To all my international friends

To all my international friends,

I know that some international media has been depicting Spain as a country which is repressing the Catalan people; and this is why today I want to write directly to you so that you know the opinion of a Spanish citizen who has been observing what is happening in Catalonia for the last few years, and not only for the last weeks.

First of all, not all Catalans are in favor of independence. In fact, in the last election for the regional Catalan Parliament, 48% of the Catalan people voted for the separatist parties and 52% voted for the parties who defend that Catalonia belongs to Spain. Therefore one should not confuse the term “Catalan” with the term “nationalist”. They are not the same.

“All right”, you might be thinking. “But isn’t 48% a sufficiently high percentage for the people of Catalonia to be able to vote in a referendum? Why was the referendum held last week not legal then?”. Well, the thing is that Spain has its foundations on the Spanish Constitution, which establishes in its art. 2 that Spain is indivisible, following its art. 1 which says that national sovereignty belongs to the Spanish people. This means that the Constitution does not allow for a regional Government to decide unilaterally that they want to vote on whether or not to break the unity of Spain. And our democratic Constitution is not just a piece of paper. It is the supreme norm, which was voted by all Spanish people in 1978. It is the foundation of our democracy, and if anyone, be it a person, a private organization or a regional Government breaks its rules, they are threatening the pillars which prevent our country to be ruled by chaos. And yes, the Constitution can be reformed through the instruments enshrined in it, but it cannot be taken for an irrelevant norm which is sometimes valid and sometimes not.

Now, leaving aside legal aspects, I want to tell you that the Catalan people have never been oppressed during our 40 years of democracy. On the contrary, because of their cultural particularities, Catalonia has had a special treatment by the Spanish State. In my opinion, a way too special treatment, because the Spanish Government has given so much power to the regional Government that it has let the nationalist parties take control of the education and cultural institutions, which is why nationalist thinking has permeated in the minds of almost half of the Catalan people, especially young ones. The Spanish Government disappeared from the Catalan soil many years ago. And this is why, for instance, bilingualism has not been respected in Catalan schools, and the Catalan language has acquired much more importance in the region than Spanish. Among other examples, the Government allowed the Regional Government to build a “national Catalan theatre” and a “national Catalan museum”, and through the years, little by little, the idea that Catalonia is a nation apart from the Spanish one was created by the Catalan institutions.

Finally I would like to tell you that I am against Catalan nationalism the same way that I am against any other kind of nationalism, be it Trumpism, Le Front National, Alternative Für Deutschland, Brexit, or even Spanish nationalism (that is, the idea that the Spanish culture and language is superior to the culture and language of the minorities who live in Spain). In recent years we have seen how nationalism has deepened the fractures in many countries, dividing people between the “good ones” and the “bad ones”, and, in the Catalan case, between those who are “true Catalans” and support independence and those who are not. Nationalism only creates hate for the one who thinks differently, and it Catalonia, it is creating a toxic atmosphere not only for the society, but also for the economy, since big businesses are starting to leave Catalonia. It is shaking our country, teetering a democracy which so many people fought for after the Franco dictatorship, and distracting politicians from what should be its main purpose, which is to reduce the huge unemployement we have, fight poverty, protect the environment, build infraestructures and so many other much more important things.

We are stronger in a united Spain, within a united Europe that works in an ever-more interdependant world!

Choque de civilizaciones

En Maelbeek, a pocos metros de las principales instituciones de la UE: la cristalización institucional de un proyecto que va más allá de lo nacional y que pretende promover a nivel continental, al menos en teoría, una serie de valores democráticos, la paz y la cooperación entre ciudadanos europeos.

 

Y en el Aeropuerto Internacional de Bruselas, que conecta a los ciudadanos europeos con el resto del mundo, permitiendo la expansión de nuestros valores a través del individuo más allá de nuestras fronteras.

 

Destruir Europa, por dentro y por fuera. Sumirla en una profunda crisis, mayor a la que ya tiene, para que surjan movimientos antimusulmanes que den lugar, por fin, al "choque de civilizaciones", al más puro estilo Huntington, teórico de Relaciones Internacionales.

 

O al menos, eso es lo que quieren que pensemos. Que relacionemos el islam con el salafismo yihadista. Que veamos al musulmán como el enemigo y que se cree un fuerte "cleavage" Occidente/Oriente. Que echemos la culpa a los refugiados que huyen de esos yihadistas de las barbaries que cometen.
 

