Sociological Francoism

1. The good news: in a month's time the elections will have already taken place. The bad news: Santiago Abascal will already be pressuring Núñez Feijóo to invest him as president of the Spanish government. What we have seen in four autonomous communities, with Vox leading the PP towards the radicalization of some policies in exchange for investitures, will now be repeated on a large scale, in Congress, so that the right can regain power. The way the polls look, an absolute majority for the right seems certain and neither Rufián, nor Nogueras, nor Colau, nor Bildu, nor the PNB will be able to do anything to stop it. The machinery against Pedro Sánchez –the judicial, the media, and the not-so-social networks– has functioned like a perfect gear. The jewels of Zapatero and the corruption of the PSOE, with Ábalos at the helm, have done the rest. If at any moment Iván Redondo, an overrated advisor, made Sánchez believe that a comeback was possible, the AVE tragedy and Minister Puente's terrible management have undermined the socialist options to remain in power.

2. The ballot boxes, therefore, seem like they will bring the right back to power as has been happening cyclically in democratic Spain. But even if the PP and Vox were in the opposition for the last eight years, sociological Francoism has never disappeared. It has been more than 50 years since Franco died in his bed, but some of his values, some of his power structures, and, above all, some attitudes and mentalities that permeated society during forty years of dictatorship, have still not disappeared. On the contrary. They revive, fueled by that uniformizing conception of the State, which dances as much to the sound of “yo soy español” as it sings with pride the "a por ellos”, against those of us who do not speak Spanish or those who come from another country without a cent in their pocket.

3. Sociological Francoism is not that bunch of stubborn nostalgics – with a little mustache like Matías Prats – who miss the Caudillo and demonstrate on October 12th with the chicken flag. Neither is it that army of young people – more boys than girls, more well-groomed than tattooed – who argue that life was better under Franco, when they cannot know that because they are contemporaries of Lamine Yamal. Sociological Francoism is a more subtle inheritance. It goes beyond the trivialization of Francoist repression or the resistance, even now, to recognize the plurinationality of the State. Catalonia, half a century later, has not managed to free itself from the political, cultural, and psychological consequences of Francoism. This last aspect is the key. Some social consequences have endured. Such as considering Catalan as a secondary or dispensable language in many spheres. Or the identification of Catalanism (not to mention independence activism) as a suspicious, unsolidary, or dangerous attitude. Not to mention the obsession with rejecting Catalonia as a political subject with the right to decide its future. All of this causes them incurable hives.

4. The most resounding victory of a process of domination is, perhaps, to get the dominated to end up assuming as normal some of the limitations that have been imposed upon them. And this happens to us so often and in such a habitual way that we don't even notice it anymore. Let us ask ourselves three rhetorical questions. Have we not internalized subordination when, to defend Catalan, we must have and maintain a militant attitude? Why must we continue constantly justifying our identity before those who never question theirs? Have we not ended up confusing coexistence with renunciation? On too many occasions, I think so. And that is our problem. And it is the great success of sociological Francoism or Spanish nationalism, which are often two corners of the same place. Unfortunately, this is not the world that is coming after November 29th, it is the stale air that has never gone away.