I don’t know what is more scandalous: that the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, justify espionage on politicians, lawyers and relatives of the ‘procés’ or that she says that she does not know what ‘The New Yorker’ magazine is. It’s not that I’m worried that Robles has missed throughout her life the magazine in which they have published, what do I know, from Hannah Arednt to Seymour Hersh, passing through Truman Capote or David Remnick. What she worries about is that I have for myself that Robles actually knows exactly what ‘The New Yorker’ is, but that she considers that to defend her position regarding the ‘Catalangate’ any hyperbole and inaccuracy is worth it, even one that presents her in full Parliament as a coarse. “The things that one does for love & rdquor ;, Jamie Lannister said in the first book of ‘Game of Thrones’ before pushing the child Bran into the void, after the youngest of the Starks had discovered him and his sister Cersei, the queen, in full incest. The things that one does for a sense of State, Robles thought the same to himself when the parliamentary scuffle ended.
I am not scandalized that a State spies. Spying, what is called spying, seems to be the most normal thing, from states to political parties, from aspiring state to jealous spouses, from enemies of presidents of sports federations to companies whose app we install on our mobiles. In the years of the ‘procés’ I miss it, the amazing thing, It would have been if the security apparatus of the Spanish State had not spied on the Catalan independence movement. Espionage is a reality – there are even legal rules to regulate it, including wiretapping – with which everyone must live, but if, in addition, your confessed intention is to overcome the Constitution and decree the Catalan Republic, the chances of being spied on increase exponentially.
The questions
As with corruption, the problem is not that espionage exists, but what happens when it is discovered, because if what the Citizen Lab denounces is true, in this alleged espionage there are indications that have all the appearance of being criminal. Espionage by itself, what, is not the ‘Catalangate’ scandal. The answers to other questions are more interesting: Who was spied on? Who ordered this espionage? Did the government know? Were all the legal steps under which espionage is regulated scrupulously followed? It is not from democratic states to spy on lawyers. Nor to relatives of political leaders. Did espionage of these characteristics, so indiscriminate, comply with the rules? Did the government order it? If not, who? Behind the back or with the knowledge of the Executive?
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Minister Robles stated in Congress that no evidence of crime and that everything will be clarified when explanations can be given in the confidential forums provided for it. I’d like to believe her, but since I can’t believe she doesn’t know what ‘The New Yorker’ is and since I’m afraid she prefers to look like a coarse if that’s what it takes to defend the meaning of the State, I have a hard time trusting his words. I imagine her at the top of Winterfell, Cersei disheveled behind her back, watching the fundamental rights of the victims of espionage fall into the void, who in addition to being Catalan independentists are Spanish citizens like any other protected by the rule of law, and whispering: “The things that one does for love & rdquor ;.
For the love of the State, in defense of the nation, the unjustifiable has been justified over the centuries. The love for the State and the nation is so great that if in order to defend it you have to go over the fundamental rights of the citizens that form it, well, go ahead, it’s for your own good, fool. The sense of State, patriotism, does not usually take the form of defending social services, for example; or the defense of the rule of law without fissures, without accepting shortcuts, raising eyebrows or tortured interpretations; or the sincere acceptance of difference without considering it a threat. The idea that the sense of State, the defense of the nation and the homeland are supreme goals to be preserved above any other consideration, tends to always limp on the same side and, without control, rigor, counterweights, criticism, supervision and purification of responsibilities in the face of excesses, They tend to end very badly. In addition to ‘Game of Thrones’, it is worth reading ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’, which, by the way, Hannah Arendt published in her first version in ‘The New Yorker’.