It is normal for Xavier Antich (La Seu d'Urgell, 1962) to remove his glasses, keep a few seconds of silence and rub his eyes with both hands when asked about civil disobedience. He has theorized about her in several books and for an interview he is forced to do an ultrasynthesis. The president of Òmnium is opposed to the demonstration on December 6 that the ANC has called to protest the reform of the Penal Code -although he shares the background-, he dares to comment on embezzlement and is concerned about the low social use of the Catalan. The entity works so that the whole of the independence movement comes together again. There are obvious difficulties, now. But Antich wants to prove Thomas Bernard right, who said that "each individual is a virtuoso of his instrument; all together, an unbearable cacophony."
Once the reform of the Criminal Code was made public, you said that the new configuration of public disorder is a step forward in the persecution of protest and that it criminalizes political dissent.
We reaffirm ourselves. It was not an impromptu position. It was the result of analysis and legal consultations. It is necessary to repeal the crime of sedition, but in no way can we sacrifice fundamental rights along the way. We celebrate the elimination of sedition, but we are concerned that it goes hand in hand with the expansion of the crime of public disorder.
But neither did you refrain from criticizing to some extent the suppression of sedition. You said that "it doesn't give an answer to all the reprisals"...
Òmnium was the first organization in Catalonia to denounce the crime of sedition and to demand its repeal. The appeal that we presented to the Constitutional Court after the Supreme Court ruling of 1-O requires the declaration of unconstitutionality of the crime. When the Constitutional route is denied to us, the basis of the appeal in Strasbourg is based on this illegitimacy. There is no doubt that the crime of sedition has to come out of the Penal Code.
Has Òmnium spoken with the Government of Aragonés to reformulate the crime of public disorder?
We have spoken with the Government, with all the political agents, with all the social movements. Our job is to find the maximum consensus. The repeal of sedition does not respond to the 4,200 reprisals and neither to the need to face the democratic resolution of the political conflict.
But has ERC committed to you to amend the reform of the crime of public disorder?
The process in Congress is very important because it will allow what we demand of all the agents that are involved: that anything that touches on the current crime of public disorder guarantees the exercise of fundamental rights and does not criminalize the right to protest. Yes, we have done it with the political agents involved, and yes, we have done it with all the social movements that could be affected by the legislative initiative.
Can you give names and surnames to these political agents?
We have been talking with Esquerra, Junts, the CUP and the commons. They all recognize that nothing is closed and they confirm that they want to exert political pressure so that the proposal for the expansion of public disorder is amended.
Does Òmnium agree, then, with this crime as it is in force now?
The current one would have to allow more the exercise of the right to protest. The current crime has largely endorsed the persecution of independence. There are still more than 500 cases open due to a restrictive interpretation of the Penal Code. Staying as it is now is no solution, nor is increasing penalties or introducing notions that are subjective and arbitrary, such as intimidation or crowd or suitability. They are extremely vague concepts. On September 20, 2017, before the Department of the Economy, it was considered an intimidation of the forces of public order, in the Supreme Court ruling.
Do you think that the end of the prosecution is closer with the PSOE ruling in Madrid?
It is difficult to assess it only with declarations of intent. We abide by what we explicitly have on the table.
Do you support the demonstration that the ANC calls for the 6th against the redesign of the crime of aggravated public disorder?
We celebrate the repeal of sedition and demand the collective solution of amnesty and self-determination and address the case of the more than 4,000 reprisals. But although we share the final objective with the ANC in many things and its concern about the expansion of public disorder, we do not agree because we view with great concern some drifts that arise. We are in favor of mobilizing in a network, in a consensual manner. But the demonstration on the 6th Òmnium does not support it, because it is a call promoted by the Assembly in which we are later asked to join. Relations are fluid and very constant. I wouldn't say daily, but practically weekly. There is a stable bilateral. There are differences in the ways of working. We will not go in the tow of anyone and Òmnium will not contribute to the confrontation between different agents of the independence movement and to make anti-politics.
Do you think you have massive support from the independence movement? At some point in your speech on September 11 you were whistled at.
They whistled at us for some of the issues that are part of Òmnium's deepest convictions, which is that we don't have too many people here. The movement is plural and there is a diversity of points of view and our job is to bridge the gap between diverse sensibilities. If that causes any discrepancy, that would be a shame, but it's part of Òmnium's DNA.
Do you consider that the Government is paralyzed with respect to the goal of independence?
We are concerned about the paralysis in which the movement finds itself after October 2017. We are in a cycle of increasing demobilization, general discouragement and disorientation. This cycle does not allow progress. All of Òmnium's advocacy action works for the possibility of opening a new cycle, precisely to get out of this paralysis, which does not only affect the Government, institutions or parties, but the entire movement. And with regard to repression, if October 2017 represents the moment of maximum accumulation of force in Catalonia in the last 300 years, what follows is a repressive cycle of the Spanish State that has no comparison in the last four decades of democracy.
And do you see progress in the field of dejudicialization in the PSOE-ERC negotiation?
