This week there has been a terrifying event. And I don't mean that members of a CDR have been arrested for allegedly preparing an attack with explosives (and they have confessed to the police). I don't even talk about the bloc reaction of nationalism that, with a single voice, denied everything, denouncing without any evidence a "state assembly". I'm referring to the demonstrations of Catalan nationalists vindicating the alleged terrorists and threatening the forces of the law to the shout of "Pim, Pam, Pum, que no en quedi ni un! (Let not one be left).
In this moment of artificially heated spirits, if we did the exercise of going back seven years and moving to that first politicized "diada", that September 11, 2012, we would probably be very surprised at the change that nationalism has experienced in just seven years.
Then the mood was calm, and the arguments, although later proved false, seemed logical. "The Spanish State maintains unbalanced fiscal balances that harm Catalonia", they said. "Staying in Spain we'll never leave the crisis behind", was another axiom. "In Catalonia we have the government of the best", "less corrupt", "more European" .. And people took to the streets really believing that this was a revolution of smiles. If we had asked any assistant of that day in which Gerard Piqué already walked his son with confidence and optimism we would have found joy, pride for the leaders of the "procés" (the messianic Artur Mas and the faultless Jordi Pujol) and a big moral superiority, but nothing of the large bile that today distills it's references to Spain. The attendees would have told us (among condescending smiles) of the mediocrity of Spanish politicians, of their unwillingness to do what was then called "dialogue" and today it's known to mean "claudication" ... but nobody would have made references to Nazism or Franco, or to the "genetic inferiority" of the Spaniards, or to the "unique language of Catalonia". The nationalists who attended that fabulous and hyper-funded "Kumbaya" would not even consider that their leaders took pictures with ex-terrorists such as Otegui, Sastre or Bentanachs, hired as lawyers people convicted of terrorism such as Boye or were to take unilateral actions, and in no way a coup d'etat.
And of course they wouldn't have identified with the violence of the attacks of Arràn against the dissenting press, nor would they have "disinfected the streets" where a political rival stepped on, nor broken the windows of their headquarters, nor sung "long live" to terrorist bands such as ETA or Terra Lliure, and they would have rejected their leaders if they were encouraging them to "prepare a hot fall", "push harder", or "take the fight to another level". And never, ever, they would have threatened the police with the well-known terrorist shout "Pim, pam, pum, Let not one be left!", Even if their leaders repeated this slogan from a megaphone, as it seems to have happened this week.
What may have changed in these seven years?
Perhaps many nationalists would answer this question with a very long list of grievances allegedly committed by the government of Spain. Many of them will be false, of course, others exaggerated and others will be true, although surely none would have taken place if the nationalist offensive didn't exist.
But the real answer is in the nationalist media. The state of opinion that has been able to create the media network financed or subsidized by the Generalitat is the greatest power of nationalism. A huge machinery that has as fuel the money of all Catalans and that, no matter what happens, be it big or small news, has always prepared its own version. When an Italian and a Catalan were accused of killing another Catalan in Thailand, the nationalist press announced that an Italian and a "Spanish citizen" had killed a Catalan, which was still the same but also a horrible manipulation, when is as Catalan the murderer as the victim and as Spanish as well. When a girl was assaulted by her nationalist teacher for drawing a Spanish flag, there was the entire nationalist media to deny the facts and ensure that the teacher was not fired. When the parents of the classmates of the attacked girl accompanied their children to place paper hearts at the door of the school in solidarity, there was the newspaper "La República" to call that act a "fascist attack on the school".
It seems that there's no escape for that. The nationalist press doesn't need facts, but a story. They don't even need to consult each other, so obvious is always the answer. Now that the civil guard has arrested a group of CDR that they have been following and whose conversations they have recorded for two years (because the CDR are not only making explosives, but have exploded some in various quarries to measure their destructive power), and now that they have found plans of a civil guard barracks a few days before the anniversary of October 1 .. Nationalism announces "A state assembly". The funny thing is that the non-nationalist press is informing carefully, waiting for more data to be able to resolve the remaining questions. The nationalist press doesn't have that problem, because it doesn't need facts, it already has its story: It's a conspiracy of the state. What else? And if the detentions had not been carried out, and if on October 1 a bomb exploded in the Civil Guard barracks or, worse, if next October 12, the day of Spain, an explosive device seized life from dozens of his political rivals. What would they say? Would they finally recognize the violence they have contributed to creating? Maybe they would even justify it.
Do you think I'm going too far? Do you think that the old "gent de pau" (people of peace) is not yet prepared to assume terrorist violence as its own? Hopefully, but the messages are clear.
And I don't mean just "Push, push! You're doing right in pushing!" of the delegated president Quim Torra, nor to the two public representatives of the CUP that threatens the police and the discrepants with which they must "look under the car" in allusion to the lapa bombs with which ETA massacred the servants of the law. I mean that nationalism and the media have been laundering terrorism for years, which they now call "armed struggle", when they interview the founder of Terra Lliure, Freddi Bentanachs, and announce it, proud, as "gran reserva" of nationalism. When Puigdemont and Torra share an ex-terrorist and ex-convict lawyer, and another ex-terrorist, Carles Sastre, plans and executes the "country" Strikes (sabotages). When the Generalitat buys "urban guerrilla weapons" for its Mossos de Esquadra and does its best to politicize its directive and two of the three parties of the tripartite party that (un)governs Catalonia, they bet not only for disobedience, but directly for confrontation on the streets. The "Pim, Pam, Pum, Let not be one left!" of the CDR. The "hot fall" announced by Torra.
The nationalism, and especially its mass media, are what have created this hostility mood, pre-revolutionary, that only requires a spark to explode, and the nationalist media stroll through it with nitroglycerin.
Meanwhile, Catalonia in general terms continues going on the same as in 2012, without receiving neither better nor worse treatment than the rest of Spain (some would say better), without missing a plate on the table or a euro in the pocket more or less than in other communities, but the tireless nationalist media continue to feed an artificial animosity, a baseless hatred ... until everything explodes.
What an irresponsibility. What a crime.
