What does Trump have to do with Joan Sense Terra?
London. I visit the British Library, a barrier-free temple of books, located near St. Pancras and King's Cross stations. Its motto: "Open to everyone and free to use." It houses 170 million works. A thousand years of evolving culture. In the treasure room, everything from Beatles sheet music and lyrics to the country's political emblem, the Magna Carta (1215), written in Latin, whose title was Magna Carta Libertatum, that is to say, Great Document of FreedomsThe precedent for modern constitutions.
What freedoms? Whose? We are in the 13th century, and therefore we are not talking about the freedoms of the people, but rather the freedoms of the lords against their king, John Lackland, a true cretin, known for having imposed exorbitant taxes, for having reluctantly signed the Magna Carta—and not having abided by it, but it was signed nonetheless—and for being the most fearsome adversary. That Constitution, which would mark the course of the country for centuries to come, amen, obliged the king to respect legal procedures. To submit to the law! Yes, respect for the law by the most powerful. This is exactly what Trump, today the most powerful, does not do, in his case neither in US laws nor in international laws and treaties.
These medieval Catalan constitutions also dealt with the same thing: guaranteeing rights and freedoms against royal power. Ours were finally suppressed by Bourbon absolutism after 1714, by Philip V, the ancestor of the current Philip VI. The Catalan constitutions also dated back to the 13th century: from 1283, the king could not make general laws in the Principality without the consent and approval of the clergy, knights, and citizens who formed the General Court of Catalonia. It was a system of pacts, agreements between the estates. Royal decrees or sentences were subordinate to the constitutions, to which the monarch owed obedience.
Trump aspires to be an absolutist ruler. He wants to do whatever he pleases, above the rights and freedoms (and obligations) enshrined in the law. Contrary to a certain unpopular image, laws don't exist to punish people, but are actually—or should be—a safeguard against abuses of power. Justice doesn't always help. And, of course, where there's a will, there's a way. But weakening the law usually hurts the most vulnerable. Because cheating isn't so easy; you need money to pay good legal advisors. It's well known that tax evasion is only within reach of the very wealthy.
Before visiting the British Library, I went to Sigmund Freud's house-museum. Already in his eighties, he fled Nazi-occupied Vienna in 1938, where his books were being burned and his subsequent theories condemned, and settled in London. His daughter Anna, also a psychologist, continued to live in the family London home for decades. Freud was also a victim of a powerful and bloodthirsty ruler, Hitler, who violated all human and divine laws. These kinds of people who believe they have no limits whatsoever are highly dangerous. The law (and democracy) are boring, inconvenient, and imperfect, but they are what allow us a minimum of harmonious coexistence between people and legitimately different interests. It's either this or the law of the jungle. The law of the strongest, which is what Trump is imposing again.
In the British Library, there were very multicultural groups of primary school students, all equalized by their uniforms, obedient to the teachers and the guides, older gentlemen in ties, who treated them like adults: "Thank you for visiting us, you can come back to anyone who wants to tell you about the wonderful secrets we keep here." The greatest and most wonderful secret? Learning that against the powerful, authoritarian, and ignorant, books protect our imagination, our freedom.
