Pujol asks to "integrate" immigrants and not fall into "sectarianism"

BarcelonaSurrounded by the top brass of Junts, former president Jordi Pujol received a major tribute this Saturday to his political legacy at the hands of the Joventut Nacionalista de Catalunya (JNC). In Planoles, a symbolic municipality for the Junts youth wing, Pujol launched a powerful message in favor of immigrant integration, which was heard by the President of the Parliament, Josep Rull; the Junts general secretary, Jordi Turull; the deputy to the presidency, Albert Batet; the president of the parliamentary group, Mònica Sales; and the Barcelona municipal leader, Jordi Martí; as well as former convergent leaders such as former minister Irene Rigau, Jordi Xuclà, Marta Pascal and Carles Campuzano, who is now an ERC deputy. Pujol stressed that Catalans have the duty "to maintain the language, to transmit a culture, to integrate people who come from outside and to bring them together", as well as to "work hard and not give up".

A message that clashes head-on, once again, with that of the far-right party Aliança Catalana, one of the main concerns that Pujol has recently expressed, asking that it be kept out of politics and democratic Catalanism. At the same time, he asked that adversaries not be turned into "enemies": "Do not confuse firmness with sectarianism, nor identity with exclusion", he warned, appealing to a sense of country, ambition and coexistence. A key point for defending diversity: "Our strength has never been uniformity. It has been the ability to integrate, to add, and to make very different people feel involved". A sum with a convergent spirit that is now once again on the rise in the case of Junts.

Against pessimism

On the other hand, Pujol also wanted to refer to the legacy he leaves to new generations: "If there is one thing I would like to be remembered for, it is very simple: that I have tried to serve Catalonia. With my limitations, with my mistakes and with my successes – he said –. Always with a deep conviction that Catalonia was worth it and that Catalonia continues to be worth it".

The former president and founder of Convergence asserted that we must continue working for Catalonia because "peoples do not die only when they lose institutions", but rather "they die when they stop believing in themselves" and fall into "resignation", pessimism and lack of hope in themselves. Words that have motivated him to assure that we must work in the long term thinking of Catalonia, that "no one possesses it" or "represents it all" nor is it "owner". "Catalonia has not disappeared in more than a thousand years of history, nor will it disappear if there are men and women willing to serve it", he concluded.