Pablo Iglesias has once again taken Manuel Chaves Nogales to the Palau de la Generalitat. The Sevillian journalist has passed through the same door that he did in the year 1936, when he entered the Catalan government palace to interview then-president Lluís Companys. He did so between the pages of the book that the Podemos leader carried under his arm to offer as a gift to today's Catalan president, Quim Torra. The volume is a compilation of articles published in the thirties, in which Chaves Nogales attempted to understand what was happening in Catalonia, the reason for the mass demonstrations - "a million people in the streets. Not even a single police officer. The spectacle was beautiful" (does this remind you of anything?); the conversion of the Catalan leaders into symbols: "Catalonia has this imponderable virtue: that of converting its revolutionaries into pure symbols, since it cannot make them into perfect statesmen"; the persistence of independence claims: "a sentiment held so deeply in the bowels of this people as their urge to consolidate their character has enough strength to survive underground and burst forth when the time comes"...
Reading the Chaves Nogales of the 1930s Spanish Republican era with the vision of 2018 is astonishing. And this emotion is probably what took hold of Pablo Iglesias. The Sevillian journalist had already interviewed the previous Catalan president Francesc Macià, years before he spoke to Companys, was wondering what had happened, and, to find out, he talked to everyone who could provide him with the information. His articles provide an honest and sincere mapping of a complex political scenario. They are brilliant and tremendously revealing pieces.
The gift chosen by Iglesias is, however, curious. What is its intention? To tell president Torra a story that he already knows by an author who undoubtedly he would have already read? Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to save this gift for Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez, who has shown a great lack of knowledge about Catalonia? Chaves Nogales portrays what he calls "separatism" as "a rare substance that is used in the laboratories of Madrid as a catalyst for patriotism, while in those of Catalonia it is used as cement for the conservative classes".
More than 80 years have gone by since Chaves Nogales interviewed president Companys, following the Catalan leader's release from the Spanish prison of Puerto de Santa María where he had been incarcerated for his part in the Events of 6th October 1934 - which included a Catalan declaration of independence. Many decades later, the Catalan government and president Carles Puigdemont are once again enduring prison and exile. The mass demonstrations have returned to the streets of Catalonia and the yearning for independence has returned to the laboratories of Madrid for analysis and a new extermination attempt is being made, and the powerful substance has also spread across Catalan politics.
What was Pablo Iglesias's message? Four years after the interview with the Sevillian journalist, Companys was executed by the Franco regime. Four years beyond that, it was Chaves Nogales himself who died in exile. Sometimes history is a bearer of messages.