Originally published in Spanish. «Torra, la activación del etnicismo y el mambo». Pau Marí-Klose. Agenda Pública. 14th May 2018 Catalonia is a fragile object, as Oriol Bartomeus recently recalled in an excellent post. As in many other places, history has assembled fragments without completely fusing them, leaving behind scars that remind us of the effort […]
Categoría: In English
November 9th: an ignored warning
Photo by Felix Russell-Saw on Unsplash Originally published in Spanish: “El 9N: un aviso que no se atendió”. Editorial. El Mundo. That the secessionist process required a complex criminal web is not doubted even by its promoters, whose internal documents warned clearly about the unavoidable clash with the state that the disconnection project entailed. What the […]
Spain and Death
Photo by Hannes Wolf on Unsplash Originally published in Spanish. ‘España y la muerte’ Víctor Lapuente. El País. 15th May 2018 Quim Torra has laid clear the philosophy of his future cabinet. Full of epic rhetoric about nation building but meagre in action, without any detail on specific steps. But everything generously showered with public funds for civil servants […]
Quim Torra, a fundamentalist agitator
Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash Originally published in Spanish: “Quim Torra, agitador integrista” . Joaquim Coll. Crónica Global. 10th May 2018 After the political change in the Barcelona municipal government in 2011, with the arrival of Xavier Trias (from Convergència) to the mayorship, the Born project morphed from a cultural center into a temple […]
Irate, absolutist and bigoted
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash Originally published in Spanish.‘Iracundo, absolutista e intolerante’. Roger Senserrich. Vozpópuli. 12th May 2018 Let me start my article today with a quote: “When the homeland is experiencing a moment of national urgency, when the nation is in danger of dissolving as sugar in a glass of milk, when all the bells about […]
Our Jörg Haider
Photo by Fernando Mateo on Unsplash Originally published in Spanish. ´Nuestro Jörg Haider´. Rafa Latorre. El Mundo. 13th May 2018 Quim Torra invites caricature. Newspapers describe him as a stooge, a puppet or a straw man. They say Carles Puigdemont has forbidden him from using his office and labelled his nomination provisional in a humiliating video. It […]
Nightmare in Barcelona
Photo by Nenad Spasojevic on Unsplash Originally published in Spanish. ‘Pesadilla en Barcelona’ Javier Cercas. El País. 15th May 2018 It bears repeating once again, in the hope that by sheer repetition we finally believe it: Joaquim Torra, gleaming Catalan regional president, is an enthusiast of Estat Català, a fascist or para-fascist and secessionist party that […]
Who is Quim Torra, the next Catalan regional president?
Photo by Yosh Ginsu on Unsplash Originally published in Spanish. ‘¿Quién es Quim Torra, el próximo presidente de la Generalitat?’ Manel Manchón. Crónica Global. 10th May 2018 The man chosen by Puigdemont presided Omnium Cultural and brags about betting on secession no matter the consequences. Quim Torra (Blanes, 1962) is the man chosen by Carles Puigdemont […]
Exclusion and Conflict
Photo by Artem Sapegin on Unsplash Originally published in Spanish: “Exclusión y conflicto”. Editorial. El País. 13th may 2018 Torra’s speech pushes Catalan society towards clash A day after showing his -we now know insincere- regret over racist and xenophobic remarks expressed on social networks, Quim Torra went up to the Catalan parliament podium with a […]
The deal with nationalism is over
Photo by Matt Artz on Unsplash Originally published in Spanish: “El pacto con el nacionalismo se ha acabado”. Manel Manchón. Crónica Global. 5th may 2018 It is over. It may linger on for a while, a transition period in which everything is still possible, where the past is yearned for, where some sort of forget is […]