Espriu’s failure

We have often described what Catalonia’s political and moral project was during the sixties, seventies, and even the eighties. Until very recently. A project or dream that began to wane from the dawn of the twenty-first century.

We have explained that with the new phase in Spain’s History, marked by the end of the Franco dictatorship and the old and exclusive idea of Spain, Catalonia aspired to consolidate and safeguard her personality as a people by reinstating her institutions and consolidating the degree of self-government needed to formulate and implement a strong project for a country and a society.  And that Catalonia sought to achieve this aim within the framework of a state, within the framework of a Spain that would be democratic and fair towards the men and women of its various peoples.

The dream went further: to build this Spain, the new Sepharad, Catalonia would contribute with optimism and effectiveness.

This explanation is political and plain. Yet Espriu put it poetically and in an intensely prophetic tone. Indeed, Espriu and the “The bull-hide” are at once a great affirmation of Catalanism and the Catalan will to be, and a generous and constructive approach to Spain. In essence, hope. “Secure the bridges of dialogue and seek to understand and to love the reasons and the various tongues of your children”. And in Sepharad “so the rain might fall slowly on the sown fields and the breeze blow like an open hand, soft and benign, over the broad fields”. And even, “so Sepharad might live eternally in order and in peace, to toil in tough and warranted freedom”.

Or put in more prosaic terms, we should know how to work in peace and in freedom, how to make Sepharad prosper, with a fair order and a commitment and respect for the way each of us is and speaks.

These verses, this sentiment, contributed to defining a policy. A Catalan policy. A policy for a country. Ambitious and munificent.  However, Espriu himself already warned of perils. He spoke of a “Sepharad’s new sky”, but he also warned of the “perilous palace of our dreams”. And it is true that there have always been people – here, among us, and especially outside of here, in other parts of Sepharad – who have never believed in any of this. Or who have feigned this belief in order to deceive. “But you laugh at it: you think that the spider will always have thread”. And Espriu himself warned, despite his generous and magnanimous proposal, that “when you awaken, the smile will leave your face”.

And this is how it has been. This is what is happening right now. Therefore, “and now, what?”

It is the time to resume the march. We must not commit further errors nor indulge in our lament, but take stock and gather the treasure we have and safeguard what we have built of our unfinished temple, continuing to harness new energies in our consciousness. And, above all, living the present with dignity, pride, conviction. Because in spite of everything, we have treasures. Because we have not lived in vain. Because we have built. Because only weariness and disenchantment might make us fail. They would make us desist from “gradually winning a free peace”.

Above all we need to act without counting on what others might give us, or on their help  - neither will they help us nor will they give us anything, since for them solidarity is a word of deception –, but on our own treasures, on our own assets, on our own strengths, on our own resolve.

As Espriu also observed, “We know that ours ‘is not the finest country’”. But in our dreams it is.”

Yet it not only concerns a dream. It concerns recent history, the last fifty years, when we contributed to the progress of Sepharad, and to our own progress. We have the honour of having fulfilled our resolve. We have not completed the building of our temple, though we have built a good part of it. And we have not achieved what Espriu spoke of, “Many are the tongues and the men diverse, and many names will concur in a single love”. We have not realised it. Nor have we “secured the bridges of dialogue”. For this reason, we now ought to learn to appreciate our patrimony, moral and material, our exploit as a people, our merit to resist and maintain our hope.

And it will let us begin a new phase.

Of the three great virtues – faith, hope and charity – we know not which is more important. Perhaps all three are the equal. But Espriu spoke especially of hope. And Catalonia has often had to resort to hope, which is the seed of all resurgence. Of all new phases. Each time we have done this, even when it followed failure, we have moved forwards. Because it is the originator of future.  Now it will be once again.



This new phase that now begins – since a new phase really is beginning – will have one key characteristic: it will be political. Political was the poetry of Espriu. And political is the reflection on Catalonia’s moral and intellectual strengthening at present. A reflection of the entire society.

All this is the first condition for the response that must come from Catalonia. But this response, this new drive, this change of attitude that the country needs, must be specifically political. We know there is a crisis of confidence in politics. And it is understandable. And though it may appear paradoxical, such a response must be mainly political, since only politics can provide the urgent response the current state of affairs demands.

The short cut we wrote about some days back in one of these editorials must be taken through politics. This is a time of urgency and it calls for a short cut.

A short cut for which we need to keep alive the honest spirit and moral strength of Salvador Espriu.