A political trial - Suso de Toro

The Supreme Court. Photograph by F.D.V.

A political trial, by Suso de Toro

The Supreme Court of the Kingdom of Span is to judge a group of men and women who have neither robbed nor hurt nor killed anyone. They are all peaceful persons; yet the Spanish Justice detained, handcuffed and put them away in cells, where they have been kept for over a year. The actions they are to be tried for are related to their exercising political freedoms and their freedom of expression. They are all outstanding community representatives and leaders, democratically-elected by the Catalan voters. For the same reason, the Justice system tried to arrest other Catalan politicians abroad.

There is no doubt this is a political issue and it is therefore a political hearing. The charges are extremely serious. It is a very serious political trial. As political trials go, this one is the elephant in the room.

The ultimate goal for this situation to occur is a plan: to put an end to Catalan nationalism. However, its inevitable outcome is the self-portrait the Spanish State painted of itself, appearing on the world stage as a State that persecutes democratic freedoms, as the successor of the Francoist regime.

No, it is not true that Catalan nationalism has awakened Francoist nationalism; Catalans are not to blame. No, it is not true that the dreadful current image of Spain in the world is the fault of those treacherous Catalans. What was known as "sociological Francoism" had political ingredients: all it was needed was for someone to decide to stir the pot and take the lead.

Specifically, the conflict began when M. Rajoy’s People’s Party gathered 4.2 million signatures against the Catalans’ Statute and the appeal lodged before the Constitutional Court against it. The central government and the State’s institutions have wielded maximum power in such a conflict, as they’ve shown in spades, and were mainly responsible for taking an artificially-created political conflict to the current situation. It is the State and the economic powers who have chosen to have these persons treated in such a way. Humiliation, the sadism of power.

Because this State’s policy of refusing to engage in a dialogue, so as to corner the opposition and persecute them harshly, has involved either actively or passively every Spanish political party and every state institution, starting with the King. It is this policy that lays the charges against and keeps these persons in jail. The nature of this post-Francoist State is unabashedly apparent, and it is expressed through the indictment: the national Prosecutor’s Office, the State’s Legal Counsel and Vox. The ideological elements of the charges are very obvious, as is the ideology of the Deep State.

What is frightful is not that the State behaves as per its nature, but that there is no democratic response from the population. It is probably too late.

The original text in Spanish can be found here.

Right Now: a poem by Miquel Martí i Pol

Right Now

Right now I’m threading a needle

with this yarn of a purpose I suppress,

and which I’m beginning to mend. None of the wonders

eminent magicians had announced

has come to pass, and the years go by quickly.

From nought to little, always against the wind,

what a long course of anguish and silences.

And we are where we are; better to know and say so,

and to place our feet on the ground and proclaim ourselves

the heirs of an era of doubt and renunciation,

when noise drowns out the words

and with many a mirror we half-imitate life.

Neither reminiscing nor complaining is any good,

nor is the off-handed stroke of melancholy

we put on, like a jumper or a necktie,

whenever we go out into the streets. We barely have

what we own, and that’s enough: the space of specific

history we have been given and a minuscule

territory where we enact it. Let us stand up

once again and let the voice of all of us

be heard, solemnly, clearly.

Let us shout out who we are: let everyone listen!

And, once we are finished, let each and every one

put on whatever clothes they fancy, and go outside, 

for everything still needs to be done, and everything is possible.

(from L’àmbit de tots els àmbits)

English version by J. Salavert, 2014.

The original in Catalan, together with a Spanish version,

here.