In September 2016 I published an article with the same title in this newspaper. There I was referring to the courage of the then general secretary of the PSOE in categorically refusing to re-elect Mr. Rajoy, suspected of corruption, as president. The Madrid media cave and all the right-wing, as well as the old guard of the PSOE, were thrown at him. Felipe González was always a supporter of a "grand coalition" in Germany, stopping any coalition of the left. Pedro Sánchez was aware of the disaster to which this policy had led European social democracy and wanted to recover the left-wing roots of the PSOE. His defiance was crushed by a conspiracy in the federal committee led in the shadows by a Felipe González who always wanted to appoint his successors "a la Mexicana". Sánchez was sent to outer darkness. Then, drawing from his Handbook of Resistance, he campaigned from city to city, without resources, and won the new party congress by a long shot. From there, he supported Podemos to win the motion of no confidence and reach the government in 2018.
He navigated the uncertain moments of the tug-of-war with Podemos and Ciutadans (incompatible with each other for Catalonia). He had to align himself with 155 in October 2017, because his party did not understand anything else. But his course was always to recover a left-wing PSOE, updated with feminism and environmentalism, to consolidate a progressive government and build a plurinational historical bloc for deep social change. Which required normalizing coexistence in Catalonia through dialogue. This involved pardons for imprisoned leaders and negotiations with independence. Always within the Spanish Constitution because this is the limit of its legitimacy.
There was the amnesty and, perhaps in the distant future, the self-determination referendum. There he knew his party was having difficulty following him. But also that the amnesty was necessary. He sought consensual constitutional fit with independence and dared to fight at a time when there was no other way to avoid the extreme right in power. This is where the idea of "making a virtue out of necessity" comes from. He made the move at a juncture that most of his party could understand.
Even so, once again everything was played for everything, facing with serenity the political rancor of the extreme right and the persistent Francoism that threatens to disturb the peace of the country. Counting that time heals almost everything and that delving into social and institutional reforms that improve people's lives ends up dissolving the emotional ideological layer with which the traditional powers continue to manipulate public consciousness. It is enough to read the list of offended people who call to save Spain to recognize the bureaucratic, economic and civil service elites who always saw Spain as a uninational entity and its "by the grace of God"
Breaking with the history that poisoned these lands for centuries will not be easy and requires a lot of courage. What Pedro Sánchez has.
