Serious Dangers of Catalonian Nationalism

SERIOUS DANGERS OF CATALONIAN  NATIONALISM[1]

José Antonio de Yturriaga                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Ambassador of Spain

It is difficult to state precisely when Catalanism became Nationalism, It did not happen overnight, but throughout a gradual process in which Catalanism lowered its initial predominant cultural nature to deepen its political profile and turned itself into Nationalism. After de disaster of 1898 and the lost by Spain of her colonies, Catalanism leant towards political activity. During the conflict, the movement Uniò Catalana published a Statement in which it blamed the Madrid Government for the dismembering of the Spanish domains due to a policy which “put at risk of death all the creations of the Catalonian genius”, and placed Catalonia totally outside of what was happening in Cuba and in the Philipines. For that reason, it considered demanding that the region acquires command of its internal interests and exercise its influence in the managing of its external interests. Once the colonial disaster was consummated, the nationalist politicians increased their criticism against Spain, which was described as “an unbound bundle of African tribes“, whereas Catalonia was “the main representative of European civilization”. If Spain wanted to rise from this situation, she should “resort to the ideals, to the fortitude and to the Governmental traditions of Catalonia”. Such comments were a typical show of the supremacism inscribed in the AND of Nationalism.

The Spanish Royal Academy of Language defines Nationalism as “a doctrine which exalts in every respect the full national personality or whatever their supporters consider it as such”. It considers, therefore, a double component: one objective –the exaltation of national personality- and another subjective –the nationalists´ concept of such personality-. This subjective element makes it possible that Nationalism may adopt many different forms. There is not a unique Nationalism, but diverse manifestations of it, which may vary according to the circumstances.

            Already in 1932, José Ortega y Gasset described the “particularist” Nationalism of Catalonia as “a feeling of vague outline of variable intensity. aslthough sufficiently clear, which takes possession of a group of  people or a community, which makes it  ardently desire to live apart from the other people or communities”. Nationalists “feel a mysterious and fatal inclination, an eagerness to keep themselves out, exempt, alien to any fusion, secluded and entranced in themselves”. According to Gabriel Tortella, the Catalonian nationalism is the main problem that has faced Spain since the Transition and it is difficult to foresee its end. The Basque nationalism was the protagonist at the end of last century and –after ETA´s defeat- allowed a transitory period of appeasement, but the Catalonian nationalism, with its measures of pressure, extortion and exclusion –although concealed, not less despicable- assumed the role to demolish the Spanish State. This situation posed a series of problems, one of which was the nature of Nationalism., But it is not easy to explain, because there is not a single Nationalism, but various varieties of it depending on the latitudes and on historical, cultural and ethnic conditions.

            Two main classes of Nationalism can be considered: the one which exalts the virtues of the nation –its history, its traditions, its language, its culture, its folklore or its gastronomy- and that with an identitarian character, which excludes those who do not share their ideas. The first is a factor of progress which is commendable; the second is, on the contrary, a factor of regression and should be rejected. Following Giuseppe Mazzini, the identitarian nationalism believes that every group of people deserves a nation and a State. Some of them become independentists; others content themselves with an autonomy considered sufficient to protect their collective identity. According to Rafa Latorre, Nationalism has imposed in Catalonia a hardly subtle form of collective extortion described as “peace of consensus” –as little deserving and disuasive as the “peace of the cemeteries”-, which protectsa very delicate biosphere, that become hostile to those who dissent. In spite of their historical or geographic peculiarities, Nationalism offers certain common features. 

            Nationalism needs an external enemy in order to assert its personality- Sometimes, it has one; otherwise, it is invented. For Catalaonia, the ancestral enemy is Spain-Castille-Madrit, the Spanish people, the Castilian language, the culture of Spain, her customs and traditions –especially bullfighting- and even the Real Madrid. Their fierce attitude against everything Spanish- leads the nationalists to defame Spain whenever they have a chance and encourage in Europe suspicions and doubts about the quality of her democracy, with the complicity of the Eurosceptic and  anti-European groups. Fortunately –as the European deputy Teresa Giménez Barbat has pointed out-neither the European States nor the EU institutions have given in to those who –in the name of identity- would like to go back to the source of conflicts that existed in Europe  before it became, thanks to the Union, “the most prosperous, enlightened and progressive community of the planet, that –in virtue of the principles of cooperation and solidarity- has created a space. not only economic or political, but also moral”. According to César Antonio Molina, we have to deal with “an invented nationalism, full of ill will and resentment, profusely vengeful, that has increased more and more its old scab of tribal hate”.

