JOAN ESCULIES
20 SET 2020 – 20:19 CEST
Quim Torra, this Friday in Parliament. Massimiliano MINOCRI
“This we will not do.” An ERC (co-governing party) leader thus closed in a small committee, before the confinement began, the possibility of withdrawing parliamentary support for Quim Torra. Leftists have preferred better to buy large amounts of Almax than allowing Junts (Torra’s party) to point out to its voters as responsible for collapsing the pro-independentist government. ERC leaders have had many months to regret not having run the risk of forcing elections and the president has used this weakness to wear down the Republican ERC in favor of unity and a supposed “anti-repressive firmness.”
The Generalitat and its presidency have suffered, especially during this last legislature, a very notable deterioration. Before they had a reputation that opened doors. Not today. Before being photographed with a president of Catalonia, signing an agreement or inviting him to a European region as a host gave the last prestige. Today the interlocutors and leaders sneak through the corridors. Important news are less and less. The institution has lost its brand. It suffers, more deeply and with a worse diagnosis, a reputation crisis like that of Barça, as precisely described by Jaume Giró in El Periódico (6 September).
The assumption that the institution one has serves for little or nothing and the constant whining produce a perverse effect contrary to that sought
It is not that the development of the electoral campaigns and the role of the institutions during them does not have to be rethought, it is convenient. Legislation must accompany social changes when there are any, but a debate is necessary from reason, not from emotion, and directed by experts in the field. It is not that the government of Spain cannot consider expressing an apology to President Companys (1940) and many others who suffered the Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship. It should I do it. What happens is that by demanding this from him, he is placed under the horses’ feet of some parties that are supported by a notable percentage of the population, who still have to be won in this field.
Since he was appointed, Quim Torra has not made the slightest gesture to understand that the communicational language of activism does not fit – no matter how anti-establishment one pretends to be – with the institutional role. Nor to understand that gesticulation, without influence or power, moves away from the epic and approaches the comic opera. Despite being partly right, the forms, the tone, the arrogance of believing himself to be the possessor of the truth in the line of what Daniel Innerarity expressed in this newspaper (September 10), makes impossible any indication of being taken not even seriously. And even more when command is not only in his hands.
In the independence movement there is a current to which the president belongs who, anchored in lament and perpetual victimization, always sees the glass as half empty. Self-government, instead of being considered a value that needs to be demonstrated on a daily basis that it can be well managed in order to gain moral authority and cross-citizen support to claim more muscle, is seen as a hindrance. The assumption that the institution that is used for little or nothing and the constant whining produce a perverse effect and contrary to the one sought. In the independence ranks it adds frustration to the already existing one, which is a lot. In the others, disaffection towards the need to demand more capacity to govern oneself.
In the independence movement there is a current to which the president belongs, anchored in lament and perpetual victimization, always sees the glass as half empty. Self-government, instead of being considered a value that needs to be demonstrated on a daily basis that it can be well managed in order to gain moral authority and cross-citizen support to claim more muscle, is seen as a hindrance.
The issue of the banner will not bring the imprisoned politicians one millimeter closer to freedom, nor will it achieve one more span of self-government for Catalonia, nor will it contribute in anything to solving the country’s confusion and decadence. It will not do it even if it travels to Europe, which we only look at as a dispute solver, forgetting about investment opportunities, alliances and research.
Regardless of its use to distribute patriotic or collaborationist cards, the increasingly widespread feeling, even among the pro-independence movement, is that the president with his banner has sought to be a protagonist of the past from a position that has allowed him to relive every day his admired thirties. In the early morning of October 7, 1934, the Army arrested Companions in the Palau, who said “do what you have to do!” If we have to go through the sterile shame of seeing the president of Catalonia disabled in the middle of the pandemic, we hope that at least the outcome will be different. Then, as in Barça, the new tenant must recover the reputation and brand of the Generalitat. Hard work.
https://cat.elpais.com/cat/2020/09/20/opinion/1600610770_525442.html
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