Vicente Serrano / 15 November 2020
Member of the Board of Directors of the Asociación Alternativa Ciudadana Progresista ||
This pandemic has revealed the weakness of the State. From the beginning, it was clear that the first state of alarm was arriving late and that it was lifted prematurely, due to pressure of nationalists and as a way to avoid political erosion of the Sánchez-Iglesias government. The so-called sole command never fully worked, because, in practice, control informally have been yielded to autonomies. And, from the discourse of unity –only discourse–, it has passed to the approval of a six-month state of alarm as legal cover for nationalists to practice and consolidate their State structures.
Before, the constitution required to renew the state of alarm every fifteen days, and now, on the other hand, there are no problems in doing it for six months. The government works gropingly, trial / error, but escapes parliamentary control. Before, masks were useless, and now, when the situation, being serious, is not as serious as in March and April, they are mandatory.
The government of Pedro Sánchez declared a state of alarm for the Community of Madrid, they say based on scientific criteria; it seems that, a few days later, Navarra exceeded Madrid in contagions and other parameters, but was it not necessary there? The partisan element, and that of colleagues of a motion of censure, determines the actions of our government more than the general good.
There never existed, nor does there exist, the State “Commission of Experts”, just as it does not exist in the Autonomous Communities: the decisions respond to partisan criteria or electoral opportunity.
While in Catalonia, having closed hospitality and catering, aesthetics and other close contact services, contagion rates rise (with open hairdressers, being from the same union and having taken the same precautions), in other places, such as the Community of Madrid, with the open bars, restaurants, beauty salons and hairdressers, infections are going down, demonstrating the lack of scientific criteria.
That regional Minister of Business, Ramon Tremosa, of JxCat or PdeCat (namely), proposes to partially open restoration and aesthetics this Friday (11/13/20) shows how unscientific political decisions are (opposing, yes, his colleague of government and acting president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, of ERC), and how much they are electoralist. Scientific evidence that helps some to open, for others serve to close. The final result is an extension of the closure of 10 days for the hotel industry and the opening of aesthetics and other close contact services this Friday, the 13th, and shows in extremis pact of the national-secessionist partners of the Generalitat (PDeCat and ERC) and the lack of scientific criteria.
The lack of unique, measurable and transparent criteria produces disaffection and indifference of the citizens. But above all, it installs us in the frustrating commotion that Spain is a failed state that does not protect the weakest. A situation, seems, loved by peripheral nationalisms and that feeds Vox’s pseudo-rebellious neo-Francoism.
Meanwhile, the Frankenstein government of the pseudo-left, or reactionary left as Felix Ovejero would say, feeds the beast of national-secessionism with more concessions. That Castilian ceases to be, nominally, a vehicular language in education fulfills the wishes of those who intend to continue their task of national construction, of secession.
The reality is that in Catalonia Spanish has been treated as a foreign language for a long time. Failure to comply with the Constitution and the “soft” rulings of the Constitutional establishing a minimum of 25% of teaching hours in Spanish sounds like a joke, if it were not for seriousness of the issue. The Celaá law is intended to shield the marginalization that is already occurring to Spanish in the Autonomous Communities of Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Galicia and the Basque Country. The only thing missing is to appoint Teaching Inspectors by finger … Well, they already did.
No one dared to intervene, neither the PSOE nor the PP, and now, accustomed to the continued concession, taking another step in the deconstruction of Spain seems not to be very important.
Possible appeals before the Constitutional Court could paralyze the Celaá law, or not. But the damage will already be done.
The worst thing is that the marginalization of Castilian or Spanish supposes – it has been like that for years – the condemnation of the Catalan working classes to subsidiarity and political insignificance. Today, the social elevator is broken for the García, the Pérez, the Fernández, the Sánchez.
Calling this government social-communist is right-wing nonsense. To think that the redistribution of wealth will be possible with these people who govern us is a chimera. With them it seems that the sharks of the banking and national and international insurance companies that aspire to take over the private pension business will benefit … It will even be mandatory to have a private pension plan, on the way to reducing pensions – it is part of a process of privatization of public services, which this government seems to encourage─. The Minimum Vital Income will be what was expected … pure alms, bureaucratically slow and economically insufficient, which, moreover, overlaps and collides with “regional insertion income.” And the labor reform? Time to time.
We would like a social-communist government whose objective is the equality of all Spaniards, the redistribution of wealth, the elimination of the privileges that have been consolidating the autonomies: the historical and the non-historical, if there is any not historical. A government that developed with organic laws the social rights contained in the constitution: work, health, housing and pensions. A government that considers recovering the powers of health, education, justice, security and prisons. Or, at least, draw up basic laws that allow supervision and action in those areas.
And that, if it really believed in the Republic, in the Spanish Republic, would forget the plurinationality giving up the nonsense. Autonomism is positive if there is a good allocation of unshielded powers together with an institutional hierarchy and constitutional fidelity.
Federalism conceived as an original right of the territories is a disastrous project for Spain as a political nation. Which was very clear for the Second Spanish Republic.
Hearing Iceta’s talk about deepening the autonomy of Catalonia and the possibility of holding a referendum that would allow independence with 65% of the votes (not the census), apart from being demagogic (they already achieved this with the reform of the Statute that less than half of the Catalans voted, and with the two illegal endorsements that the national-secessionists performed) it is undemocratic (it leaves the majority of Spaniards out of that decision), and it is clear that it is Iceta (PSC) who has won the battle within the PSOE without being part of it. The “dark ambition” (P.S.) has no other project than to keep his ass glued to the couch, given his non-existent sense of state.
There is no left, there are no socialists or communists. PSOE and UP are instruments for a project that can no longer be called left-wing. They disguise themselves as the left as the wolf that wears sheep’s clothing. It is necessary to rebuild a constitutionalist left with a project for Spain, for the Spanish working class.
Nou Barris, Barcelona. Saturday, November 14, 2020. *
Author of the essay THE REAL VALUE OF THE VOTE. Editorial El Viejo Topo, 2016
Add comment