Seguro que los terroristas han escrito un telegrama como este:

"Querida Le Pen. Querido Trump. Queridos Orban, Kaczunski; y Petry y Meuthen, fundadores de Alternative für Deutschland. Sois nuestro deleite. Reaccionáis justo como nosotros esperamos que reaccionéis. Nosotros infundimos miedo, y vosotros os encargáis de difundirlo. Nosotros sembramos odio, vosotros lo cosecháis y lo repartís en Occidente. Nos estáis haciendo un favor. Gracias".

 

Está claro que los lugares elegidos para el atentado del 22 de marzo pretenden tener un significado más allá de aterrorizar a la población, como en su momento lo tuvo el atentado de Madrid y el de Nueva York. Pero tendrán el significado que nosotros queramos darle. Y no debemos caer en su juego de ver el mundo como una división entre Occidente y Oriente. Los atentados yihadistas en Bruselas no son diferentes de los de Ankara, Estambul, París, Túnez, Egipto, Nigeria y tantísimos otros atentados que destrozan vidas y familias todos los meses, unos pasando más desapercibidos que otros. Tampoco son diferentes de las masacres que el No-Estado Islámico comete a diario en Siria. 

Todos ellos son actos contra el ser humano, no contra una cultura en particular. Se trata de un conflicto entre los terroristas, unos chalados sin alma, y el resto de la humanidad, no entre musulmanes y cristianos. Hace tiempo que dejamos atrás la mentalidad de Las Cruzadas. No permitamos que vuelva a renacer.

The unbreakable bubble

I feel threat. Palpable threat, sadness and helplessness. I felt it the night the attacks in Paris happened, and I feel it today that the attacks in Tunisia have been carried out. I have always been a believer in democracy, in progress and in the possibility of solving problems through dialog. I have grown up ignoring what it is to feel your life at stake. During my childhood and teenage years, I was too innocent, thinking that war was something that either happened in a distant past or in far away countries. I somehow thought that democracies were impermeable to the threats of the outside world, that we could be safe in our comfortable bubble, home.

I remember how, at school, a nun used to tell us how lucky we were to have been born in a country like Spain, because other children did not have the same luck. No. Other children had been born in places were they could not be sure if they would be alive the next day. Other children, they told me, had to face not only hunger, but the possibility of being abducted by those "evil guys" who would dress them in military uniforms and show them how to kill another human being. So yes, I was thankful that I was here, not there, not because I deserved it, but by mere chance.
 

And now? Now I am seeing how these "evil people from far away" are continuously cracking the walls from our democratic bubble, not only from the outside, which would be easier to stop, but from the inside as well. I see how Tunisia, the only successful country to acquire a democratic system during the Arab Spring, instead of being an example for other Arab countries to follow, is seen by the fundamentalists as a heretic country that has to be destroyed, just like us.

 

The closeness of the threat has waken me up, I have to say. It's made me see how the human being can do amazing things to improve other people's lives, but can also be the most cruel being on Earth. Are democracies going to be able to erradicate these horrible people? Some time ago I was completely sure about it. Now I don't know. Inside of me I still think we are stronger than them, but they have found our weaknesses. For now, all I can have is hope in the capability of our security forces to adapt to this new kind of war. But I don't see my country as the safe isolated bubble that little Juan used to think of anymore.

Terror en Europa

39. 39 muertos y 60 heridos en varios ataques coordinados en París, hace algo más de dos horas.

Uno de ellos, en una discoteca, un lugar que solemos frecuentar los jóvenes y donde lo último en lo que piensas es que alguien va a entrar en mitad de la fiesta y pegarte un tiro.

Tres explosiones en las proximidades del Estadio de Francia, donde jugaban Partido amistoso entre Francia y Alemania. Qué vuelcos da la Historia: dos países que hasta no hace tanto no cesaban de declararse la guerra entre sí, se ven ahora amenazados por una tercera fuerza mientras disfrutan de la paz que tanto les costó conseguir.

Leo en El País que Francia ha dejado en suspenso el acuerdo de Schengen durante un mes y restablecido controles fronterizos. Y esto es, quizás, lo que más escalofríos me da: temo que el yihadismo pueda conseguir que antepongamos la seguridad a la libertad, que aumenten los sentimientos islamófobos y que se tambaleen los pilares del tan ansiado proyecto de una Europa unida e integradora.

Me sorprende a mí mismo la reacción que me ha causado la noticia: tengo lágrimas en los ojos. No siento el mismo horror cuando leo acerca de las muertes en la guerra de Siria, o en algún país de África. Peco, como muchos, de sentir las tragedias en el mundo occidental como más cercanas a mí. Y no debería. Pero el hecho de que ocurra otro atentado yihadista en un entorno similar al mío, me hace preguntarme: ¿estamos seguros?

