The most common names in Catalonia are García, Martínez, and López, but they are not seen as often as they should be in the Catalonian Parliament. This phenomenon shows us clearly that there some Catalonians are better represented than others within the political establishment.
Nationalism has always left workers out of the realms of power and decision. It is not born from the people but from the elites, who manipulate the People from above. But when we try to understand Catalan wealth, we should never fail to look at the workers who have made it possible – whose names often end with a “z”.
The reality is that the eggs the far right are incubated in Catalonia and carry a nationalist stamp. In our country, the two mayors most committed to attacking the human rights of immigrants have been nationalists. The mayors of Vic and Sestao have seen no problem in denying the poor the right to register in their municipalities, and their party leaders have supported them along the way.
Throughout history, movements of solidarity have been incompatible with those of nationalism. Solidarity has only entered into the history of the Labour Movement when nationalist sentiments have been overcome. The name of the most famous worker’s organisation in emblematic: “The International”. Spaniards created their federation of the International with the adjective “regional”, rather than “national”, through the understanding that workers have no homeland and should unite beyond man-made borders. One way in which capitalism has managed to defeat the Labour Movement in the past has been through exploiting nationalist sentiments and focussing on national issues. For the poor, however, for whom solidarity was a matter of life and death, nationalism had to be seen as a synonym of division.
Tagore affirmed that nationalism is the religion of organised egotism. This religion, we would like to add, is practised through the consumption of large doses of historical fantasy. There are no true nationalities in the majority of Spain. In France, there are more differences between people from Brittany, Normandy, and Marseille than there are between people from Barcelona and Madrid.
The problem of nationalism arises when ruling elites reignite emotional embers and use them in the political arena to reinforce their position. In the 1950s, its victims were Andalusian migrants, and today they are exploited migrants from elsewhere. But the poor, no matter where they come from, will always be its victims.
Publishing house of Self-management magazine
