There is an intrinsic controversy around the word itself. There are those who have tried to avoid it in some way, those who have repudiated it and those who have used and instrumentalized it, even roguely. It is not the same to refer to Spain in this country, as to France in France, or to Italy in Italy.
He says that the word Spain has not been released.
For a long time, for some the word Spain had been a word to repudiate. What remains. Others, on the other hand, considered that it was a word to be freed from those who exploited it for undignified purposes. I’m one of the seconds.
«There are those who have repudiated the word Spain and those who have exploited it roguely»
Is it difficult for us to assume the past of the country without feeling guilty? I speak, for example, of colonialism.
The feeling of guilt interests me little, I am not a Catholic. What I do believe is that to overcome the past you have to start by accepting it. You have to look at it, measure it, probe it and descend to it. This contradiction has occurred in Spain: it has seemed to some that assuming the principles of the Enlightenment was not compatible with a part of the ancestral culture of Spain. This is a tragedy.
What about Europe?
In France, Germany or Italy, assuming a European project is experienced as the extension of their own codes, rites and values. Otherwise, Europe ceases to interest without any complex. Instead, Spain looked to Europe for a mirror of its broken identity. She was looking, as a metaphor, for a whiter skin that would give her legitimacy.
“We are aware of what the loss of the ideals of the Republic meant”
Why?
The history of Spain is in a tragic way. We are aware of what the loss of the ideals of the Republic meant. I think it was a time when certain enlightened ideas seemed compatible with the Spanish identity, without complexes and without ambivalence. In the book I do not judge, I try to verify. In fact, I try to avoid names even of people who at a given moment have had responsibilities that they exercised in the most catastrophic way for the country. But sociological subjects are not my profession. This is a very big exception in my work.
In the book he points out that we must lucidly assume our present and our past. Also our contradictions. How is this achieved?
The contradiction, if you don’t contemplate it, eats you. The imperial past of Spain has occurred in many other countries. I am inclined to try to fight for social conditions, so that what we regret does not happen again, and not repudiate that past without which we would not be here. I fear that the impotence to transform the current social reality makes us take refuge in a controversy, sometimes nominalistic, that makes us place ourselves on the good side but does not transform anything at all. There is no country without a tragic past. It is about building the future.
« Linguistic diversity has been sold as an opposition, as a contradiction»
Why is the historical and cultural legacy of peoples read as a threat and not as wealth, especially in the language?
Some of those who speak of the wealth of Spain do not do anything to consider it as such. Indeed, certain circumstances have meant that the linguistic diversity of Spain, which could have been lived in such a way that everything was compatible, has been sold as opposition, as contradiction and, at times, as repudiation of each other. To such an extent that a great linguist like [Antonio] Tovar even spoke of the language struggle in the Iberian Peninsula. Spain is a country of enormous cultural diversity in all senses. We have not managed to resolve the polarity in such a way that it does not become a contradiction on many levels. Hence the title of my book and the weight of the verb tense I use: we wanted.
In the book he names Miguel Hernández many times. Which party do you think you would vote for now?
With all contradiction, I would vote for the Communist Party if I were in Madrid; in Catalonia to the PSUC (Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia). He would do it with a feeling that perhaps his own companions would force him to disown a part of himself.
Would your idea of Spain coincide with them?
I would assume a certain contradiction. Of course, Miguel Hernández would not vote for those who ignominiously use the word Spain. They are those to whom [Luis] Cernuda enemies of my land. Miguel Hernández would not vote for those. Neither he nor many others.
He does not want to name the party.
It’s a very sad thing. They are recovering many things. The Franco regime also tried to recover from the processions or the Rocío, even the jota. And, of course, the bulls. The same thing is happening right now: there are attempts to recover many aspects of Spanish life by “festering enemies of life”, as Cernuda’s poem says.
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He also points out that if in Catalonia you no longer see so many yellow ribbons and so many esteladas, it is because people are tired.
It is something deeper. It is true that if someone comes to Catalonia now he thinks that the problem is over. But this apparent calm is not the result of an agreement or a step that facilitates the condition. As a Spaniard I would like there to be a link with Catalonia and for half of its population not to have that feeling that there is no remedy with Spain.