The pomegranate

The pomegranate is prehistory
from the blood we removed
the idea of closed blood
in a hard, sour globule
that has a strike form

of heart and of skull.

Federico García Lorca

Jordi Pujol often used the slogan "Our world is the world" to justify his foreign policy. In Catalonia in the 1980s, such a motto was quite common. glocal It was more of an aspiration than a reality, except for exporting businesses and young people who took Interrail trips with backpacks. At the dawn of the 21st century, with all the symbolic weight of the millennium, concern for the environment ceased to be a fad. hippie to get on the global agenda. The slogan "Act locally, think globally" then became popular. Today, when information is a universal fact, when climate change and immigration are knocking on each of our doors, globalization is not a wish or an expectation, but a reality that cannot be ignored.

We idealized this new reality. We believed we would live in a spiritual Pangaea, brimming with optimistic intentions that have now shattered. Multilateralism founders in the face of the delusions of Trump and Putin, the rise of China, and the discrediting of the UN. European unity, which had gained momentum with the adoption of the euro, is stalled by the decadent egoism of the old nation-states. The global economy does not foster balanced and widespread progress, but rather consolidates inequalities everywhere. And cultural diversity is no longer perceived as an ideal of coexistence, but as a sugarcoated version of uprooting, the erosion of identities, and the resurgence of xenophobia. The dream of a more cohesive planet, which was meant to bury the dark legacy of the Cold War, seems further away than ever.

The worst expression of the new globalization, for us, was the 2008 financial crisis, which exposed our powerlessness in the face of a distant web of economic and financial interests that is completely beyond our control. That crisis is at the origin of social movements such as 15M in Spain or the outraged In France. And in Catalonia, it also explains the rise of the independence movement, which, in part, was also a defensive response by Catalan nationalism to two threats: Spanish nationalism and global cultural homogenization. The failure of all these popular movements has paved the way for the new far-right populism.

Is there still room for dreams, for naiveté? When I think of the world I would like to live in, I picture a pomegranate. The pomegranate has a solid, uniform rind, resistant to worms and parasites, but it contains a mosaic of small, bright, red, fresh, and flavorful segments. The strength of unity and the beauty of diversity—this is the symbolism of the pomegranate in universal iconography. Fra Angelico painted it in the hands of the Christ Child to express the desire for unity among the various Churches. And some rulers of the Habsburg dynasty, including Emperor Charles I, also displayed it in their portraits, expressing their ideal of a composite monarchy, strong but also nationally diverse (the ideal of our Habsburg supporters in 1714).

A world capable of facing common challenges, a decidedly federalized Europe, and a free and pluralistic Catalonia, worthy of living in harmony with itself and its neighbors, under a friendly and protective shell, like that of a grenade. This is the world I would like our children to achieve. Or at least to be able to gaze upon with a long and determined gaze. And I know that, for pessimists, asking always amounts to asking too much, but it is at this time of year that we allow ourselves to formulate our wishes, whose childishness is, thankfully, excused. Happy 2026.