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Originally published in Spanish. ‘Torra y el fascismo’. Daniel Gascón. El País.
8th August 2018
The president should act as if he believed in democracy rather than devoting himself to destroy it.
Quim Torra, the president of the Generalitat, has published an article where he says that “as in so many other issues, we must remain as one people against Fascism”. It’s the same person that accused those that think different to him of having a failure in their DNA chain; the same one who affirmed that those that aren’t pro-independence can’t be pro-Catalonia; the same person who wrote: “These things that we must bear, as PP and Ciudadanos and other proto-Fascist strongholds, are nothing, the total emptiness, the absolute lack of respect for the country they live in”. As explained by Xavier Vidal-Folch, Torra has proposed as ‘examples’ or ‘pioneers’ of Secessionism persons that were close to Fascism and its methods.
In his article, written when he was already president in office, Torra warns of the violence from those who remove the yellow crosses and ribbons (tribute to the secessionist leaders in prison or fugitive) versus the “totally peaceful” pro-independence movement. It can be, he warns, “the serpent’s egg”.
On the one hand, no matter that generally the secessionism has avoided violence, the article hides the attacks to the offices of parties like Ciudadanos, PSC and PP; the protests against meetings of Societat Civil Catalana; the insults to Inés Arrimadas; or the campaigns of harassment and defamation against those who are against secessionism. On the other hand, it converts into Fascists all those who oppose that Secessionism takes over public spaces: that seems to be the actual meaning of the word “Fascist”. Torra calls for the participation of media and intellectuals and, on a probably unwilling ironic note, he asks the police to act and the citizens to give warnings.
It does not seem so difficult to condemn all forms of violence and at the same time avoid stigmatizing the citizens that don’t share your political option. The same that would have done anyone with some kind of an institutional view, a person that would be governing for the whole Catalonia and not only for a half of it, someone who believed in democracy rather than devoted himself to destroy it.
