08/05/2019 05:00
On April 28, while in all of Spain democratic elections were held, in the town of Torregrossa in Lleida there was a picture that was at least picturesque. Groups of uniformed civilians with brown shirts and bracelets of the colors of the ‘senyera’ (Catalan flag) paraded through the town carrying “estelades” (independence flags) and symbolism of the Moviment Identitari Català (MIC), among which stood out a phoenix that resembled a harrier of fascist aesthetics. It had been years since we saw such a display of radical identity signs of a xenophobic and supremacist nature in Catalan lands.
The MIC is an ultraindependentista group, very much in favor of the break with Spain, which a few hours ago hung a photograph of Núria de Gispert in solidarity with the critics after the racist comments of the sovereignty politics. “We fight for a Catalan Catalonia, because social aid should be for Catalans, for a regularization of immigration and, above all, to see this spirit so Castilian disappear from our side,” say the principles of this group. A recent tweet also said: “A true separatist Catalan can not agree with people who promote bilingualism, who do not place conditions on immigration and who treat members of Spanish parties as ‘compañeros’.
With this letter of introduction, the staging of Torregrosa seemed to come from a ceremony that goes back to dark and past times. But what the MIC did was pay tribute to two of the illustrious sons of the town, the brothers Miquel and Josep Badia, considered by many authentic Catalan heroes. For others, a fascist residue of the bloodiest and most violent stage in Catalonia. Does that mean that the independence movement has become more aggressive? No. The social base of the independence movement has not widened, but it has enlarged its hard core, the most radical and xenophobic spectrum of sovereignty.
Miquel Badia, whom they called ‘Captain Cojones’ for his lack of fear, became the head of public order in Catalonia, under the orders of his protector, the then Minister of the Interior, Josep Dencàs. His particular vision of security and democracy led him to organize the youth of ERC as real brown shirts (he made them parade through Montjuïc with aesthetics and procedures similar to those of the Hitler and Mussolini youths), and came to arm these militias to break worker strikes and take revenge against his most bitter enemies: the militants of the CNT.
The newspaper ‘L’Unilateral. Digital Journal of the Catalan Republic ‘came out not long ago in defense of the essence of the controversial brothers. “The Esquerra de Estat Català youths, through Badia, created the Escamots, reflected in the Irish fight. Political rivals and satirical magazines such as ‘The Be Negre’ compared them to the Italian fascists. Badia responded by saying that precisely those commands were to combat fascism. ” It is false, because even historians who are not suspicious of defending ‘Spanish people’ recognize that the Escamots were direct action groups inspired by the Italian fascist groups Fasci Italiano di Combattimento.
A few days ago, on the platform Muralles Independentistes, one of those that are nourished by radical activists, most of them supporters of a unilateral line and by Carles Puigdemont, a harangue about patriotism was published. “Catalonia is and will be the territory of Escamots. Catalonia is and will be of the people who surround it, who work it and who make it live every day, “the text said.
The head of the sewers of the Generalitat
The two brothers were gunned down on April 28, 1936, when they left their house, in the central Muntaner street of Barcelona, by a commando of the FAI. Now they rest in the cemetery of Montjuïc, right in front of the tomb of former President of the Generalitat Francesc Macià, under whose wings they grew politically. The black legend tells that the bravado of Miquel Badia made him go to the bars where the anarchists met and he let go: “My name is Miquel Badia. I understand that someone is looking for me … ” State gunfire pure and simple.
In 1925, he joined the terrorist group Bandera Negra, of Estat Català, with which he tried to attack the life of Alfonso XIII, for which he spent five years in prison and was later amnestied in 1930 and immediately appointed secretary of the then Minister Josep. Dencàs, the only member of Estat Català in the Generalitat de Macià. Legend has it that in September 1934 he arrested a prosecutor because he opposed the fact that in a trial he spoke in Catalan and, for that reason, he was dismissed by Macià. After the 1934 revolt, when he was the head of the Catalan sewers, he had to go into exile in France (which later expelled him), to later move to Colombia, Germany, Belgium and Andorra, from where he returned to Catalonia after the victory of the Front Popular.
A documentary by Estat Català tells how, on October 6, 1934, in the Plaza Universidad of Barcelona, Badia’s militias were armed by the high government office. “They received a weapon, 20 cartridges and a bracelet with the four bars. And they were sent to patrol the city. They were the commandos of Estat Català. In a very short time, Barcelona was full of armed commandos. Some also carried a white pouch for ammunition and food. In the afternoon, Barcelona was in the hands of the men of Estat Català. They are those who exercise supremacy over the armed elements. They are patriots willing to do everything to defend their country. ” And its mission: to keep at bay and kill the anarchists of the CNT.
Idols of Quim Torra and Oriol Junqueras. In spite of the controversy surrounding his figure, Miquel Badia counts among his most fervent followers with Quim Torra, current president of the Generalitat.
In a commemorative act of his murder, held in the place where he was killed, Torra said in 2013: “How to assimilate the work of the Badia brothers, Miquel Badia, leading the country’s police, fighting, as said Rovira i Virgili, always against the shadows that persecuted just to sink our country? It only occurs to me to find a word, and this is the word ‘freedom’. And only in this way can we understand Carrasco i Formiguera, Francesc Macià or the Badia brothers. Why stay alone with one? I want the four. And I think that this integrating vision of Catalanism is what suits us. “
In that act was also present Oriol Junqueras, president of ERC, who glossed the figure of the gunman owner of the sewers of the Generalitat in the Second Republic. A couple of years before, in a similar tribute, was the current deputy Gerard del Moral, who during the last campaign was one of those who gave the face in the debates between parties. Moral, deputy in the Parlament, was also number six on the ERC lists to Congress on April 28. In the edition he attended, in which he was honored by paramilitaries in uniform with brown shirts, Santiago Espot (who was seated at the presidential table in a tribute meal held below), was also present, a controversial businessman who chairs the platform Catalunya en Acció and who became a candidate for mayor of Barcelona for Solidaritat Catalana per la Independència.
