After analyzing the situation with Spanish democracy today, one can be pessimistic or optimistic: “both questions are subjective,” he says. Santiago Trancon… “What happens is that this pessimism or optimism should always be based on rational effort, not just sentimentality.” He, a philologist and writer, has just published Spain sentenced but not defeated (Last line), an analytical text designed to re-examine this recurring theme among Spaniards of all time: What is Spain? What are you wrong? How can we save our coexistence? As the saying goes, in order to find the right remedy, you must first make the correct diagnosis. And this is what Trankon was aiming for, who, given the various attacks that have occurred in recent years on the rule of law in Spain, wanted to look back and analyze how it all started and who was the necessary ally for those who “They intend to free democracy from sense, nationalists of all stripes, step by step get rid of it. ”He himself soon admits the temptation to blame exclusively the two great parties, so accustomed to“ trade with representatives of openly xenophobic and Suprematist ideologies with the sole purpose of staying in power. ”But a less obvious reading makes him point to the third culprit, least expected and most famous among today’s Democrats: judicial branch…
“Everything was in LOAPA”– explains Trankon. For him, the Organic Law of Harmonization of the Autonomous Process of 1982 was “a great project, ideally planned and developed.” However, it was overturned by the Constitutional Court, “which created a precedent that has brought us to where we are now.” “All of a sudden, the autonomies were above the state,” he adds. He also states that this was the moment “at which delusion of the autonomous state“.” The state of autonomies is not included in the Constitution. The Constitution states that there are autonomous communities, but not a state of autonomies. “The way to understand this expression, however, will be decisive, since an integrating and organic state, divided into autonomies, but guaranteeing equality, is not the same. … the rights of all citizens , no matter where they were born, rather than a conglomerate of autonomous territories that only later form a single state. As is often the case with important things, no one realizes the impact that was supposed to be a minor change in the way they are expressed until they are completely changed.
In this sense, Trancon’s analytical efforts were based on the judicial system, because, in his words, “it is the most important actor in the entire disintegration process in Spain, whose guilt is least recognized.” “I myself had a very mythologized view of the judicial system,” he explains. He watched the development of events, for example, during the trial, and thought that those who stopped the coup against Spanish democracy were the judges. “However, it is enough to read the verdict passed later, the verdict for incitement to mutiny instead of mutiny, to understand that something is wrong.” For Trancon, the blame lies with the judicial elite, a small number of people “bedridden by political and economic power.” They will be primarily responsible for leaving “Distortion of the constitutional text sentence by sentence”Either with bizarre interpretations that justify ambiguous illegitimacy, or “stop worrying that sentences that correctly defend what has been established in the Constitution will be executed later.” The last example of this he finds was very recent: “What consequences did the illegal alert clause announced during the pandemic have? This is very amazing. Pedro Sánchez even publicly admits that he is proud to have done it, and says that he will “Give it back,” a phrase that vividly reminds of the imprisoned Catalan politicians, and nothing happens here, ”concludes Trancon.
Manifesto 2300 and the germ of nationalism
Trankon also stresses that although there have been many remarks about anti-democratic drift in certain communities. “What happened after the 2300 Manifesto can be seen as the germ of everything that was settled later.” In 1981, a large group of intellectuals and teachers living in Catalonia signed Equal Linguistic Rights Manifesto… His intention was to point out a reality that went unnoticed in the rest of the country, but which by then was already trying to implement the Catalan project through educational centers. Many teachers had to leave Catalonia because of the “atmosphere of intransigence that began to breathe there”, which, among other things, led them to consider themselves “rejected for not speaking Catalan.”
“TO Federico Jimenez Losantos. As a result, Terra Lliure shot him in the leg, “he recalls. Joaquin Legin, former PSOE leader in Madrid and co-responsible for the book’s presentation last Thursday. “Manifesto 2300 was a wake-up call, a denunciation of the nascent Catalan nationalist project and an attempt to expose Pujolism. This was the first big attempt to open the eyes of the Democrats. It would be nice if the history of this resistance was not forgotten, ”he later adds.
Legina doesn’t want to attract attention or steal word from the author of the book, but she does highlight a few ideas. “Nationalism is dissatisfaction with democratic institutionsHe says, “This is the old new barbarism.” For this reason, he calls the current situation in the country “very serious”. In addition, he believes that a remedy that has been used for decades has never been correct. “The problem for the nationalists is money. As soon as money is taken out of pockets, everything will change radically. “
Enrique CalveThe economist and former PSOE member is also not so optimistic. “Spain is dead,” he says. “I mean, it was Spain. But now you have to be very careful about this. So much so that I no longer know if the feeling of Spanish is legal. ” The expression on his face, in spite of everything, contains a different, more detailed explanation. “I say that Spain is dead because Spain no longer has free and equal citizens. Now there is another Commonwealth Spain that is worth nothing.And below it is even sharper: “We are going straight to totalitarianism. In fact, racist and suprematist authoritarianism prevails in some regions of the country. ”
The main problem for him is “solidarity”. “This is why inequality is currently rampant.” However, this applies not only to material inequality. “Today, you have different rights depending on where you live… And this is a democratic deviation. ” He also points to another fundamental problem: “The electoral law does not mean that it supports bipartisanism. This bipartisanship is a lie. In Spain, what has existed for decades was party power in which the separatists were the most powerful, which were also in the minority. They basically decided. That is why today there is no vision of the common good and Spanish democracy has not been consolidated to ensure this ideal of just, free and equal citizens. “
Legina and Calvet, the PSOE old guard that no longer exists
Both Leghina and Calvet answer questions related to the current situation in the PSOE. Neither is optimistic. “Why aren’t old-fashioned socialists rebelling against Sanchez?” – hears, for example, a disgruntled former voter. “Because we are out of fashion, As Adriana Lastra said, “Legina responds.” Besides, there are many traitors among them, – he continues later. “I’m not going to name names, obviously.”
In addition, it also contains words for other types of politics, not necessarily intended to support the demands of the separatist parties, although they are also used by them. “It the new law of democratic memory is very serious… It is about establishing a false idea from the past. As if there were no republican repressions during the war, ”he says. – This is something that causes a certain anger, because I myself was anti-Franco when the beetle was alive, and then it was difficult. Now there is no point in repeating this, unless it is done for election-related reasons. ” Thus, he concludes the only remedy that he foresees – a remedy, in spite of everything that he considers ‘too distant’: “Courage is needed in Spanish politics… Here, either you want to stay in power at any cost, which motivates Sanchez, or the job is done. “