I wonder how a person outside the Valencian Community can interpret a headline, published by various media, such as the following: "1,800 police officers are assigned to guarantee the security of October 9 in the city of Valencia." That person, who we assume is unaware of what usually happens on Valencian Community Day, must think that our party has more risk than a football match between an English club and an Italian one organized in Benidorm; and that we Valencians went out to celebrate the anniversary armed with sticks and ready to break our faces. The problem is that this foreigner's hypothesis is not entirely misguided, since October 9 is a day whose history is written, unfortunately, with too many violent episodes. How else can it be understood that the civic procession (no matter what year you want to watch) must be protected by two lines of national police, a line of local police and an abundant presence of bodyguards of Valencian politicians?
October 9 is a formidable symbol of the inability of Valencians to establish lasting consensus, to be able to all be united in a single objective. Forget about Catalans or Madrid residents, always used, by both, as an excuse (at certain moments in history with some reason) to raise the hatchet; A moment has arrived in which it must be clear that the problem is ours, even though in its origins the conflict was manipulated by prominent actors of the transition (it was a hard, serious time, with attempted murders of Valencian intellectuals). We, the Valencians, are the ones who have spent decades wasting energy, physically, politically and intellectually, around identity issues that, seen in perspective, have only served to feed those who benefit from the conflict politically or, also, to do business, there is everything. And they tend to be, precisely, those who love the Valencian Community the least, those who launched the insult or the threat of aggression in the civic procession or attacking protesters will return home satisfied with having contaminated the institutional acts. No, these are not good Valencians.
Tomorrow is October 9 in the context of a new political change, this time from the left to the right that has once again touched upon, as the left did years ago, issues such as the model of multilingualism in teaching, the presence of the Valencian in Health or the aid, in this case from the Vox ministries, to entities that the extreme right describes as "Catalanist". For the left these are gestures against the Valencian, for certain right-wing these gestures are insufficient, and on social networks some insult the mayor of Valencia, María José Català, for saying "avi" instead of "iaio". That's where we are. The issue of the expansion of the Port of Valencia was missing to emerge to point out, once again, the alleged interference of the independentists in Valencian affairs in the midst of the investiture of Pedro Sánchez and the supposed "collaborationism" of the Valencian left with Catalanism. ; an issue to which Compromís has joined, demanding the paralysis of the infrastructure. It is as if we Valencians were installed in a time loop from which we are unable to get out.
Every year I like October 9 less. It bores me to see that depending on whether the left or the right governs, an itinerary for the civic procession is decided or whether the Senyera enters the Cathedral or not, and so on, legislature after legislature; We are not even able to agree on that. Or it is more fair to say that I do not like that the years go by and we have to be aware of whether someone jumps the police cordon to attack some mayor, or if in the afternoon the nationalist demonstration will be attacked by far-right groups as happened in 2017. It is understandable, and I observe it every year, that more and more Valencians leave the city on such an important date if they can, because staying in Valencia, and more so in the center, ends up being a risky activity, so much so that they have had to allocate 1,800 police officers to prevent us, once again, from ending October 9 regretting it.
PS: The curious thing is that none of this happens on this important day outside the capital. On the contrary, there is only peace and desire to live a holiday. It makes you think.
