It does not cease to amaze how little reaction there has been to the news that the PSOE and Podemos government headed by Pedro Sánchez has decided to reform the national security law by introducing a minor amendment to the effect that all adult members of the Spanish population could be required to provide a "personal service" to the state when a state of crisis is declared in Spain. It must be the heat we are undergoing in these July days that has silenced - or made more reticent - the pro-independence parties in the face of an initiative which is so dangerous, as well as senseless, that it could end up being a full-fledged militarization of the citizenry. Or perhaps the party executives are waiting to meet this Monday to express their opposition.
In any case, the news is surprising and I don't want to think what a party like Podemos would have said - I don't venture to guess the attitude of the PSOE, so unpredictable lately - if the initiative had come from the parties sometimes called the trifachito, the hypothetical three-way government alliance between the Popular Party, Vox and any members of Ciudadanos who still might be clinging on to the shipwreck should the moment arrive. The self-proclaimed "most Spanish progressive government in history" seems to have left its compass at home in terms of rights and freedoms, as this law has a ring to it reminiscent of past times before compulsory military service was abolished. Maybe someone thought that there is nothing better than being a kind of Spanish soldier in the reserve. A proposal by the left, though, is not what it seems to be.
But politics is always full of surprises and a politician can call himself Pedro Sánchez, run in an election solemnly proclaiming that he will abolish the so-called Gag Law and then forget about the commitment, turning the promise inside out with excuses about parliamentary difficulties, and through another law - in this case the one on national security - call up all adults, take over companies and even requisition property. The independence movement's motivation to protest against those things that harm it must have passed to a better life, since now what counts is to give the right image and raise your voice as little as possible.
Since the political prisoners left the jails of Lledoners, Puig de les Basses and Was-Ras, there has been a fairly widespread feeling in the pro-independence world that it is the end of a cycle. It was known that the pardons would arrive one day or another and that international pressure would provide enough arguments through European aid for Pedro Sanchez to be left without rebuttal. But the return of the exiles and the end of the repression are following a judicial calendar, and here it is the Supreme Court which directs the orchestra. And the Spanish government has already said that an amnesty, a referendum and self-determination will never be open to negotiation. It's not that you have to keep pressing on through a jungle as dense as that of Amazonia, it's that in front of you there is a wall that is longer than that of China.