Franco visits Lleida in 1963. There's a sweet, surreal, Lleida-style lemon grove moment. Lleida welcomes the dictator, and there are posters like this one: "Franco, welcome to Lleida." It's not a linguistic-cultural protest: it's the ceremony of the confusion of a country that has been replaced and is genetically revealing what it truly is. Franco sees the posters as he crosses the bridge in the Rolls-Royce. He glides at flea speed along the bench on Blondel Street that overlooks the Segre River. Spanish flags. Applause. From all those people from Lleida who don't even know how to speak Castilian Spanish and who are striking at what is killing them.
The vehicle emerges at the New Cathedral. Franco gets out. And the No-Do newsreel voiceover:He enters under a canopy with the prelate of the diocese [of El Pino], who, after the 'Te Deum', delivers a vibrant speech"And be amazed by what the bishop says in front of everyone, in front of God:"Digitus Dei est hic("The finger of God is here"). Franco is the finger of God. Franco is ET, the extraterrestrial, according to Bishop Aurelio del Pino.
Few cities suffer like Lleida. Everything comes in here in 1938. The city under the Lleida regime or Alarm. They say, that's what they say... Look at the newspaper: "The news, reported by several national newspapers, regarding a possible economic regionalization of Spanish provinces has caused alarm in Lleida, as this province of Catalonia has been excluded from the economic division map drawn up by the technical office of the National Economic and Trade Union Council. This map places the province of Lleida within the Aragon region. The current draft Organic Law allows for a division other than the provincial one, and although this hypothetical distribution is unofficial, it has sparked discontent and protest in the city."
Okay, this is serious. A malicious and artificial map is circulating: "Ebro Valley Region"Capital Zaragoza. It includes the three Aragonese provinces, plus Navarre, La Rioja, Álava, and Lleida from top to bottom. They say the basic criterion is water. River basins. They call it..."Natural Region"They treat it as the most natural thing in the world. And so much so that... high school textbooks have already appeared—approved by the Ministry of Education—that include the map where Lleida is already separated from Catalonia.
It's been 50 years since Franco died. But we are left with the material and spiritual plunder of the Western Strip: the Strip, the Sijena caves, the Catalan language, coexistence, unity, ties, the skin stained with the blood of Ribagorza in the Matarraña; fleeing to Aragon because of our bureaucratic national autonomy; Catalonia for the mainland. The hole made a hole."
