The tendency towards suicide that we Catalans have has never ceased to amaze me. Institutional and collective. It must undoubtedly have historical roots. And even psychological. Just review history a little. At least without sweeteners.
To begin with, we must go back to the civil war of the Middle Ages (1462-1472). It surely sounds familiar to you: the Generalitat against the King. In this case, Juan II.
The monarch eventually won the competition, but only after pawning the southern counties of France to pay his troops. He regretted it all his life.
The French eventually returned them, after repaying the loan. But they had already tried caramel. It is not for nothing that they have always been in favor of natural borders. In this case the Pyrenees.
After the war of 1640-1652, they were definitively abandoned. It then included the second city of the Principality, Perpignan. And ten percent of the territory.
As is known, this conflict began because of the demands of the Count-Duke of Olivares. And the excesses of the Castilian troops.
The Generalitat proclaims the Republic. It lasted a week. To end up confiding in the King of France, Louis XIII. Only to discover that the abuses committed by the French troops were much worse.
The third order was the War of Succession (1701-1713). They still deplore the New Plant Decree and the loss of Catalan institutions.
What the official historiography does not say is that the Catalan Cortes swore allegiance to Philip V and then supported Archduke Charles. There was no crime worse at that time: high treason.
I will skip the last two examples because they are better known. One, that of October 6, 1934. Personally, I never understood Companys’ support for the… Asturian miners!, who, I suppose, wanted to establish a republic similar to the Soviet model.
Gaziel, the director of The avant-gardehe left written in a personal column as Minister of the Interior, Josep Dencas, He was calling the anarchists on the radio. Let’s see if they could give them a hand.
Finally, I will not dwell on the last episode, that of 2017, because it is well known. But it ended with an amnesty. For this, we avoided any agitation and spared ourselves political, economic, social and even judicial damage.
All this is related to what happened in Vilafranca del Penedès when the Fiesta Mayor was proclaimed. The mayor, Francesc Romero, of the PSC, seems to have had no better idea than to choose a former CUP councilor (2003-2009) as town crier. After asking Artur Mas, who trusted them and they ended up sending him to the “dustbin of history”.
Otger AmatllerThis is the name of the former mayor in question, has launched an appeal to “celebrate the party, pleasure and freedom”. He has even praised “art, music and folklore”. And he has even called for “respect”.
But it ended in a “fucking Spain”. As in the best of cases TV3. In the hubbub of the audience, which erupted into shouts and applause.
Opening the markets to Catalan cava seems like a fantastic idea to me. After all, Vilafranca is known as the “capital of cava”.
Of course, I am not in favour of boycotts. Neither on one side nor the other. But I completely understand that people who perhaps felt offended now prefer Extremadura cava. The consumer rules.
Moreover, the speaker is not even related to the sector. In other words, it does not matter whether sales increase or decrease.
A psychologist by profession, he is the coordinator of the prevention department of the Salut i Comunitat foundation, an entity linked to the University of Barcelona that is dedicated to the health problems of groups at risk of exclusion. With public funds, I suppose.
Vilafranca reminds me, in this sense, of another nearby town: Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, also specialized in the production of cava.
At the gates of the town hall there was a plaque commemorating the visit of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia in the 80s. In doing so, they removed it.
And after the Supreme Court ruling, the town hall square looked like a theme park. It was filled with yellow ribbons. Even posters reminding us how far away the Estremera prison is. Another fantastic way to promote the sale of cava in the rest of Spain.
Since I know the place, I will give you one last example. In this case, from the tourist town of l’Ametlla de Mar (Tarragona), near the Ebro.
With a mayor from ERC – now he is from Junts – the municipality was also filled with yellow ribbons and banners in favor of “political prisoners”. They even ended up appointing the first mayor, with similar merits, president of the Association of Municipalities for Independence.
They are lucky because at the moment French tourism represents the majority of the population. However, if this dwindles, it will be difficult for tourism to come from the rest of Spain.
Of course, as soon as the mayor in question, Jordi Gaseni, lost the elections, he was replaced in the Senate which, as you know, is an institution of the Kingdom of Spain.
