During the days of President Lluís Companys, the Mossos d'Esquadra had a gypsy chief. His name was Fèlix Gavari Hortet, father from Aragon and mother from Catalonia, and he died on February 18, 1953 in the infirmary of the Model prison, where he was serving a 20-year sentence for having created with a group of soldiers the association of armed forces of the Republic.
The major of the Mossos d'Esquadra, Josep Lluís Trapero, ended his conference yesterday with this unjustly unknown historical reference. The policeman was invited to give a speech at the cycle Dialogues for Interculturality, organized by the Gitano Secretariat and the La Caixa Foundation, at Palau Macaya.
Trapero accepted the challenge, not an easy one, to talk about "democratic police and diversity" to an audience too used to being singled out as "different". The major already warned that, since he has not spoken much since he was fired, he had carefully prepared the talk and that it would not be short. And it wasn't.
He admitted to being nervous because it is not easy to go up on stage and speak from an institution, the police, and in his case the Mossos d'Esquadra, over which suspicions of racism or discrimination
The major entered the matter and admitted, after making a first defense of difference as the essence of diversity and wealth, that the police have a long way to go. Because only by being a diverse police force will it be able to initiate a one-on-one dialogue with the diverse and plural society it protects.
Those who know Trapero are familiar with his critical sense, his not-so-comfortable positions and how he moves away from comfort spaces to generate debate. That is why he criticized how the Police are too concerned with defending material goods and invest little in protecting the public, the landscapes, the air we breathe, the working conditions of workers or the repression of discrimination or racism. He claimed a "more social" police force, but not only by word of mouth, but one that seeks "collective well-being" and guarantees people's rights "by getting involved in the safeguarding of civility". A Police, he said, that enters as another officer in schools and neighborhoods.
Trapero defended the urgency of incorporating diversity into the Police, as a concept and as a reality. The figures are for reflection. Today, only one in every 137 police officers is a foreigner born outside Europe. There are only four mosos from black Africa. And he recalled that, if the Ministry of Defense once successfully opened its doors to other nationalities, it is only a matter of willingness to do the same in the Police to look for talent and the necessary diversity to achieve a "more social and democratic".