            Nicolás Redondo considers that the confrontation between nationalism and cosmopolitism has been raised by identitarian nationalists who –wrapped up in their flags, their supremacism and their fancy nostalgia- have placed themselves  outside a globalized world. The Catalonian nationalism is introverted, endogamic, solipsist, plaintive and mournful. It despises globalization and has managed to control every public space in an asphyxiating way. It is convinced that the Catalonian people are  “victims”, who have been unable to reach their objectives due to the violent repression of the Spanish State. This victimism cultivated year after year gives them their supreme right not to comply with the law and with the sentences of the tribunals. “How to blame people  oppressed during centuries for some minor legal violations, if they are necessary in order to break the oppressive yoke?”. The calvary of persecutions that they have suffered gives them the right to insult their opponents, to impose their narrow political frame to the Catalonian society, to violate the law, to interpret reality as they like and to reject criticism, opposition and discrepancy. The soul of Catalonian identity  survives only thanks to the tension with the creation of enemies, which are more imaginary than real. The nationalist need the conflict in order to maintain the purity of the “Holy Grail” of their ideology, whereas cosmopolitism represents the opposite. It is the difference between “culture” in general, understood as the ambit  in which the spiritual and creative activity of mankind develops, and “my culture”, understood as the spirit of the people to which I belong, which  impregnates my thoughts an my attitudes, with the exclusion of those of the others.

            Falling back upon oneself and upon one´s traditions implies sticking to the past and refusing a globalization which is as unavoidable as positive. For many years the Spaniards have been absorbed in themselves and alien to changes which were transforming the world, and this attitude has been accentuated in the case of peripheral nationalisms, which reject what they do not know and all that does not coincide with their narrow frame of mind. They pay tribute to an invented past ant to an identity artificially created, and follow Ernest Renan´s thesis that historical error is an essential factor in the creation of a nation.

The Catalonian journalist Agustí Calvet, Gaziel, pointed out in 1930 the “the political sign of Catalonian land, since Spain constituted herself as a national entity at the end of the XV century, has constantly been a show of protest. Hardly amenable with the increasing uniformity of the Spanish State, Catalonia has lived, politically speaking, in a permanent state of ill humour and sulkiness”. According to Ortega y Gasset, all through its history, Catalonia  has dragged a terrible destiny and, accordingly, it has been in “an almost incessant moan”, and –for Sergi Doria-Catalonian nationalism is a carrier of everlasting grievances.

The use and the abuse of History is one of the fundamental features of Nationalism and its manipulation has been a sign of identity of Catalonian nationalism,  whish has indulged in grotesque and delirious assertions by the Intitute Nova Història, according to which Hernán Cortés, Christopher Columbus, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Ávila, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Ieronimus Bosch “il Bosco”, Leonardo da Vincir or Miguel de Cervantes were Catalonian, and Don Quichotte himself came from Catalonia and not from La Mancha. Jordi Canal has commented –tongue in cheek- that he did not understand how the historical authorities had not claimed so far that the first “homo sapiens” was Catalonian. Jordi Pujol stated that history and language constituted the basis for the national definition of Catalonia, his wife, Marta Ferrusola, pointed out that “our nationalism is fed with our History”, and his political  heir, Artur Mas, asserted that History was one of the basic pillars of Catalonian nationalism.

Miguel de Unamuno said that nationalism was the craze  of those hot-headed spoiled by the indigestion of bad history, Gaziel that Catalonian historians  used to narrate not the History but the dream of the History of Catalonia, and Ricardo García Cárcel that Catalonian society was sick of the past. According to Canal, Nationalism is to a great extent responsible for this illness because it has given great importance to the construction of a story to generate identity and uphod political projects. Myth and lies have been merged in the History of Catalonia, which has resulted in a fundamental instrument for the “catalonization” of the society. The story turns around the search of a nation that existed since the time of the  Pyrenean Earldoms and whose weak periods coincided with the attempts by Castille.Spain to destroy Catalonia. It maintains that Catalonia is one of the oldest nations in Europe, pays no attention the the Aragon Crown, considers that Catalonia had already started its way towards democracy in the XVII century and states that the conquest of Barcelona on 11 September 1714 by the Spanish troops provoked the end of a Nation and of a State. Catalonia, however, never was a sovereign and independent State, but a part of a wider political entity, the Kingdons of France or of Aragón. According to Claudio de Ramón, Nationalism is an ideology based on the production of lies and of ethnic antagonism.

