When Najat El Hachmi published her magnificent essay Semper han paral por noses (2019, Ed 62) and I invited her to present it at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) that fall, some of the faculty in the field of the migrations, it was wanted to demarcate itself, so we were just two research groups who took our students to an auditorium where half the chairs were empty.
Not that they disagreed with the content; they knew, precisely because they know the terrain, that only very well-grounded truths were said, and there were reasoned questions about the political responsibility, especially among the progressive forces, towards the violation of women’s rights Muslim contexts and the contradictions of a fictitious democratic coexistence.
The spurious argument of hatred that has hijacked the rational debate of ideas had not yet completely invaded us, but in 2019 hypocritical arguments such as “we could be called Islamophobic” and “we would be doing the game on the extreme right”. Or, on the more cynical side, “there are more voices within Islam itself, such as Islamic feminism”, an oxymoron that would be laughable in other circumstances.
This was said by some who had liked more the reflection and denunciation of Jo tambo sóc Catalana (2004, La Butxaca) than the rawness and firmness of L’ultim patriarca (2008, Planeta), without having read anything about feminism by no way, assuming there is more than one, given the possibility of giving voice to Najat El Hachmi. Scared and uncomfortable at the time because of what they will say, when faced with the possibility of an hour-long session on an essay on a topic from the program with its author and then commenting on it in class!
Because? Because she does not fit the role of “integrated immigrant” who repeats the silly song about Catalonia’s welcoming capacity, nor with that of the daughter of a Muslim family who points out the racism of the host society. It turns out that we are talking about an adult female human being who thinks for herself and passes everything through her privileged sieve. A writer who does not shy away from the critical commitment of a secular and progressive intellectual. No limits
Najat El Hachmi speaks, and speaks clearly. Against institutional and institutionalized racism that places material and symbolic barriers to the possibility of access to a dignified life and respect for the rights that all people have, no matter where they come from. But also against what she very aptly calls “the misogynist international”, positioned against all types of patriarchy, whatever the ideology or religion that imposes it.
From a feminist perspective, it also does not spare criticism of the traps of a false liberation that condemns us to the search for an impossible perfection, and that traps us women again when we thought that we almost had equality within reach … Nor does it save, of course, against the strange idea that men can be women just by saying so, even though a law protects them now, and with the tragic consequences that this has for girls and boys.
Najat El Hachmi is a public voice, she writes brilliantly in Catalan and Spanish stories that shake us in today’s complex, diverse and unequal society, and she has not been seen to be involved in any identity mill wheel. Quite a milestone for which we will never thank the citizens of Catalonia enough, exhausted still with the hangover of the process, scarce as we are of balms that allow us to think and dialogue to restore coexistence.
A teenage Najat already wrote in the mid-nineties, in an essay that gave me permission to quote in a booklet I made for the European year against racism: “I don’t understand why my brothers have to accompany me to the library if they don’t like to read.” But the winner of the 2021 Christmas Prize, and of so many others, confessed to us: “They didn’t let me go out, but they didn’t realize that I was locked in with books, the most dangerous tool to learn to think”. What a joy to have her, and I hope Catalonia understands what it must do to unleash all the talents of the Najats!
For feminists, the fact that the new government of Barcelona City Council has appointed Najat El Hachmi as herald of the 2023 Festes de la Mercè gives us the first joy in the last three and a half years, after so much desolation while we see how it opens not the alliance between neoliberal capitalism and patriarchy, now to subjugate us infiltrated into the left. A little hope that we will know how to take advantage of, thanking him for agreeing to speak, because he surely does it for all of us, censored and persecuted in this nightmare of the legislature that has ended, where we have regressed in rights for the first time since the dictatorship .
Those who do not want Najat to speak are those who do not want her to speak freely, as Joan Fuster would say. They are old voices of universal misogyny: only the dresses and accessories change. And those who give in and remain silent are those who have always allowed barbarism to take hold in the history of Humanity. At the university, institutions and society.
S. Carrasco. Professor of Anthropology at the UAB and president of Feministes de Catalunya
