In case anyone had any doubts, Trump has just made his identity as a tough, unscrupulous sheriff clear and transparent. Everything for my people, if necessary humiliating the weakest of Europeans. This is his refuted identity. This is what excites the millions of Americans who voted for him. Without compassion for those who do not do what he wants. A recipe that is spreading like wildfire. The diplomacy of threat.
What is happening in our house? How should we straighten our tongue? By blaming the weakest? If they do not want to speak it, out. And that's it. If they do not want to take off the veil, they do nothing here. Sheriff Orriols is clear about it.
But let's go back a little. In the beginning, the Catalan Independence Process drove away the identity drive. Sumar (a movement that promoted independence in Spanish) was created. Everyone was welcome in the construction of a new and ideal country. The call was based on democratic values –the right to decide– and not on nationalist adherence. Over the years, the squabbles between the convinced were not about essences, but about strategy. About how, not about what. About whether to go faster or slower. The “we are in a hurry” or the “let’s do it right.” Boldness or realism. The DUI or the elections. Confrontation or negotiation… Of course: there was also the branded reaction. Ciudadanos preached aggressive Spanish identity: A por ellos (let's persecute them). This provocation and the lack of dialogue of an implacable State caused the independence movement to become more and more united, losing its immaculate civic spirit.
We ended up exhausted from scholastic debates and bad vibes. We didn't know that the hangover would last so long or that digestion would be so heavy. Lost ogni speranza, the ultranationalist excrescence has sprouted. We have fallen into the reductionism of good and bad patriots, with immigration (especially Muslim) as the brunt of blows. Showing tolerance towards outsiders or towards Islam is today for many a betrayal, a naivety. It touches Trumpist hardness.
Having lost the mirage of a plausible independence, Orriols promotes the brawl on the slippery ground of identity. Who is Catalan? Who can be? Who wants to be? It is a narrow path that leads nowhere. It is not a path: it is a dead end, a 'cul-de-sac', that expression so Catalan and universal. No way out. We should flee as soon as possible from this dead end.
The music that resonates around the world does not help. Trump's ill-tempered America First. The stale shadow of Spain of PP-Vox. The return to Europe of the old and terrifying national fanaticisms: Le Pen, Weidel, Meloni... Everything pushes towards botched intolerance, towards navel-gazing supposedly to save ourselves. Will this particularist global involution fatally contaminate us? Will we know how to hold on to our invoked values of a host country or will we fall into insolent self-affirmation, rage and visceral rejection of the other? The songs of the siren Orriols sound amplified in social networks, which are not the real world but reverberates on it. Of course, the fearsome howls of the wolf Abascal resonate just as deafeningly.
Faced with these extremes, the only way out is radicalism in defense of coexistence and tolerance as supreme goods. The language cannot be defended by spitting hatred in Catalan. What has become of the Candelian kindness, of the unbeatable power of "In Catalan, please"? The oracle Pujol, resurrected from the ostracisms, reminds us of this. Òmnium is trying hard. Sensible voices amidst the shouting. Catalan president Salvador Illa seeks the official status of Catalan in Europe and supports his minister Francesc Xavir Vila, the man who brings science, work and reason to linguistic impotence.
In the wake of identity hyperbole it is easy to fall into xenophobia. One can cross the border without being aware of it. Many have begun to take the step. How can we stop the leak? Can we be equidistant from the serpent's egg? Can we have a comprehensive rejection, as if saying, "Hey! They are one of us"? No. They are not. Not like that. Under no circumstances. The causes and reality of social and national unrest can and should be debated, but one cannot be condescending to the well-known ultranationalist poison. Neither anywhere nor here. We do not want sheriffs, we want dignified and dialoguing politicians.
