This Catalonia Day we must be demanding
With the pandemic already in retreat (but still present and threatening), with political prisoners on the street (but exiles still abroad and judicial repression still active) and at the gates of the beginning of a political dialogue with the State (but with few specifics and low expectations), this year's Catalonia Day comes in a context at a time of waiting. The course is uncertain. Despite having the leverage of the Catalan Government, the pro-independence movement remains divided and disoriented, without a common roadmap, still digesting the consequences of everything that the independence referendum and the forward flight of a symbolic declaration of independence four years ago entailed. The same can be said of the Catalan opposition: it is neither mobilised nor united. The impotence stalemate is lengthening amidst a panorama of social and economic urgency due to the harsh shock of the pandemic.
The country is facing a global need for reconstruction that embraces both the national question and the complex economic and social reality. As for the political dispute, the difficulty of the dialogue process that is now becoming obvious: a week before it begins, there is not even a date for the meeting nor confirmation of its protagonists. On both sides there is scepticism and, in some cases, an explicit desire to go straight to failure. But we have to give it a chance. It wasn't so long ago that "sit & talk" was sovereigntism's slogan. If not out of conviction, then out of strategy and a sense of responsibility. Above all because there are no alternatives that do not involve a new split. The "the worse, the better" is not viable. Among other things, because the political trauma compounded over the last year and a half due to the pandemic disaster, which has left Catalan society at the limit of its strength, with high levels of precariousness. In this sense, then, reconstruction is also very necessary: in the world of health, in schools, in businesses, in families, in culture, in the sphere of language... Everyone needs a break, a minimally passable path.
A third leg of the reconstruction must be the strengthening of democracy in the face of the authoritarian involutionism with which the ultra-right is threatening, especially in the face of Catalan independence, but not only. We must continue to denounce the judicialisation of politics that has been used to silence the democratic clamour for sovereignty. And, on the other hand, the populist airs that are sweeping the world have made an impact beyond the far right. The necessary and legitimate criticism of the political class and institutions, the demand for transparency and accountability cannot be confused with anti-politics, with believing all public servants are the same. Despite mistakes and doubts, the response to the virus has involved a serious commitment by many of the people who have found themselves at the head of institutions, as by a large majority of citizens.
This year's Catalonia Day can't be a day of lamentation, ranting and division. It must be a day of demands. There is much to do, much to build. Without magic shortcuts but without renunciation.
