The 'New Catalans' of Artur Mas and Convergence are reborn

BarcelonaReneix Nous Catalans, renamed Catalans Segle 21. And it is reborn under the warmth of Junts personalities such as former minister Victòria Alsina, responsible for immigration in the Junts leadership, but also with the blessing of former president Artur Mas and former Convergència immigration official Àngel Colom – promoter of Nous Catalans–. At the presentation this Tuesday afternoon in Barcelona, around forty migrant entities have given their support and received the Flama del Canigó, accompanied by Junts members such as deputy Ennatu Domingo.

The baptism of the entity has involved a total rejection of the speeches of the far-right Aliança Catalana. And they have done so just the day after a dozen people from the entity climbed Canigó as an act of brotherhood to claim the shared Catalan identity that is claimed for Sant Joan with the Flama del Canigó throughout the Catalan Countries. Mas has defended the "great house of Catalanism" as in his time in government, that in the country "there is room for many people", but "from Catalanism", and that this also implies some things for the sovereignist movement: "Without breaking anything or stigmatizing entire groups; stigmatizing when people are already there means ending up losing the country".

A message to Sílvia Orriols from a former president who has argued that "societies that receive many people from outside have the need to control these migratory flows", but from a sense of belonging. Colom has endorsed this association, although he has criticized Mas's successors in the work of integrating immigration. "Catalanism has lost a bit of time with this, Catalanism has had a period where it has been very far from integration work," he lamented. He did say that now it "is reborn" with the aim that Catalan identity and Catalanism should be "the cornerstone" of all citizens of Catalonia, including the three million people who have arrived in the last three decades. "Our job is to make them feel Catalan. With President Mas we did a job, the presidents who followed him have not done much," he lamented.

Inheritance

In 2012, Nous Catalans was born, an association promoted by Convergència with Colom at the helm to attract immigrants from various backgrounds to the Catalan national project. It is now reborn with the support of Alsina, close to Junts or Convergència like Artur Mas, with Colom as honorary president and Rahma El Badaoui, linked to Junts, as president.

El Badaoui has claimed that there are "Catalans of diverse origins who have grown up here" and who want to "participate in the country." "Too often our reality has not had enough visibility, we have been spoken about without us," she lamented. In this sense, she has advocated for sharing "compatible and enriching personal identities" of each immigrant with the Catalan one "wherever they come from, whatever language they speak or whatever religion they practice." But always with "the Catalan language and culture at the center."

The music group that enlivened the event, which addressed the attendees in Spanish, claimed the association as their own "for all immigrants." Catalans Segle 21, which has also received the support of Bonpreu supermarkets, aims to conduct a series of interviews, conversations, and promote migrant role models with the objective of fostering rooting and Catalan as an "instrument of coexistence." The event also recalled anecdotes from the entity Nous Catalans, from the promotion of cricket for migrants of Indian or Pakistani origin to the fact that, as Mas assured, for more than ten years "attempts were made to accompany the imams of Catalonia" to "explain to them what it meant to arrive" in the country and "the foundations of Catalan identity." The challenge is to do it again with the current diversity of immigrants.