The commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of Paco Candel's birth seems to have caught the country off guard. Candel, his social thought, and his literary work don't quite fit in a time of partisan mistrust and hyper-political correctness. It's true that there are still days left to celebrate a Candel Year, which, significantly, the government hasn't made official. But if almost no one disputes the figure's relevance, it's not generating the enthusiasm one might expect.
Several reasons may explain the untimeliness of this anniversary. Candel was a man of consensus in times of basic national coincidences, if only because Francoism was the common enemy. He could be linked to the PSUC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) and Josep Benet, while he could also be the apple of Jordi Pujol's or Joan Raventós's eye. Candel knew himself to be independent enough not to feel uncomfortable navigating this ideological diversity of patronages, and he didn't bother his patrons either.
Now the political climate would be adverse to him, both in terms of identifying the common enemy and the absence of basic national agreements. This is no time for Candels. If any party dared to show too much sympathy for Candel, they would be accused of illegitimate appropriation. Anyone who emphasized his ties to the national cause would be reproached for complicity with the Catalanist "bourgeoisie" or sympathies with the local Church. And if anyone emphasized his social struggle, others would remember that, for Candel, this was inseparable from his commitment to language and nation.
The other reason that may explain the discomfort with Candel is his narrative freedom, which would now merit strong condemnation. At the time, Candel had to go into hiding because of the radical veracity of his stories, threatened by a neighborhood that felt identified with him. Now he should be hiding behind the social realism of stories written without ideological filters. In fact, both the left and the right recognized his merits.The other CatalansBut his literary work was never sufficiently valued because it did not conform to the hegemonic canons of his time. Of his more than fifty novels, read without prejudice, he still awaits his moment.
It is true that his thinking was not the fruit of an academic vocation but of an activism born of particular biographical circumstances. Candle, by Genís Sinca, now revised and republished by Comanegra. The other Catalans It was a difficult commission to complete, written from personal experience, with militant optimism and an intuition that ranged from critical lucidity to radical utopia. Lucid intuition was enough to reject the proposed title, We immigrants, which was to be parallel to the other great essay of the time, We Valencians By Joan Fuster. And it was utopian to write the following: "Despite all the migratory flows, there has always been a core of Catalan identity that has remained unchanged. Given this core, therefore, all immigrants will succumb to the first, second, third, and if necessary, fourth generation. In this regard, we have already pointed out."
The other Catalans It's once again an essential book. It should be read without ideological prejudices or literal interpretations out of place or time. The stylistic cues of the early 1960s should obviously be understood. He should be recognized in the academic world, whose academic sectarianism has never given him the intellectual space he deserved. But above all, he should be taught the profound desire to contribute to the construction of that welcoming—now called inclusive—nation that Catalanism of the time, both on the right and the left, recognized.
The other CatalansIn short, he shames both the current xenophobic temptations and the naiveté of the bondholders, where one fuels the other. He shames those who need to contrast social struggle with national struggle, without realizing that one has no full meaning without the other. He shames those who wallow in fratricidal division. And he shames those who fight the confidence and hope in their own country that he was able to spread so generously, and which is the only rock upon which an emancipated national future can be built. It is all of these that Candel frightens.
