appears, accompanied by Bordas de la Cuesta, an impressive silence falls. All eyes are fixed on him as he advances slowly. Then he stops and begins to speak. They are words of affirmation, words of hope, of hope for the ungrateful present. The ideal remains burning brightly and is the main focus of the task to be done. Catalans!
Josep Carner-Ribalta writes this with the raw emotion of a director. Francesc Macià's right-hand man and one of his lieutenants in that detained general staff. But let's go back further, keeping in mind that November 4, 1926, was the day that was supposed to change everything.
Some Catalans tried to do what many Catalans had tried to do, whether through juggling neurons or rusty iron, for centuries: liberate Catalonia. These men decided to do it the other way around: invade the country from The same country. They intend to march armed from Prats de Molló to Barcelona and proclaim the Catalan Republic. But everything falls apart on the very day that was supposed to be the day. The plan explodes. The betrayal of a Mussolini spy embedded within the Catalan guerrillas leads to mass arrests. It's over. Or is it? The question remains alive now, a century later: was Prats de Molló a failure?
The lack of knowledge of this thrillerThis film noir, action, and suspense is absolute. It is ridiculed. It is belittled. It is hidden, swept under the rug, thrown away. As if they were scraps from the slaughter of a mythological beast. But without Prats de Molló, there would be no international media trial in Brussels. One more exile added to all the exiles experienced and still experienced by Catalans who want to be Catalan. The ignition of the Catalan cause on a European and American scale. The Macià myth as the construction of a leadership where there was nothing. The proliferation of young Catalan ants working in the cauldron of freedom. Without Prats de Molló, there would have been no Pact of San Sebastián in 1930, nor the Republic in 1931, nor the Generalitat... Without Prats de Molló, we wouldn't be where we are either. For better or for worse.
Prats de Molló is not a military erotic fantasy. Nor a failure coitus interruptusNot some showy, acrobatic stunt. Prats is one of the plot twists in Catalan history. Carner-Ribalta explains it: "We have to convince ourselves that Spain, whether republic, monarchy, dictatorship, democracy... will always be against Catalonia and will always deny us even our freedom, sovereignty, and identity." Prats de Molló is about realizing reality. There's nothing to be done. An act of de-lobotomization. Extracting the chip implanted by the fictional Spanish state. But above all, it was a vanguard act of existence: in the face of the asphalt steamroller of fascism and totalitarianism: Primo de Rivera, Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Stalin SA... All of them. It was the response to a world that wanted to destroy the Catalans. Such as.
