A teacher shouts at her 10 years old student when noticing that she has drawn a Spanish flag. The teacher breaks the girl's work in front of the other children. She lifts the girl from her chair, throws her to the floor and then, grabbing her by the neck, drags her out of class and leaves her alone in the hallway.
These are the facts recognized by the girl, by her parents, and by the rest of the children in the classroom. And they are also facts that fit the hospital's injury reports, although the teacher recognizes little more than the expulsion from the classroom and the breaking of the classwork, but reduces the aggression to something very slight.
This news, which has outraged everybody, doesn't disqualify nationalism by itself. At the end of the day, as any separatist can say, that teacher doesn't represent them. A person may have personal problems, or psychiatric ones, or can be a radical that exceeds the average of peace activism and smiles of the most "reasonable" independentists. There could be a thousand excuses for the unforgivable act of this teacher not to splash all Catalan nationalism, because a movement that unites about two million people cann't be judged by the acts of a single individual.
However, the reaction of the independence movement is relevant. And it has been a varied reaction, but above all spontaneous, often even disproportionate.
The most usual voices have rushed to deny the facts. Beginning with Gabriel Rufián, for whom the news "looks false, just like the media", referring to the newspaper ABC (maybe it's his daily newspaper, since the news has appeared practically in all media press, radio and TV). Many other voices, that in a reverse situation would demand justice and mobilize their bases in mass concentrations, turning the girl into little less than Anne Frank, they have hastened to categorically deny an event they hardly knew anything about but that now it is increasingly difficult to deny.
Many have chosen to minimize it. Among them the most relevant is the nationalist Jesus Viñas, responsible for the Territorial Education Services whose headquarters was kept for a while adorned with yellow ties (the de facto nationalist symbol) and which also shares a yellow ribbon with the teacher. Viñas closed the investigation at record time (in less than 24 hours) writing a report that exculpates the teacher without having even spoken with all the affected parties (the parents of the girl have known the report through the media). In this report he 100% supports the story of the teacher saying that the aggression was not such, that the injuries were something very slight and, above all, that the drawing of the girl was not rejected for ideological reasons, that is the nuance that most seems to matter to the independence movement. To reinforce their thesis both the teacher and the head of education claim that other childrens drawings were also objects of disapproval. What neither of them explains is why they only shouted at that girl, why she only humiliated her by publicly breaking her drawing with Spanish flags in front of the other children, why only she was expelled from class and left alone in the hall. And naturally, why only she was subjected to such "mild" aggressions, but so documented by the E.R. department of the hospital.
The reaction of the nationalist media has also been remarkable. It's not necessary to mention all the denials and misrepresentations of the small but oversubscribed digital nationalists. We can all imagine to what extent they can hide or even reverse the events, but a sample would be the digital "The Republic", for which the reaction of the parents of the other children the day after the attack, hanging on the door of the school drawings of his children with Spanish flags and phrases like "Don't beat our children" was literally described as "a fascist attack against the school". However, what is most relevant is how the main media have spoken. La Vanguardia from count Godò titled that an "investigation" had been opened because a teacher had "broken a work class" of a student who "drew Spanish flags", in general, without specifying the age of the girl or how many flags she drew or where she drew them. A headline so open that it left everything in the air, didn't put the emphasis on any aggression and allowed the nationalist reader to calm themselves thinking that the girl could in fact be a little hooligan who painted Spanish flags on the walls of the corridors. TV3 was in the same line. For the pro-independence television what was investigated was whether the teacher only "broke a drawing of a Spanish flag".
The unions, more or less dependent on the subsidies of nationalism, rushed to defend "their" victim .. the teacher. They criticized harshly the "persecution" and the "criminalization" to which the alleged aggressor was being subjected. They also criticized that some people had identified it publicly. In that I do agree. That's totally rejectable and more typical of CUPaires than of Democrats. However, the girl attacked was left abandoned by the unions.
We reach the lowest but most virulent level: social networks. Those who coundn't deny or hide the facts opted to discredit the victims. Given that the school has a high percentage of Gypsies, Arabs and other people, it hasn't been too long until tweets have been received stating that the girl is in fact a Gypsy or even that she has relatives in jail. Whether the girl is Gypsy or not, violence is not justified and racism and gypsyphobia wielded by these "people of peace" have been shameful.
Finally we look for the voices that, within the independence movement, condemn the aggression. Yes, we look for them, but there is hardly any, or in any case they are not heard. Any timid attempt at the style "I cann't believe it, but if that were the case, I totally condemn violence in both sides..." is soon silenced or overcome by the furious negative from the rest of the independence movement. Because that simply "can't be". Because "the smile revolution" doesn't match a teacher who beats a little girl for drawing a flag. Surely it had to be the other way around. Surely the teacher must have endured the unspeakable. Surely Torra will propose it, sooner or later, for the Cross of Saint George.
