The German philosopher Ernst Bloch observed that in national history there is no time, only space. In this sense, national history is ahistorical, a frame from a movie, which tends to fix the map of the nation outside the will of the people and, above all, of those considered barbarians or neighbors. However, history is time and geography is space. History is chronology and geography maps. The map is the language of geography. And a good geography is what updates our maps.
Catalan geography is vindicated in a collective work promoted by the Catalan Geographical Society of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, coordinated by Jesús Burgueño and Josep Oliveras, with the title: ‘The new geography of postcovid Catalonia’. A useful and necessary book, full of information, analysis and reflection. And with a surprising and daring new cartographic proposal arisen from the consequences derived from the pandemic and, in particular, from the confinements. These are the Basic Health Areas (ABS) with their respective Primary Care Centers (CAP).
Ramon Espasa, ‘Minister’ of Health in the Government of the Provisional Generalitat chaired by Josep Tarradellas, defined the CAPs as a sample or example of everyday socialism. The proposal of the National Health Service, with the respective health map, was one of the great contributions of the Catalan communists (PSUC), assumed by all the political forces, to the new Administration of the Generalitat conceived as an essential instrument to create a welfare state. An example that impregnated the constitutional recognition of the right to health and the universalization of health care in the future general law of 1985 promoted by Minister Ernest Lluch.
While the agrarian markets drew the Catalan regional map in the 1930s of the last century, the ABS organize in a more precise way the territorial division of present-day Catalonia. In a Catalonia fragmented into 946 municipalities and oversimplified into 42 counties, the health map delimited by the 374 ABS is more useful. As the coordinators affirm, “health is not to be played with and, therefore, it is a serious demarcation and worth taking into account”. Everybody knows where their CAP is, its permanent center of gravity.
For greater cartographic utility, the final map has been adjusted to 192 units discarding the internal divisions of the big cities (only in Barcelona there are 68 ABS) and introducing some regroupings of excessively reduced geographical areas. of this new formula a surprising new map emerges, full of nuances and very suggestive, as can be verified in the information referring to demographics, aging, electoral results, workers affected by an ERE or those affiliated with Social Security. It is a pity that not all the information in the different chapters has been captured with this original design.
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The new map reminds us the proposal of the 127 municipalities of Lluís Casassas and Joaquim Clusa elaborated in 1981, based on a rigorous and academic study of the Catalan reality that, 40 years after the regional division, had doubled the population concentrating in the metropolitan areas of Barcelona and Tarragona, with a decrease in agricultural assets and growth in the industrial, construction and services sectors. The ‘pujolismo’ corseted the new Catalonia with a regional division of the 30s. A paradigmatic example of a nationalism that is more ideological than civic and deeply partisan.
Once again, scientists and academics offer us new maps and new roadmaps faced with the challenges, summarized by Oriol Nel lo, of settlement and the urban network, of mobility and the location of activities, of cohesion and of access to services, of sustainability and energy, government and citizen organization. A must-see book for political leaders and for an empowered citizenry. We cannot afford to be pessimistic.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com