Lo único que podemos hacer es mantenernos unidos, defender nuestros valores democráticos y mantenernos firmes, por mucho dolor que llevemos por dentro, para impedir que unos fanáticos pongan en duda los Derechos Humanos.

En todo caso, yo me acuesto temblando esta noche. Y Europa también.

 Hace 25 años, en una noche como esta, cientos de miles de berlineses, del Este y del Oeste, se reunieron alrededor del muro que, durante 28 años, había dividido dos mundos completamente diferentes. Cuando finalmente los controles se abrieron, poco antes de medianoche, la multitud se precipitó desde Berlín oriental. En el otro lado, los berlineses occidentales los recibieron con abrazos y botellas de champán.

Esta noche no sólo significó la reunión de amigos y familiares que llevaban décadas separados. Significó la caída de un sistema ya en decadencia que, con el pretexto de "servir al pueblo", coartaba las libertades de las personas y mantenía a un Estado tan monstruoso que se acabó destruyendo a sí mismo. Tan bien servía al pueblo ese Estado Soviético, que los alemanes occidentales estaban como locos por saltar el muro y vivir en el paraíso socialista... ¿o no? Los carteles en las manifestaciones en la DDR con el lema "Wir sind das Volk" (nosotros somos el pueblo), demostraban que el socialismo no estaba funcionando.

Porque, en un mundo en el que concurren millones de hechos imprevistos al día, es imposible pretender que un grupo de personas lo planifiquen todo. En un mundo en el que millones de individuos con ideas son capaces de aportar por sí mismos un granito de arena a la sociedad, impedirles llevar a cabo esas ideas para sustituirlas por unas cuantas medidas "para el bien común" (es decir, para el bien del Estado), supone una ruina para esa sociedad. Libertad es lo que una sociedad necesita para progresar. Y libertad es lo que los habitantes de la URSS no tenían.

Tanto el capitalismo como la democracia representativa tienen defectos, y muchos. Pero los berlineses del este que hace 25 años huyeron de la dictadura socialista tenían claro que ambos sistemas, económico y político, eran la alternativa menos mala para organizar nuestra compleja sociedad.

A dot

I just found this amazing article which is similar to the one I wrote some months ago, but, of course, it is better written than mine, considering that it was written by Carl Sagan (1934-1996), an astronomer who knew exactly how to get to our hearts by showing us the truth of our existence. Enjoy!

Image taken by the Cassini space probe showing the Earth from Saturn!

"Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."


Carl Sagan (1934-1996), Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, 1997 reprint

About beliefs

Hi everyone! After a long time without putting my ideas into virtual paper, I'm back on track.

As you may know, I am not exactly a religious person. Today I've had one of these long and tiring but interesting conversations about religion with a very good friend who is as certain that God exists as I am certain that God does not exist. We've talked, and talked and talked the same way we've done other times, and, of course, we haven't reached a definite conclusion (again). I've only been an atheist for a short time, but since I stopped believing, I kind of started looking down my nose at religious people. I thought I was more intelligent than them because I had come to the conclusion that we are alone on this Planet. And I just realized how wrong I actually was.

It doesn't matter what we believe or what we don't believe. Because a belief is just a point of view on a particular thing. In this case, it is the view on the answer to the questions related to our existence: "Where do we come from? Are we something more than a bunch of thinking organic matter? Is there life after death?". You've probably heard these questions lots of times. I think that science can and will eventually give us the answers to almost all of our questions. In fact, it has answered many of them already, but then again, there are people who think that these scientific answers are wrong and that the right answers to all of our questions can be found in the Bible, the Koran, the Tipitak (that's the Buddhist holy series of books) etc.

So, if religious people are happy with their believes, who am I to tell them that they're wrong? Even if I do think they are wrong, and even if it is ok for me to peacefully debate with them, I cannot and should not try to force them to think the same way I do, because (as Bon Jovi said) "It's my life", and we all have the right to live and think the way we want to, as long as we don't hurt or interfere with other people's lives. I can give them the reasons why I am not a believer and, if they want, they can say: "Mmh, I find your arguments reasonable, I'm going to question my own beliefs". In the same way, a religious person might give me such strong arguments to believe in a God that I might question my own point of view on the matter. But it has to be a personal choice, it should never be imposed, and neither I nor the religious person shall look down on the other one just because he or she thinks differently.

We're lucky enough, at least in The West and other developed areas, to live in countries were we've got freedom of expression and freedom of beliefs, and we've got to accept that not everyone thinks the same way: something that you might take for the truth, others might take for a mistake, and vice versa. We will never reach a point in which we all have the exact same thoughts. And that is  exactly the wonder of human diversity. If we all thought the same way, what a boring place the Earth would be! So be happy your own way, because happiness is not what other people say, but what makes you happy.