argia.eus
INPRIMATU
Botiflers
David Bou 2022ko irailaren 29a

Summer has given way to autumn and another year in Catalonia the political course with the celebration of 11 September has begun again. Paradoxically, the Principality ' s National Diad celebrates a failure: After fourteen months of siege on Barcelona, when in 1714 Bourbon troops occupied the city.

In the same war, known as the War of Succession, the term “botiflers” was extended in the Catalan countries. This was called the Castilian Felipe V.aren, a name that is still used with contempt to speak of Catalans who “collaborate with enemies of their country”.

This year, no doubt, this word has been the most repeated day of claim. This shows the point where independence is today, only five years after the referendum on self-determination on 1 October 2017.

The continuing confrontation between the two parties of the Government of the Generalitat (ERC and JxCat) and the lack of a common roadmap between the three bodies that became motors of them, of the CUP and of the Procès (ANC, Omnium and the Associations of Municipalities for Independence) have led to tonic frustration in the largest political movement of national liberation in Europe.

The term “botiflers” continues to be used with contempt to speak of Catalans who “collaborate with enemies of their country”. It was the most repeated word on 11 September.

The repression carried out by the Spanish State has undoubtedly influenced political action, as according to the data collected by “mnium” more than 1,400 people have been investigated in criminal proceedings and the accounting and administrative procedures have affected 1,200 people. Considering these demobilizing elements, and added to the two years that the pandemic conditioned all kinds of protests, 272,000 protesters called by ANC took to the streets of Barcelona according to Directo's count.

President Pere Aragones refused to participate because he considered that he was against his government and that the government was no longer “transversal”. Despite the demobilizing effort and the context described, the protest was a success and the distance between sectors is increasing due to the strategy that should guide the steps towards independence. While ANC has chosen to abolish the repeal of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (DUI), with the verbal support of a sector after convergence, ERC continues to feed a negotiating table with the central government, but has not yet achieved any of the proposed commitments.

In other words, the two main parties and one of the organizations are betting on strategies that have proven to be either ineffective or non-viable directly. All of them have been taken over by unrealistic rhetoric, which only destroys what was the main virtue of calling the State into question: achieving unity based on minimum consensus.

With this panorama, all those who used the word "botiflers" as a weapon, against all, in a day with a risk of decay, unless in the midst of noise there is predominance of humility, honesty and acceptance of one's limitations. Meanwhile, Philip VI, an heir worthy of the one who destroyed Barcelona over 300 years ago, has gone from giving an emergency conference on October 3, 2017, to see how the internal division restores peace to its kingdom in a derisory way.