Nationalism considers that Catalonia is superior to Spain and that is why it should separate, and this attitude responds to ethnic criteria. In his book “The Warrior´s Honour”, Michael Ignatieff has reflected on the reasons which led to the explosion of ethnic conflicts, especially in the former Yugoslavia-How was it possible that people who had been living peacefully together during centuries started suddenly to kill one another  in a bloody way? He arrived at the conclusion that it was due to the decision of politicians who –after President Tito´s death- saw in Nationalism a gold mine to get votes, since it was sufficient with listing grievances so that each defeat, each drop of blood, was scored in the Book of Rancor and, in that way –annotation after annotation-  an identity was built and an electoral basis was formed in the quickest and most effective manner, by means of exclusion. And when a State –that has the monopoly of force- sides with a community, those excluded look for shelter in the tribe and, in little time, they try to take justice into their hands. Catalonia has not reached this extreme, but President Sánchez´ condescendence with the sectarianism of the Generalitat does not foresee good auguries. As Elisa de la Nuez has pointed out, it is difficult to uphold a discourse which defends that modernity passes by the nationalist ethnicism of the XXI century and by tics characteristic of authoritarian regimes.   

For Oriol Junqueras, Catalonians are similar to the French or the Italians, whereas the Spaniards are more like the Portuguese or –what seems to be even worse- the Morocans. Pere Soler has commented that he felt pity for the Spaniards and Joaquim Torra s insults and depreciatory comments about them are well known. In reply to his accusation that Catalonia was been attacked by Spanish Fascism, Albert Rivera stated that what was a proof of Fascism was to call “degenerate beasts” to most of the Catalonians and the rest of the Spaniards, to violate the Constitution and the Statute in order to declare independence, and uphold the violence of separatist commandos. As Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo has pointed out, in Catalonia a factious group is in command, which is purely fascist, both in its aims and its means:  A supremacist agenda, elimination of dissidents and obscene politisation of the police.

Redondo has stated that the concerted action of the institutions and of a  part of the citizen in Catalonia –there can be no totalitarianism without social support- is the representation of a raising autoritorianism  that, fortunately, has not been so far sufficient to defeat the Spanish State and the European Union, but –when a part of the society is turned into a mob- we reach a situation close to totalitorianism. The proposals to recover the provisions of the Statute adopted by the Parlamentin in 2005, which were declared illegal by the Constitutional Court, would mean the abandonment of the Catalonians who have opposed the independence process. The solution may be found in the creation of a reasonable political frame in which the various sectors of the Catalonian society may establish a dialogue and, for this purpose, it is indispensable to end with the signs of autoritarianism which have appeared in Catalonia. According to Íñigo Calderón, wherever the nationalists hold power, they use their competences and the Official Gazette to converge within their autonomic ambits, to eliminate domestic differences, to homogenize internal plurality and to synthesize an artificial social singularity, which becomes the objective of their policies, a collective singularity which replaces individual singularities. This synthetic singularity turns into the famous “fet diferencial” invoked by Jordi Pujol. Nationalists assert themselves by this “differencial fact” in contraposition against the State. The fact of being different –or of appearing to be so- explains the excluding character of Nationalism. César A. Molina has pointed out that Nationalism is a project of the political and economical elites with a view to exclude non-nationalists. Nationalism puts aside the citizen, who become subject of an  absolutist regime imposed on them. It uses the same tricks as populisms of various kinds, which seek a radical break with the statu quo. Nationalism has destroyed multiracial, lingüistic and cultural life in common, gone a step back in the civilization process and prevented the possibility that citizen may live together as equal.

This cultural, ethnic, territorial and monolingüistic nationalism has given place to two types of citizen: “those who exclude”, who comply with the imposed rules, and “those who are excluded “, who are rejected because they do not comply with the said rules. Nationalism intends to exclude other people and this is precisely its “raison d´être”, because its goal –as that of totalitarianism- is the homogenization of the society and the repression of citizens who oppose it. “The fear of globalization and of the loss of their roots, immigration and xenophobia, the frontal attack against democracy and its representative institutions, faith in authoritarianism newly formulated violence, the impetus of ´patrioterism´ and the claim of  a single and pure culture are little by little finding their way. Nationalism assumes the moral monopoly of the representation and the control of the means of communication”.