In 2016, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the death of the Badia, Torregrossa lived a few commemorative celebrations, inaugurated by historian Lluís Duran, member of the board of directors of Ammonium Cultural, and Marta Vilalta, current spokesperson of ERC and then general director of Joventut of the Generalitat of Catalonia, with Carles Puigdemont in the presidency. The presence of the ideals of the Badia among the Catalan ruling class, then, is beyond doubt. Josep Huguet, former Republican Councilor of the Generalitat in the first Tripartite and president of the Fundació Josep Irla, softened the figure of Badia, making him a supporter “of entrism, that is, of the path of the use of institutions. He is faithful to Macià. He believes that the State is built from the institutions, not from the outside. But they had a miscalculation, because there was a revolutionary revolt in Asturias and they signed up: there was a proclamation on October 6 in Spanish key and that is very expensive. “
El blanqueo de una figura
Fermí Rubiralta, autor del libro ‘Miquel Badia: vida i mort d’un líder separatista’, también intentó ‘blanquear’ su figura. “Era fiel a Estat Català y a Macià”, dijo en la presentación de su obra. Admite las acusaciones de filofascista, pero disculpa su ensañamiento contra la CNT porque debía defender las instituciones. Incluso disculpa la uniformidad de sus Escamots, que “era un proceso de moda en movimientos político sociales de la época”. El dirigente independentista Agustí Colominas, alineado con los sectores más radicales del soberanismo, es más escéptico: “Que los hermanos Badia fuesen asesinados por la FAI no quiere decir que ellos mismos no fuesen asesinos y que no formasen parte del nacionalismo radical fascinado por las ideologías fuertes que predominaban durante el primer tercio del siglo XX”, escribió sobre el presunto héroe. Editar
El blanqueo de una figura
Fermí Rubiralta, autor del libro ‘Miquel Badia: vida i mort d’un líder separatista’, también intentó ‘blanquear’ su figura. “Era fiel a Estat Català y a Macià”, dijo en la presentación de su obra. Admite las acusaciones de filofascista, pero disculpa su ensañamiento contra la CNT porque debía defender las instituciones. Incluso disculpa la uniformidad de sus Escamots, que “era un proceso de moda en movimientos político sociales de la época”. El dirigente independentista Agustí Colominas, alineado con los sectores más radicales del soberanismo, es más escéptico: “Que los hermanos Badia fuesen asesinados por la FAI no quiere decir que ellos mismos no fuesen asesinos y que no formasen parte del nacionalismo radical fascinado por las ideologías fuertes que predominaban durante el primer tercio del siglo XX”, escribió sobre el presunto héroe.
The bleaching of a figure
Fermi Rubiralta, author of the book ‘Miquel Badia: vida i mort d’un lidera separatista’, also tried to ‘whitewash’ his figure. “He was faithful to Estat Català and Macià,” he said at the presentation of his work. It admits the accusations of filofascist, but it excuses its cruelty against the CNT because it had to defend the institutions. He even apologizes for the uniformity of his Escamots, which “was a fashionable process in political social movements of the time”. The pro-independence leader Agustí Colominas, aligned with the most radical sectors of sovereignty, is more skeptical: “That the Badia brothers were killed by the FAI does not mean that they themselves were not assassins and that they were not part of radical nationalism fascinated by strong ideologies that predominated during the first third of the twentieth century, “he wrote about the alleged hero.
However, Rubiralta always maintained that “the action of the Escamots never arrived, unlike the control patrols, to provoke no death. The violence used was exercised from the legality and the defense of the institutions. ” He also recalled that on October 22, 1933 there was a parade of the Jerec, the base of the Escamots, in Montjuïc, with a typically Hitlerian aesthetic, which provoked a heated parliamentary debate. “It is likely that various actions of the Jerec Escamots and some of the actions of Miquel Bad in 1934 as head of the public order of the Generalitat were, from an ethical point of view, execrable and condemnable (…) It is undoubted that in his ‘modus operandi’ we find aspects that coincide with some features of the fascist movements of the time. But these expressions are also present in other movements of the moment “, apologizes Rubiralta.
Even Jaume Renyé (ex-manager of ERC and former senior official of the Generalitat who accompanied Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira to the controversial meeting with ETA in the south of France) played down the filofascism of the patriots and their leader, Josep Dencàs. “The fact that the fate of some fugitives like Dencàs himself was an Italian ship does not automatically make them friends with Mussolini.” And it is that Dencàs fled to Italy when Badia fled to France. What happens is that a few days later, the ex-Minister of the Interior was seen on a balcony next to Mussolini himself and, in addition, wearing a black shirt. And in ERC the Badia had bitter critics.
Joan Lluhí, one of the founders of the republican party, who came to ‘conseller’ of the Generalitat and then to the Minister of Labor and Communications in the Second Republic (he died in exile in Mexico), called the Escamots, directly, of “fascists” ” What there is no doubt about is the totalitarian temptation of the radical movement created around Badia. Agustí Colomines, in one of his articles commissioned by Sapiens, made it clear: “That the Catalan nationalism of the Badia brothers distanced them from Spanish fascism does not mean that they and many Catalan separatists did not succumb to totalitarian temptation. Or is it that in Catalonia those who were seduced by fascist totalitarian ideals were only the Spaniards and, therefore, the Francoists? It would have been very strange, right? “
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