I have been\ntrying to avoid the thorny subject of Catalan independence here but the recent\nhullaballoo caused by the (supposed) misreading of Agust\u00ed Colominas\u2019 words on a\ntelevision interview last 17 October might be useful to offer an alternative,\ngendered interpretation of the self-styled \u2018proc\u00e9s\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My personal\npolitical opinion is simple enough: Catalan independence should be won in a\nlegal referendum with at least 75% to 80% support for\u2013as Esquerra Republicana\nde Catalunya has recently acknowledged and former Generalitat President Artur\nMas also acknowledged\u2013you cannot start a new state with only half the citizens\u2019\nsupport. You risk in this way a terrible split, at worst a civil war (though I\ndoubt this would happen here). The Catalan conflict is not really a matter of\nSpain versus Catalonia but of how the independentists are trying to rush the\npolitical process without a convincing discourse that entices hostile,\nreluctant or even just indifferent people to their cause. Argue your case with\nsolid ideas, explain how a Catalan Republic would be much better than any top-of-the-world\nScandinavian country and then let\u2019s vote. Legally, with UN and EU backing, if\nnot with that of Spain, for who could stop a unified population absolutely\nconvinced of what they want (which is not the case now)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Colominas\u2019\nunfortunate words raised the issue of violence, which had been so far more or\nless suppressed. I mean mortal violence\u2013much has been said, of course, about\nthe brutal, intolerable use of police repression on October 1st<\/sup>\n2017. Allow me to explain that Agust\u00ed Colominas is a historian and political\ntheorist attached as major ideologist to Carles Puigdemont\u2019s Crida Nacional,\nsoon to become a formal political party. This is why his words carry so much\nweight. Speaking on La Xarxa, Colominas was trying to celebrate the fact that\nCatalan independentism has chosen a pacifist strategy. However, the way he\ndefended this argument was most awkward (or a Freudian slip\u2026): \u2018There were a\nnumber of na\u00efve steps. No doubt. Above all, if you try to carry out this very\nCatalan experiment of trying to get independence without a single death\u2019. He\nwas asked whether people should die for an idea and he replied that \u2018so far, in\nall independences in the world people have died. In ours we have decided we\ndon\u2019t want that. If you make that decision, then it takes longer. The process is\nfar longer\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unsurprisingly,\nhis ambiguous wording was interpreted as evidence that Colominas was asking for\nhuman life to be sacrificed if necessary for the sake of Catalan independence.\nThe reactions on Twitter and other media were furious, including that of\nEsquerra\u2019s notorious member of Parliament, Gabriel Rufi\u00e1n. Not too elegantly,\nColomina twitted back: \u2018You can see that Gabriel Rufi\u00e1n possibly does not\nunderstand Catalan. I\u2019ll translate [into Spanish Castilian] and simplify: \u201cthe\nCatalan process does not want any dead and this why it will take longer to\naccomplish our aim\u201d\u2019 (\u201cel proc\u00e9s catal\u00e0 no desitja morts i per aix\u00f2 portar\u00e0 m\u00e9s\ntemps aconseguir l\u2019objectiu\u201d). Fair enough and happy to read so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, here\u2019s a nasty surprise\u2013last 24 August, Stanford University professor Joan Ramon Resina (director of the Iberian Studies Programme) suggested in an interview published by VilaWeb that sacrificing Catalan lives could have helped defend the Republic, declared on 27 October but quickly suppressed for lack of internal and external support. Acknowledging that he is speaking from a position of complete safety (he lives in California), Resina describes a terrifying scenario, imagining that the Catalan Parliament could have been stormed and the Spanish State would have used then extreme violence, leading to fatalities. The cost of the \u201ccollateral victims\u201d (his own quotation marks) \u2018would have been too high for the European institutions\u2019 and, presumably, independence would have followed. Next, he adds: \u2018I have trouble understanding those who say that a people\u2019s freedom is not worth a single victim. Great causes have never been won with anaesthesia. Why should freedom be cheaper in Catalonia than in other places?