In Catalonia, the same people are always in command, with the result that a half of Catalonian has no right to their own institutions. Those who do not share the official truth are singled out, in the middle of a “spiral of silence”, and the institutions do not protect a very important part of the citizens, because these institutions are partisan, being only for nationalists. One can detect in Nationalism the nostalgia  for a past where  a “sol poble” –a single group of people- did and undid at will, and no one dared to protest. The longing for a small and identitarian fatherland id similar to the feelings shown by “brexiters” for the loss of the Empire or by Donald Trump´s s supporters of a robust, male and white America. Nowithstanding, nothing of that is going to return, because History advances in a different direction.

According to Fernando de Haro, in the West there are movements which renounce rationality in order to solve their identity requirements. Nationalists iarelinked with secularization, since the nation has always been subject of worship. “Those who believed in enlightened tradition thought that the beast had been tamed, but when enlightenment fades away, the beast reappears. The sacred element reappears in seeking an objective, and the one closest is the nation”. Every culture is judged for its capacity to  pass from what is  particular to what is universal, and the “absolutization” of what is particular shows the cultural and anthropological weakness of the whole society and not only of the elites. The dissolution of evidences provokes an identity anxiety which prompts people to possess what is easy. From here, the unreality of Nationalism and the irrationality of Nationalists can be deduced. They live in the self-deceit of an invented virtual world, which is converted into reality by the “post-truth”. They do not think with the brain, but with the bowells, are carried away by feeling and discard reason. That is why it is so difficult to dialogue with nationalists, since they only try to impose their criteria and their dogmas upon others. As Albert Camus said, I am afraid of a person whom I cannot convince, because one cannot argue with them. The real Spain is in danger of institutional discomposure and of territorial fracture because of Nationalism.

Another of the features of Nationalism is –in the opinion of Jorge Bustos- the “adversative acception”. Nationalists believe that the world owes them something which was unjustly taken away from them, but –although the source of his rancor is mythological, the effects over their neighbours are real. “Rather than being  proud of what is their own, nationalist feel the rejection of what is not their own”. For this reason, there can be no moral equidistance between a unique cultural project and another project of a half-breed living-together, born from the plural agreement reached in 1978, from which nationalists try to segregate. But, “what do we know, poor people without papers in Equidistonia?               

John Elliot has pointed out that the Catalonian nationalism has built a story based on “half truths, many lies and tons of  victimism”, as well as on “the nostalgia of a past that never was”. He has blamed Pujol for the development of identitarian Nationalism because in 1990 he adopted his “Strategy for Catalonization”n and complained because constitutional Spain has been unable to build a story  which may matched that of Catalonian Nationalism. In the view of Álvarez de Toledo, nationalism is, above all, interference, an invasion of the collectivity in individual freedom. The “Catalonian State” is an enormous bureaucratic gear which “tramps on private life, demands absolute ideological fidelity, imposes itself in the class-rooms, manipulates text-books, okupy the TV plateaux and buries the citizen under a slab of entities, consortia, institutes, foundations, embassies and observatories, which cost a fortune in taxes and which act as employment agencies and factory of thankful stomachs. Nationalism has created an illiberal State”.

Catalonian Nationalism is also insatiable and lacks solidarity. Ortega y Gasset already warned Azaña in 1931 of the voracity and greediness of Catalonian politicians, who never felt satisfied with what they obtained and, when they achieved a concession from the State, they took it for granted and immediately afterward they would ask for new benefits. Proofs of the insolidarity with the other Autonomous Communities are the claim of the ordinality principle and the inclusion in the Catalonian Statute of a clause, according to which the Spanish State should invest in infrastructures in Catalonia the equivalent of the contribution of the Community to the national GNP, which is a retrograde provision since is tantamount to give more to those who have more.

Nationalisms are also bellicose. Without going to the extreme of François Mitterand who said that Nationalism was war, it can be stated that Nationamism has

caused many conflicts. including de two World Wars and the civil war in former Yugoslavia. Emmanuel Macron has asserted that a Nationalism which excludes was  treason to patriotism, because it exacerbated the differences and tried to dynamite the State of Right. But –as Mira Milosechiv has pointed out- in the XIX and XX centuries, ntionalism fought for territories through war, whereas nowadays the battles are fought through propaganda and the manipulation of public opinion, Lack of information and fake news form part of the strategy of the nationalists to internationalize the supposed conflict between Catalonia and Spain.

