That we the "deluded gravediggers" are not ourselves

The 50th anniversary of the 1976 Diada of Sant Boi invites us to play the game of spot the differences with 2026 and, as was to be expected, we do not come out looking very favorable. In part, it is logical: a semi-clandestine celebration in the stoppage time of a dictatorship had an insurmountable appeal, and it left a great aftertaste in history. They were times of hope and, moreover, of shared hope. We had once again proven Francesc Pujols right and his prophetic “the Catalan spirit always sprouts again and survives its delusional gravediggers”.

Now it is not a time of hope but of fear, and the most screwed up thing is that it is fear of ourselves. The wounds left by the 'Procés' remain open and whoever is not a 'nyordo' is a 'botifler', a traitor, a 'processista' or other insults that the self-appointed guardians of the essences dispense as if they were certificates of purity. Many people angrily demand their outstanding bills, without a shred of generosity or desire to return to it better. In fact, there are those who found in the project for the sovereignty of Catalonia a reason to live and now they find it in the dark and exclusionary proposal of considering impossible to incorporate into Catalan identity those who do not think, believe, eat, speak or dress like them. So, often, it seems as if the delusional gravediggers of Catalonia were the Catalans themselves.

Division is a political practice of parties and organizations when it is necessary to mark their own electoral profile, but it is the recipe for suicide when one is a nation limited by a hostile state and in a world that runs wildly at unknown speeds and challenges democracy itself. Settling scores cannot become an absolute condemnation of the other, especially if we want Pujols to remain prophetic. Happy Diada.