Antoni Puigverd. 31/03/2021
Image: Jordi Pujol, president of the Generalitat, during a plenary session of the Parliament of Catalonia Pedro Madueño
It’s not the gene, it’s the fire
Despised in the Parliament, Aragonès is bombarded in the vomitories of social networks. It is proclaimed that his grandfather, mayor in Franco’s time, was a friend of Fraga. The numbers of the family’s hotel holding company are also published. While a judge orders Jordi Pujol Ferrusola’s Ferraris and Lamborghini to be auctioned, the sons and political grandchildren of the founder of Convergència accuse Aragonès of being too rich and having a bad pedigree. It is wonderful that the heirs of Pujolismo remember the contradictory past of a Maresme family that has gone, like so many Catalan families, from the inevitable Franco regime to emotional independence. If one operation describes Pujol as a master of politics, it is the swallowing of Franco’s mayors. Convergència digested the contradictions of the Catalonia formed with the Franco regime on the condition that it assumed the dreams of a few nationalists who did not conform.
Curious mutation! From the praise of San Pancracio to the contempt of business effort and success. Perhaps that, in addition to the personal drama of Puigdemont (the human factor: always decisive), explains the indifference with which Junts prevents the formation of a government in the worst crisis in decades.
Catalanism has lost and the vision that Pujol had of Catalonia has won: a pure nation harassed
ERC discovers now how bad nationalism is. The nationalism of strong states such as Germany or France implies suspecting, persecuting or despising the national minorities of the territory. Try to assimilate them, if necessary violently, until they lose the memory of their roots. France ironed the hexagon. Germany exterminated its Jewish minority. Spain did not manage to assimilate its national minorities when this was possible (XIX, XX), despite the fact that the Franco regime tried it hard. Until Spain with a Castilian matrix becomes aware of its constitutive heterogeneity, we will not emerge from chaos. Now: defensive nationalisms such as Catalan lack assimilation power and, consequently, either seek to seduce newcomers (integrate them, not assimilate them) or they will not survive as singular culture.
Catalanism was a good invention: it favored integration by diluting the feeling of belonging. It saved the language, favored the participation of all Catalans (Olympic Games) and avoided confrontations with Spain. But Catalanism has lost, and has won, the German vision that Pujol had of Catalonia: a pure nation beset by assimilators. In the nationalist vision, the country is not embodied in the people, but in the sacred fire that fuels history, language, land, and folklore. Whoever has control of the fire, owns the country and allows himself to demand submission from others, whom he accuses of being lazy, cowardly, sold out. ERC encouraged this diabolical game, which expels more than it integrates. Making himself forgive these days to save the presidency, Aragonès kneels before the owner of the sacred fire. A submissive president is a suicidal politician.
https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20210331/6619048/gen-fuego.html
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