                     

            According to  Félix Ovejero, tension and disloyalty are the ways for Nationalism to stand in politics. Nationalism is the problem that Nationalist submit as the solution of the problem that it creates and from which it is nourished. It is an ideology constitutively unequal which should be resisted, if we want to remain as a community of citizens free and equal. For the nationalists, however Nationalism is an immutable constant and an unbeaten manifestation of its political scenery and should not be combated. It is the answer to a just cause and, accordingly, the nationalists do not even consider the possibility of a defeat. There are no doubts, nevertheless, that the nationalism is antidemocratic. It is not so much a proceeding as its quintessence, which consists in raising frontiers in a perimeter of identities. The nationalists are against deciding and sharing with other fellow citizen, and their aim is to break the community of those who want to live together. It is neither the distorted expression of a just cause nor of a reality  ignored or despised, because its obscenity is based in a lie: the fable of the immutable identities. They invoke an inexistent world. However, “the nationalism can be defeated and we have the moral obligation to do so”. Mario Vargas Llosa has invited all citizen to fight against Nationalism openly and without any complex, because it is one of the worst plagues of mankind. It defends a retrograde past to which we do not want to return. It does not matter its colour or its origin, since all nationalisms are racist and discriminatory, and start from a false premise: the superiority of a community because of its ethnic origin or the birthplace of its members.

            We should oppose Patriotism to Nationalism, following the thesis of Maurizio Viroli, who –in his book “For Love of the Fatherland”- has confronted these two movements. Nationalism combats heterogeneity and pluralism, and emphasizes linguistic, cultural and ethnic homogeneity. It claims to defend “the people”, but only “its people”, understood as an homogeneous community, which needs to be protected from cultural pluralism and the risks of immigration. On the other hand, Patriotism  claims love for the political institutions which uphold the common freedom. “The true meaning of Patriotism is linked to a longstanding tradition of  political thinking based on the principle of freedom”. Only Patriotism can defeat Nationalism and the democratic left should change its reluctant attitude and its animosity toward the fatherland, the common home of all citizens. In the same line of thought, Roger Cohen has stated that “the self-compassionate and aggressive nationalism tries to change the present in the name of an illusory past, in order to create a vague future in all respects except in its glory. Pregnant with violence and manipulating fear, it is an exercise of massive deceit, what I hate with all my soul”. Having been a correspondent in the Balkan Wars, Cohen has defined himself as a “European Patriot”, because he witnessed how Nationalism managed to convert the cosmopolitan city of Sarajevo in the place where his friend, the Bosnian actor Nermin Tulic, lost his legs after a Serbian bombardment, what proved that  the devil who had wrecked the continent was only sleeping. To counteract this situation we could only rely on Patriotism, which was to Nationalism “what dignity is to barbarism”.

            The Spanish Supreme Court has just beguin the trial of some of the leaders of Catalonian Nationalism, not for their ideas –as the prosecuted politicians have claimed-, but for their constant violation of the Constitution, the Catalonian Statute and the laws, both national and autonomic, despite the warnings of the Constitutional Court. If it is  true that the Government and the Supreme Court are prosecuting Catalonian nationalists because of their political ideas, how is it possible that Joaquim Torra and Roger Torrent have not been prosecuted despite the fact that they continue daily their task to achieve the independence of Catalonia?  How can be explained that persons who do not only think but also act in order to separate Catalonia from Spain in defiance of the Constitution and of the prohibitions of the Constitutional Court continue to maintain the highest posts in the Generalitat and in the Parlament?

            Torra´s case is notorious. He is the President of an Autonomous Community by the virtue of a Constitution and a Statute that he violates day after day. He has proclaimed his determination to establish an independent Republic in Catalonia, despised and insulted the King, asked publicly citizens to attack the State, promoted the violent actions of the Committees for the Defence of the Republic and placed himself in a situation of permanent rebellion against the Spanish State. The efficient “agitprop” of  Catalonian nationalism has, however, succeeded in convincing a part of international public opinion that the poor Catalonian nationalists are been attacked by a dictatorial State because of their noble ideas. The conclusion that one may reach from this illogical logic is that the Spanish Government is not only antidemocratic, but also utterly stupid and inefficient.

Madrid, 22  February 2019

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[1].-This artticle has been extracted from Ambassador Yturriaga´s book “Cataluña vista desde fuera”