We see that at times initiatives are actually taken to get the resolution of the political conflict out of the courts, but they are very timid and very contradictory. We cannot fully celebrate any of the initiatives because practically all of them go hand in hand with some element that worries us.
Do the agreements between the ERC and the PSOE paralyze the independence movement?
What has to contribute to moving the movement forward are various initiatives in four fields: parties, institutions, civil society and citizenship. Anything that happens in any of the movements that allows unblocking the unblocking of the relationship between the governments of Catalonia and Spain is welcome, as long as it contributes to progress.
Does Òmnium dare to speak of a reform of embezzlement?
The use that the Spanish State is making of the crime of embezzlement has no comparison with what happens in consolidated democratic systems in the rest of Europe. With the crime of embezzlement - which is designed to prosecute cases of corruption, personal enrichment and misuse of public funds for strictly personal purposes - convictions are taking place without this having consequences. But on the other hand we see that the crime of embezzlement is used to persecute the independence movement when there is no personal enrichment, but the exercise of fundamental rights. In a few days from now, high-ranking government officials will face a trial for embezzlement with totally disproportionate penalties, simply for complying with the will of the citizenry. It is a perversion of the use of embezzlement.
So in 1-O there was embezzlement?
No. In addition, the Minister of Finance at the time [Cristóbal Montoro] acknowledged that not a single public euro had been spent to organize the referendum.
In September you offered to coordinate the creation of a new strategic framework or Estado Mayor of the independence movement with more actors than those of 2017. They anticipated that there would already be joint meetings in December.
It is not stopped. Absolutely. Recognition among the different agents of the independence movement and respect between them must be reestablished. Since September 12, Òmnium has not stopped working for a single day. And we are working with other voices and sensitivities that would have to be incorporated when defining the strategic future of the country, and that happens first of all through organized youth. We cannot wait for another confrontation with the State to invite young people, but rather they have to participate in the strategic reflection beforehand. But we also work with the business fabric of the country, with the historic union tradition and the volunteers who work in various organizations, that is, the Third Sector.
Is it in the field of political parties where things are worse?
It escapes no one that the current political situation is characterized by a phenomenon that is not exclusive to Catalonia: extreme confrontation. This erodes the possibility of reaching great agreements, because in the essence of all democratic systems is the recognition of pluralism. It is being difficult, because the elements that are on the table contribute more to confrontation than to conciliation.
You have theorized about civil disobedience. Is it an instrument for when dialogue has run out, or vice versa, a means to achieve dialogue?
Civil disobedience is never a goal. It is always a legitimate instrument that allows progress in democratic systems where democratic systems fail. In Catalonia and globally they fail to convey the voices of the majority of citizens. We will never give it up. And it is not a radical position: he defends it from Hannah Arendt, who is a liberal philosopher, to Jürgen Habermas, who is the great theoretician of social democracy in the second half of the 20th century. He means not complying with manifestly unfair laws to exercise fundamental rights when they are explicitly prohibited.
Is the independence movement more reactive than propositive? Can the movement be reactivated without there being an external agent to light the fuse, as perhaps the PP does when it governs Madrid?
For Òmnium, the focus is not on the Spanish State. It is in Catalonia. The independence movement in the last twelve years has not only been reactive, but also proactive. He has repeatedly put on the table instruments that would allow progress in the democratic resolution of the political conflict. And this culminates in the referendum proposal. But since November 2017 it has been more reactive than purposeful, due to all this repressive machinery deployed.
What would happen if the PP were to govern again?
The legitimacy of what is set in motion by the independence movement has to be relatively indifferent to who is in charge of the state government. It has to advance with the PSOE and the commons in the Spanish Government or with the PP and Vox.
And with the Catalan language?
It clearly wouldn't be the same. The PSC is today and still within the great linguistic consensus, not only in Catalan society, but also in Parliament. It has promoted and supported parliamentary initiatives that would have to prevent the application of the sentence of 25% of Spanish in the classroom. One of the ideological backbones of parties like the PP - a direct legacy of Francoism - or Vox - a direct apology for Francoism - is the attack against the Catalan language. Instead, the PSC is part of a historic Catalanist tradition. We will never favor the "everyone is equal" discourse.
You are running a campaign to promote the Catalan language.
The data on the decrease in percentages in the social use of the language worry us a lot. We have taken it so seriously that we mobilized a whole group of sociolinguists to analyze the state of the art in the field of education and leisure, in that of business and work, in that of the media and in that of demographic plurality. We are not content with the current situation and we do not sit still lamenting - crying is useless - and we want to change the situation and the social decline of the Catalan language. That is why we will direct very specific actions in very specific areas, which are basically children and young people and newcomers. There are 2.8 million people who live and work in Catalonia who were born abroad. Of these, 85% either never speak Catalan or hardly ever speak it.
Would Omnium support a single official language in Catalonia?
It is a debate that Òmnium has not had. We are not legislators. We are concerned about the need to strengthen and reinforce the social use of the Catalan language and that is what we are working on.
