The city-nation

There are Barcelonans who speak of the city as their homeland, and it makes sense, because civic nationalism gets better press than national nationalism. A Barcelonan can complain that foreigners predominate on their street without fear of being labeled racist. They can publicly harass tourists, who are, for the most part, middle-class people who enjoy traveling as much as we do... Another reason for being a Barcelonan nationalist is to bypass the conflict between Catalan and Spanish identity. A kind of third way: urban, global, and Mediterranean. This third way, however, tends to use Spanish and see Catalan identity as a constraint. But there are also Barcelonans who are proud of their city precisely because it is the capital of Catalonia, something so objective that, by ignoring it, we fail to explain what that city is, what makes it different.

Managing this collage of identities is no easy task. This was clearly evident at the Guadalajara Book Fair, the stage for a sophisticated balancing act, with a majority of Catalan-language authors. The City Council counterbalanced this with a narrative heavily focused on highlighting Barcelona's role as a bridge to Latin America, through—of course—Spanish as the common language. The satisfaction of the Catalan writers who attended the event, recounted by Ignasi Aragay in this newspaper on Saturday, contrasts sharply with the poor reception of the city's proposal to grant a Latin American author a residency in the city to "share its story with the world" in Spanish.

We must get used to Barcelona living with its cultural battles, an internal conflict that will likely never be resolved. Catalan nationalism must understand that the city has a global dimension that demands its own narrative. But in a conflict, everyone looks out for their own interests, and the defenders of Barcelona's Catalan identity must always be prepared, because the opposing pressure is very strong and has enormous economic interests behind it. That's why certain media and economic platforms persistently advocate for closer collaboration between Barcelona and Madrid, while downplaying the centralist policies of the State, the disparity in investment, and the stubborn and foolish resistance to allowing the Barcelona-Valencia connection. That's also why the PSC-led city council pays to have the Goya Awards presented in Barcelona, ​​which doesn't Catalanize the awards themselves, but rather (with varying degrees of success) Spanishizes the winners, as is already happening with the Ondas Awards.

Many in this camp believe, perhaps in good faith, that the best course of action for Barcelona's progress is to beg for crumbs from Madrid's status as the capital. Others of us believe that this strategy, which has a two-century history, only leads to failure, and that if it were to achieve any kind of success, it would be at the cost of erasing Barcelona's Catalan identity, and even worse, of straitjacketing its global profile to reduce it to the Hispanic sphere.

If Catalan nationalism wants to become stronger in Barcelona, ​​it must place all its emphasis on a principle that most Barcelonans share: Barcelona is its capitalAnd this status as capital doesn't depend on Catalonia being independent (although that would help a great deal). Barcelona shouldn't relinquish its ambition to project itself, but above all, it must strengthen its position as capital. And that also requires Catalan nationalism to reverse Jordi Pujol's historical mistake of abolishing the Barcelona Metropolitan Corporation, instead of doing what was necessary, which is to place it under the authority of the Generalitat (Catalan government). Investing in Greater Barcelona, ​​in a first-rate city, is investing in its status as capital. And this, in the end, is good for Catalonia and for Catalan nationalism.