Pujol and the enemy State

The “progressive” judge –or at least proposed by Podem– José Ricardo de Prada summoned President Jordi Pujol to the National Court in Madrid first thing Monday morning. More than making him testify, the intention was to subject him to another forensic examination to exhibit him as a wounded trophy, if not defeated. And this, to then be able to treat him as disabled and remove him from the case and keep open forever the suspicion of hypothetical guilt, something he himself wanted to defend himself against until the end. Perhaps therein lay the risk!

The decision had been analyzed from many points of view. His personal doctor, Dr. Jaume Padrós, considered it “cruel”. Turull and Junqueras spoke of mockery, revenge, and humiliation. President Illa, with his usual moderation, also asked for “sense” from the National Court... and found that he had finally had it. All, however, limited their criticism to the personal mistreatment of President Pujol. Joan Vall Clara went further, noting that through this humiliation, they wanted to let us know “that they will not hesitate to intimidate us, strike us in weakness, and try to annihilate us. That’s what it’s about”. Because, Vall Clara added, Pujol and Puigdemont “are the great game trophies whose heads they want to exhibit”.

Vicenç Villatoro suggested yet another framework for interpretation. In “The victors baptize, the victors judge”, he remarked that, in this case, there was “a symbolic component, of ostentation of victory, but also a practical component, of cutting off the possibilities of recovery for the vanquished”. Villatoro’s thesis is very good: they are picking on Pujol and Puigdemont because they think –because they know!– that they have not yet won enough and “that the vanquished is still struggling”.

I still want to add another dimension. Although we tend to forget it, governments are not the State. They are, but only in a small expression. It happens that governments and parties are compulsive producers of discourse, dependent as they are on public scrutiny, and they fill pages of information, hours of talk shows, and the network with messages. But the State and the administrators of its structures – such as the magistracy – do not need publicity: they shun it. First, because their position is guaranteed and well paid. And second, because they know themselves to be stewards of a more general, more valuable good, which can be summarized as guaranteeing the unity of the homeland. And whoever says the unity of the homeland, says the preservation of the power spaces of each estate that constitutes the State.

So it matters little that Pedro Sánchez negotiates, agrees, and manages to pass an amnesty. And it matters little that President Salvador Illa firmly believes in his objective of “pacifying” the country, by sending separatism to the dustbin of history, being a personal friend of Sánchez, and showing himself to be docile to the State and its demands. I mean, the fundamental issue is not whether these political actors promise in good faith or not what they say, whether they believe it. Nor do we know to what extent what they say they now think and do has to do with their current political weakness.

But it matters little, because the State disregards it completely. The judiciary disregards it when it summons Pujol to humiliate him, and it will not leave Puigdemont in peace without trying to get him into prison first. The forces of “a por ellos” disregard it, who are still pursuing it. Railway unions and their “patriotic” unity of interests disregard it. Civil servants who must approve eternally delayed investments in the Catalan “provinces” disregard it, while it slips through their fingers when signing those for the capital of the State. And, of course, those who must guarantee the fiscal predation of the Catalan Countries to make permanent the privileges of a no less patriotically designed redistribution disregard it. And, while we are at it, for a separatist to believe that the underlying political game he represents is played in Spanish elections and whether a left-wing front wins – the right had already tried it too – is an naivety – or bad faith – that makes one fall over backwards.

In summary: bringing President Pujol to the Audiencia is cruel, very. It is a total humiliation. Even more: it is a desire to exhibit a big-game trophy in front of their pundits. Are they not at all sure they have definitively defeated Catalan separatism: without a shadow of a doubt. But the State also shows what the true structurally colonial political relationship it has with the Catalans is, now through the judiciary, cowardly abusing President Pujol's weakness and adding with sarcastic condescension – one of the most authoritarian mechanisms of power – that it does so to avoid ageism. Do we need more proof of who the enemy is?