Jordi Corominas i Joan Albert Vicens: "Aliança Catalana is the ground zero of the far right"

BarcelonaThe philosophers Jordi Corominas and Joan Albert Vicens call to combat the rise of the radical right with their essay Extrema dreta. Què ens hi juguem? (Eumo), where they provide arguments to debate ultra positions.

How should the far-right be combatted?

— J.C: The far-right is like a kind of virus that even infiltrates left-wing militants who end up adopting its theses. We have made this book to provide tools for both detractors and sympathizers. The most radical way to combat it is to set aside morality and emotions. Security is a left-wing discourse because the disadvantaged are the poor and it must be addressed with public investment.

They talk about not demonizing their voters and addressing the real problems they express.

— J.A.V: The far-right knows very well how to detect the population's concerns, but they offer misguided solutions that harm the main victims. The far-right claims that people have trouble accessing public services due to increased immigration, but then proposes tax cuts that end up penalizing public services.

What does the far-right do when it governs?

— J.A.V.: Wherever they have touched power, they have always dynamited democracy: the separation of powers, freedom of the press, or judicial independence, and with a dynamic of corruption. They also reduce taxation, especially for those who have more, and there are some citizens who have all the privileges and others who have all the obligations, which would be the immigrant population. This society with first-class citizens and second-class citizens is one of the results of far-right policies where it governs.

Is his rise also a failure of traditional parties?

— J.A.V: There is a crisis in liberal democracy that has to do with the loss of the State's capacity to respond to the challenges of globalization. There is a crisis in public services because of disinvestment since the economic crisis of 2008. And in a context where parties seem unable to provide solutions to people's problems, they offer an anti-system alternative that seduces people because it has not been tested. It is a protest vote from people who feel their problems have not been addressed.

Is the right wing mistaken by hardening its discourse?

— J.C: Totally. Any copy is worse than the original and people prefer the original. When the right has allied with the far-right, as in Germany with Nazism, the far-right has taken absolute power.

Is a sanitary cordon useful?

— J.A.V: If the cordon sanitaire means refusing to debate with the far-right, treating them as a gang of fascists, or ignoring issues that concern people, it is useless. If the cordon sanitaire means not compromising with their policies, then the cordon is correct. When the right raises the issue of security from a police point of view and with expulsions, it is mistaken because it plays into the hands of the far-right, which is soft on the rich and blusters with the poor.

The far-right says all aid is for immigrants.

— It says that the immigrant is responsible for the collapse of public services, the lack of housing, the malfunctioning of schools, and low wages. The great deception is to make the poor believe that those who are poorer than them are to blame for their situation. The responsibility for this situation lies with a system that does not work and does not provide well-being to the majority of the population. Tax cuts only benefit the upper classes.

The change in the urban landscape also plays a key role in its rise.

— Alianza Catalana is the kilometer zero of the far-right. It is a proximity far-right and has an advantage in Catalonia. We had always thought that the far-right was a Spanish issue and now we see that they have a brutal force here and partly due to this feeling of strangeness, especially with the Muslim world. And they are right when they say that not everyone fits here. But no one comes here because they want to. Neither do the Andalusians or the Extremadurans, but there emigration has been stopped with investments.

Alianza Catalana also feeds on the failure of the Process.

— J.C.: The ARA survey says that 23% of its votes come from Vox. And the same survey says that almost 40% do not consider Aliança Catalana as far-right, but Vox does. That Aliança is the party with the fewest independentist voters explains this vote transfer. For Aliança, the fight against immigration or security is more important.

Does the appearance of Alianza Catalana break the seams of integrating Catalanism?

— J.A.V: If you make an identity discourse like Alianza, which frontally rejects 18% of the population of Catalonia, or at least places them on a lower level of Catalan identity and social rights, you are renouncing the real country we have.

It also makes an independentist majority in Parliament unviable.

— J.C: One of the temptations for the left can be to strengthen it for its own benefit, but that is a short-term business and destroys the country. The left must build bridges so that the democratic right does not go to the other side. Junts runs the same risk as the PP, which increasingly resembles Vox. And this is the great danger.

Is the emergence of Aliança Catalana good news for the State?

— J.A.V: For the State I don't know, but for Spanish nationalism, yes. It is dividing the pro-independence forces and this dual Catalonia, with citizens who have all the rights and others who only have duties, breaks any illusion that the pro-independence project can serve to encourage real Catalonia.