Josep Pedrerol, 3 October 2022
Ballot box for the 1-O referendum La Vanguardia
I felt unprotected, cheated, ashamed… I will never forgive the damage that politicians did to us that fateful October 1 five years ago. The independentists breaking the law and Rajoy’s government making one of the greatest ridicules in the history of our democracy. The grotesque was general, let’s be clear. Clandestine ballot boxes, inaction by the Mossos (Catalan police), the National Police sleeping on a boat with a giant drawing of Tweety Bird and following orders from some incompetents. Politicians, after all, who caused scenes that should never have occurred.
That October 1, families and friendships of many years were broken, wounds that in many cases have not yet healed. And it will take time to achieve it. Do you remember? There was discussion in the office, in the bar, in the kitchen, at Sunday lunch at Grandma’s house… Mistrust and hatred invaded everything, the atmosphere was toxic. A social chaos in which, some incompetents and others liars, split in two a Catalan society that had always been an example of coexistence, of knowing how to be, of prudence. What a big mistake.
Get to work once and for all for a Catalonia that has to wake up
That day the labels of good and bad Catalans that do so much damage were born. And, above all, hatred of Spain multiplied. Escaped politicians and others in jail, demonstrations and camps in the streets of Barcelona with clashes with the police every other day. And anger, a lot of anger. The separatist politicians took us all to the precipice and we almost fell off the cliff. They made the most deluded believe that one can break the laws when they feel like it, that the rules of coexistence can be thrown away because a few decide to do so. What difference did it make what a very important part of the Catalans thought? They were the owners of the truth, they were going to liberate Catalonia from an imaginary yoke, Eden was just one step away… Smoke.
And now that? Some continue to live from October 1 with the hackneyed “we will do it again”. Enough already. Get to work once and for all for a Catalonia that has to wake up and realize that the future lies in a globalized world, without borders and with an open mind. It’s time to assume that five years ago they deceived us all.
https://www.lavanguardia.com/opinion/20221003/8551724/enganaron.html
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