The latest press headlines reflect a continuously strong tendency to seeing the world divided in two, as opposed to into three. Three of course being the much wiser number. With three there is always a majority, and a winner never needed. But two is the way of the world, unfortunately.
Remember George Bush and his dark axiom, those who are not with us are against us? Recognise how Angela Merkel in equal terms is dividing Europe into Germany's well off friends on the one side and the irresponsible poor on the other? Here in Spain, it's not much different. Whose side are you on, the eternal question sounds. You're either Barça or Madrid, PP or Pesoe, church rule or find your own way, hard on the poor or angry with the haves, Catalunya or España, preparing for the impact of climate change or laughing it off - the list goes on and is daily refreshed. We now even are invited to like or hate our judges, according to how they dress or who they defend, I didn't quite get the details on this latest gaffe. Like there were no other logic going round.
But the old left right yes no I you divide, silly and mostly unimportant when things are going well, has now become infected by honest, rightful complaining. There's moaning coming from the coast, whining about the fast rising misery, and it's directed at the power in the middle. Thanks to the politics of financial strangulation it has all become a bit more urgent lately and it goes accompanied by a growing concern about Madrid's willingness to save any part of the country if its own interests are at stake. Madrid being about Madrid, the rest of the peninsula live in continuous fear of falling prey to keeping the dream of empire, that dangerous illusion, alive.
The regions protest in accordance with their own elusive dreams. Here in Catalunya we choose freedom of destiny, a future not necessarily connected with Madrid if Madrid won't change its ways. Some like to attach nationalist sentiments to the experience, with CiU exploiting it all a bit too eagerly (encouraged by the nazi shouting PP press no less), while ERC are trying to clean up the mess through offering the now expectant masses a reasonable way to go, if ever a majority were to vote them into power. ERC, of all holy wonders, have risen from the grave. Even I, in my short life as an inhabitant of Barcelona, have seen them go the way from committing collective suicide at the hands of an amazingly inept leadership and sinking below Iniciativa levels, to coming up with Oriol Jonqueras and Marta Rovira, two serious looking people offering reasonably serious business, nothing remotely compared to the shite PP is giving for justifying their miserable anti-people politics.
We know madrileños are suffering too. We are all playing in the wrong league, apart from the few who are not. We realise that. It doesn't change our point of view, though. PP is el partido antipopular, el papo, and up here very few people vote them. While we wish to acknowledge everybody's right to seek subordination to el papo rule - if one feels secured by it, that's fine -, we view matters differently and we want out. That's our problem and by extension it's Madrid's.
What surprises me in this continuous two-sided ranting is that sofar not even a slight attempt has been made at offering the restless peoples an acceptable bribe, by way of money or jobs perhaps. Instead they push us to the limit with their horrifying and disgusting back to the future vision. Everybody poor and smiling, with sister Loli reading funky fairytales. Weren't we supposed to be serious, smart citizens, not so long ago? What ever happened to that line of thinking? I'm desperately wishing my neighbours to withstand this threat by wisely using their voting power, of which I have none.
They say there's only two ways, only rapture or unison. One can see only Madrid triumph or from a different angle expect Barcelona to get away with it. This is how the reckon goes in a dialectic universe. But there is a third road. There always is. As far as I get to know the catalan experience through talking to my learners, there's very little anti-spain about their feelings. They almost all have family on the other side, some even very large ones. It is just about not wanting to suffer from el papo any longer. It's hard as it is already. What's the point in going back to Franco rule?
Other communities which feel similar stress from Madrid – the centre, not the city – should consider joining Catalunya's struggle. We cannot have this senseless destruction any longer. We need to save what's left to save. And it's not PP who is ultimately to blame, though it takes an unreasonably large portion of the weight, it's the concept of Madrid, the very idea of a desert needing a big city to control distant shores. Why not leave it empty? As if there were no alternatives available. Sevilla would always have made a beautiful capital. There's no turning back now, of course, nor any sense to that, but it would do all of us a favour if this parasiting behaviour came to an end and some wise investment decisions were made, cleverly adjusted to local needs, not private ones.
This is what we dream of.
