The whole bread. No crumbs. That was the objective of the independence movement. Patience with healthcare, dependency, education, infrastructure, taxes and the noise from the neighbor above, because everything, and everything was everything, was going to be solved with the republic. It was worth gritting your teeth and stoically enduring any hardship because the countdown of the new Catalan state was underway and seconds were remaining to approach the redemptive zero.
The days of the degradation of public services and the abuse of taxation that Catalans endure compared to other territories were approaching an end. There was a rush. The culprit of so many evils had been identified: Spain. So there was no time to waste. It was enough to get rid of it for Eden to flourish around us. They were good times for poetry. The verses functioned as simple prayers of the new religion that had arisen in a flash. Martí i Pol at the time of lauds: everything is to be done and everything is possible. And Ovidi Montllor, when vespers arrives: we are no longer fed with crumbs, we want whole bread. What came next is well known. From blowing it so much, the balloon ended up bursting on his lips. And poetry became administrative prose.
Six years later, sovereignism negotiates an amnesty that returns the nuclear target to the service record of the leaders of the process and their middle managers. A clean slate that must also leave unblemished the record of good citizenship of those who, on their own initiative or impelled by their rulers – “squeeze, press, you are right to press” – ended up with serious judicial problems for taking their protests beyond the limits that legality establishes.
The two main protagonists of 2017, Carles Puigdemont and Oriol Junqueras, hold their respective parties in their grip. Not even the stripes of president of the Generalitat that Pere Aragonès wears are enough to intuit a leadership that is no longer alternative, but even complementary in the case of the Republicans. At Junts the hierarchy is even more marked. Only Puigdemont can overshadow Puigdemont. The amnesty, it is assumed, will serve to put an end to the mess that the two caused. The other part, the PP government that actively participated in the disaster, first with indolence and then with excesses of all kinds, has been at home since 2018. So it is normal that, with the same generals in command, the agenda of sovereignty continues. stranded in the same place. The 2021 window of opportunity served for pardons and the 2023 window will serve for amnesty. The history of the process, which the amnesty will put an end to if it comes to fruition, is summarized for Catalanism in the reverse version of Churchill's phrase: never have so few owed so much to so many.
Opportunity cost also exists in politics. You do one thing and stop doing others. That is why the Government spokesperson, Patrícia Plaja, or the Minister of Economy, Natàlia Mas, can now rant in the Palau de la Generalitat with reports on the poor functioning of Rodalies, the failure to comply with the investments planned by Renfe or Adif in the budgets general aspects of the State or about the shameful regional financing system. Only those citizens who know by heart all the grievances and inconveniences that arise from these issues are going to listen to them. Because the priorities, especially when the real leadership is not in the Government, are demonstrated in the negotiation folders at times like the present. And the truth is that these issues do not appear to be non-negotiable among those who have the upper hand when it comes to deciding the viability of the future government of Spain. The main virtue of the amnesty, from the Catalan perspective, is that it exhausts the source of personalized victimhood. Perhaps within three or four years there will be negotiations on bread again. We know that keeping the whole thing was a joke, but we would settle for someone seriously demanding more tender, generous and satiating crumbs. Some day. With other names.
