Magda Oranich: "I have always fought for equality feminism, but now it seems they want to increase the differences"

BarcelonaA All Battles (Column), lawyer Magda Oranich (Barcelona, 1945) records her tireless fight for human rights and, more particularly, for women's rights, after six decades of activism.

Her life's work would not be understood without the feminist struggle.

— My generation is the one that achieved the right to change laws. We changed them all. But it is easier to change laws than mindsets, and with feminism, as with the issue of homosexuals, mindsets have sometimes done more harm than the laws themselves. In Europe, and in the area where we live, we are privileged.

Does she recognize herself in current feminism?

— I have always fought for equality feminism, but now it seems they want to increase the differences. We have achieved many things and we must be proud. We cannot now say that all that struggle was for nothing. Until 1975 there was an article in the law that obliged women to obey their husbands. Even in 1978 they denounced a woman for adultery and wanted to take away her child, her house, and imprison her because she had rebuilt her life six years after her husband left her.

They didn't find her at home.

— The police commissioner who was supposed to serve the arrest warrant issued by the judge [the same magistrate who had imprisoned Oranich years earlier] called us to tell us that if, when he arrived at that woman's house, she was at a relative's house, they would not continue searching for her.

One of the milestones she recalls is achieving the divorce law.

— Divorce is a matter of freedom, it helped men and women. What really helped women was the law of 1981, which stated that the community property regime would be jointly administered, that parental authority over children would be shared by father and mother, and that it made rights identical in a marriage. During Francoism, women lived under a double dictatorship.

Were there judges who helped more than others?

— The best family judge there ever was worked at the Civil Registry of Barcelona and never applied the law. Everyone queued up to be attended by him. Since divorces from the republic were not valid, the children of new couples could not bear their parents' surnames. The law obliged the judge to give them a name from the most common ones he found in the Yellow Pages. He, on the other hand, asked the parents for their names and gave them to the children.

One of the concerns she expresses in the book is that a significant percentage of young people today do not see a dictatorship as a bad thing.

— The other day, on the train, a young man sat next to me. He immediately showed me his bracelet with the Francoist flag. He was polite, but he said some outrageous things to me... He said that all autonomies would be abolished, speaking in the first person. That he was far-right and proud of it. There will always be fascists, but I think they are the minority.

Vox represents the ideological continuity of Francoism, but what does she think of the Aliança Catalana phenomenon?

— I don't see it exactly the same as Vox. The mayor of Ripoll speaks very well and says things that many have thought and dared not say in public. However, this obsession with immigrants is sometimes so strong that it even hurts me. But of course, now this imam accused of sexual abuse, the previous one linked to terrorist attacks... Ripoll is very politicized and she touches on delicate issues. A person who comes without papers should have the same rights as one who has them, but legislation must be enacted so that undocumented people do not come. I see that she talks less and less about independence.

As a lawyer specializing in family law by vocation, why did she get so involved with political prisoners?

— Because one day my father called me to ask if I wanted to defend the son of some friends of his who had been arrested. This young man turned out to be from PSUC. His name was Albert Serrat and I always tell him that it was his fault that I started defending political prisoners. I defended them all. During Francoism, I didn't care if they were from ETA. In democracy, issues of violence, no longer. Some hired me because I was a woman and thus they saw one. That is sad and I even cried with rage. The machismo of the time, however, also meant that judges and police underestimated you, and sometimes thanks to that you achieved things that a man could not have achieved. I became very radicalized on the issue of human rights and, soon after, on women's rights.

Were the executions of Puig Antich and Txiqui her worst moments as a lawyer?

— Yes, absolutely. Salvador's Court-Martial was led by Jesús Condomines. I didn't intervene much in the preparations because he was arrested in September and I went to prison in October [for the case of the meeting of the 113 of the Assembly of Catalonia]. The hope that he would not be sentenced to death ended when Carrero Blanco was killed (December 1973). "Today they killed Carrero and they killed me," Salvador told me. He was very clear about that. Of Txiqui, I remember that at the funeral two people came dressed as priests, who beat up the priest badly and left him on the ground. There were also shots. I was not hit because a French journalist threw me to the ground. We warned the police, but, of course, they were friends, and I went to the duty court to inform the judge and the prosecutor.

Once democracy arrived, did she continue to find the same judges and police officers?

— In '81, La Crida aimed to Catalanize posters, for example, those at train stations. One day they did it at Estació de França, but they were caught and they called me to go to the police station right there. There I met the policeman who had tortured my husband. He turned pale and said, "one moment, another colleague will come". I liked that he at least felt ashamed.

In her political career, she has been part of Nacionalistes d'Esquerres, Iniciativa, Convergència, and now Junts. How does she explain this evolution?

— Nacionalistes is the best thing I have ever done. We still meet. In Parliament, I am not listed as Iniciativa; I never joined PSUC, although I recognize their merits. I was also an independent councilor in Barcelona City Council with Xavier Trias, who is more progressive than many of the woke leftists we have now. Over the years, some things become clearer, but I have always been progressive. I joined Junts, but I am not active at all. I am also part of many ethics commissions, such as the one in Barcelona City Council.

Did she become an animal rights activist at the bullring?

— Yes, I was 5 or 6 years old when my grandfather took me there. But he tricked me by telling me it was all comedy and the blood was paint. I haven't eaten meat since I was 7 years old; I don't even know what it tastes like. Being an animal rights activist is a feeling, like being a Barça fan, for whom I also feel passion.

In the book, she recounts many tragic deaths. Those from the war councils, but also in her personal life, that of her father leaving a Barça match, that of her sister... And she has also been close to death several times. Does she think about death?

— I don't think about it much. It's true that as you get older, you think about leaving things in order. For example, documents that are historic, from the mother of an executed person, for example. It already happened to me when I was diagnosed with cancer, 26 years ago. Now I still go to hospitals to encourage women. I have never been one to become religious.