\u2019 (https:\/\/www.vilaweb.cat\/noticies\/joan-ramon-resina-entrevista-tardor-republicana\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s the answer: because Catalonia\u2013like all civilized nations\u2013should aspire to being a dignified post-patriarchal nation that respects human rights and lives, and not another patriarchal national aberration, full of pointless violence and bloodshed. Resina\u2019s suggestion that the death of some individuals hypothetically murdered by Spanish police, or troops, could be a desirable event in our history is disgusting, despicable, atrocious and, above all, deeply anti-Catalan. Even Colominas understands that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have\nalways wanted to write a book about the gender issues connecting the quadrangle\nformed by the Basque Country and Catalonia, plus Ireland and Scotland. I won\u2019t\ndo that because I\u2019m too busy dismantling patriarchy in other projects (I\u2019m\ncurrently writing about villainy) and, so, I\u2019ll use this post as a sort of\nsummary of my project. I\u2019ll insist here on the central point of my\ntheorization: patriarchy is not<\/em>\nmasculinity\u2013as we can see, many men reacted in horror after (mis)interpreting\nColominas\u2019 words as a call to take up arms and sacrifice life for a political\nideal. Theirs is what I would call an anti-patriarchal position, one that\ndefends argumentation and a pacific, legal struggle rather than revolution\u2013for\nthis is 2018, not 1789 or 1917, and we know how bloody revolutions end. So this\nis what my imaginary book would discuss. Please, bear with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\nnotice, what characterizes the case of Ireland and the Basque Country is that\nboth had terrorist movements presenting themselves as political organizations\nfor the defence of the homeland (following the chivalric scenario of the\nknights saving the damsel in distress). Fernando Aramburu\u2019s excellent novel Patria<\/em> (2016)\u2013now filmed as an HBO\nseries\u2013has done a very good job of dissecting the absurdity of E.T.A., which left\nin its gory wake 800 dead and hundreds of casualties, in a mad bid to attain\nthe independence of the Basque Country. Today, the independentist option is peacefully\nrepresented by legal party Euskal Herria Bildu and growing, following the non-violent\nCatalan process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Likewise,\nthe I.R.A. (in its different incarnations and factions) killed hundreds and\nmaimed hundreds more, before surrendering to plain reality and accepting that\nthe Republic of Ireland and British Northern Ireland could not be unified by\nforce. Brexit will perhaps manage the deed, probably with a good share of\npersonal suffering but, hopefully, no loss of limb or life. A woman too often\nneglected, Mo Mowland, was behind the Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1998, which\nbrought much needed common sense and placed Sinn Feinn firmly within Northern Irish\nlegality. Of course, another woman, Margaret Thatcher, was responsible for\nresponding to terrorist patriarchal violence with even more patriarchal\nviolence, coming from the state. But, then, this reinforces my notion that\npatriarchy is not masculinity but a way of organizing society and personal life\nthrough fear and violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My thesis\nis that in Ireland and in the Basque Country the independentist, national political\nstruggle was coloured by gender values attached to classic patriarchal\nmasculinity: glory, honour, duty. This is both the basis of militarism and of\nterrorism, which is why it is sometimes so hard to distinguish heroes from\nvillains (what was Napoleon?). You are probably thinking that women were also\npart of E.T.A. and I.R.A. and that some are today ISIS supporters. The matter\nof the poor sex slaves, represented by the new Nobel Prize winner for Peace, Nadia\nMurad, should make it obvious to you that ISIS is an extremely patriarchal\nterrorist organization\u2013far beyond any patriarchal European ideology and\ncriminal band. At the same time, you should begin to see that all violence is\nbased on the typical sense of patriarchal entitlement: I kill (or try to kill)\nyou because I personally decide that your life matters less than my struggle,\neven though by using violence I undermine the justification for my own fight\nand cause state violence to grow accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now,\nScotland and Catalonia also had their own patriarchal terrorist movements\u2013but\nthey were small. Scottish author Ian Rankin refers in his novels to the 1950s\/1970s\nproto-terrorist Sword and Shield, but this appears to be his own invention (is\nit?). The Scottish National Liberation Army (SNLA), a.k.a. the Tartan\nTerrorists, was formed in 1979\u2013after the failed referendum for devolution\u2013by\none Adam Busby jr., a convicted terrorist since 2010. Mr. Busby preferred\nletter bombs and even parcel bombs\u2013in the style of the infamous Unabomber\u2013but\ndoes not seem to have caused major human harm. In Catalonia, Terra Lliure,\nformed in 1978, went much further than SNLA, injuring many in a series of similarly\nmisguided attacks and even killing a poor woman before its dissolution in 1995.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not\nmaking the idiotic point that Scottish and Catalan terrorism was less effective\n(if that is a word that should ever be used in this context) than Irish and\nBasque terrorism because it lacked committed enough \u2018warriors\u2019. The point I\u2019m\nraising is that both Scotland and Catalonia were and are societies uninterested\nin political violence of any kind, including terrorism, because the classic\npatriarchal values are less appealing there and here. The counterargument I\ngive myself is that the British Army (Scottish soldiers were always a mainstay\nof the Empire) and gang-related street violence, an endemic problem, have\nabsorbed much patriarchal violence in Scotland. Yet, the fact is that the recent\nreferendum and its aftermath have not generated any violent incidents. Catalan nationalists\ntend to claim that being subordinated to Spain has resulted in a constant need\nto negotiate and this is why violent confrontation is not part of our society\u2013or\nthe other way round: being mainly a trading nation, we understand the\nadvantages of negotiation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Let me\nrecap: nations with a deeper patriarchal foundation may be tempted by terrorism\nand, generally, political violence leading to revolution, whereas nations with\na shallower patriarchy (there is no nation with a wholly alternative social\narrangement) abhor political violence and will not sacrifice human lives for\nideas. The two World Wars, Vietnam, the Cold War, Iraq, the Balkans War and\nSyria today have done much to erode the appeal of the glory\/duty\/honour triad\nbased on bloodshed. Neither in Scotland nor in Catalonia has the craving for\nindependence resulted in personal clashes, or rioting of any kind\u2013though the\nimage of the Catalan police almost losing the national Parliament last 1\nOctober to a horde of violent protesters is certainly worrying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, here\u2019s a problem. Few of the Catalan men and women that were scandalized and appalled by Colominas\u2019 words in the basic, immediate interpretation\u2013and I hope they were 99%, though there are always lost souls\u2013were aware that their reaction was anti-patriarchal, for the simple reason that we are generally ignorant of how patriarchy operates. Patriarchy is not, as radical feminism assumed in the 1970s, a terrorist system established to intimidate women into submission. It is certainly that but also, more generally, a social system based on using violence, against both men and women, to impose its own views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Resina\u2019s ugly vision, the Spanish Other is the violent patriarch and the dead would have been part of the gendered discourse of Catalonia as a victimized nation. Yet, this is not good at all: what Resina presents is the case of an abused wife who welcomes her husband\u2019s murdering one of their children because its death will free her\u2026 You can see this leads nowhere. A truly anti-patriarchal nation does not put its hopes into the acts of bullies or into male messianic leaders but into the ability of its male and female citizens to renew the jaded, 19th<\/sup> century scenario of national liberation. What is needed is a new approach based on a collective capacity to re-imagine the community as a forward-looking project (not a vague, dreamy utopia). For that, it is important that the men, above all, continue eschewing all violence and embrace an alternative way of being a (Catalan) man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are not doing so badly\u2026 I only know of one book about Catalan masculinity, the collective volume edited by Josep-Anton Fern\u00e0ndez and Adri\u00e0 Chavarria Cal\u00e7asses, gallines i maricons: Homes contra la masculinitat hegem\u00f2nica<\/em> (2004). That wimps, chickens and faggots appear in the title as terms of pride rather than opprobrium says a lot about how unafraid Catalan men are of resisting hegemonic masculinity. Perhaps the strong reaction against Colominas\u2019 words, whatever he intended them to mean, shows that we are now ready to make anti-patriarchal policies absolutely central in our society. My suggestion is that this might be the way to build something truly new, even post-national, to replace the worn-out patriarchal stories we have been hearing for the last two centuries. Just an idea. Scotland, now headed by a woman First Minister, is continuing its non-violent path, as it educates its young men into abandoning street violence. And happily, in Ireland and the Basque Country peace continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some days,\nI find there is hope for the world. Can we, please, set an example? <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\npublish a new post every Tuesday (for updates follow @SaraMartinUAB). Comments\nare very welcome! Download the yearly volumes from: http:\/\/ddd.uab.cat\/record\/116328<\/a>.\nMy web: http:\/\/gent.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have been trying to avoid the thorny subject of Catalan independence here but the recent hullaballoo caused by the (supposed) misreading of Agust\u00ed Colominas\u2019 words on a television interview last 17 October might be useful to offer an alternative, gendered interpretation of the self-styled \u2018proc\u00e9s\u2019. My personal political opinion is simple enough: Catalan independence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}