Why has the Catalans' grief not been respected? Why haven't they taken into account the enormous impact a traumatised society has suffered through the attacks, that in just four days has seen a horror film that started on the Rambla in Barcelona, continued on Diagonal and in Sant Just Desvern and from there expanded throughout the Catalan territory from Ripoll to Sant Carles de la Ràpita? Although the pain of the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils is imperishable and will mark the direction of the country and of the Catalan capital for years to come, things that cannot be ignored are starting to happen. To say "enough", perhaps, is useless. But to stay quiet it is to be complicit in the lie, the slander and the infamy. And that is never acceptable.
Because of that and due to the pain and the deep indignation that one cannot help but feel after fifteen people have lost their lives at the hands of terrorists and dozens remain admitted a week later in different hospitals, I need to say the following:
They will not discredit the Mossos d'Esquadra Catalan police and turn something that that has been a success with very few precedents at the international level and that does not have any political ideology into a reason to disgrace them for the benefit of a group of heartless people who are just looking to scrape together a handful of votes.
They will not divide Catalan society, which once again has risen to the occasion and has responded maturely to a challenge as dramatic as it is colossal. The whole society, without exception, and all of the groups that have found themselves involved in the tragedy. Obviously there is a feeling of pride as a country for the way we has responded! Are we human beings foreign to success or failure?
They will not fill in the news account with lies. If anyone seriously wants to bring up the debate about security from outside Catalonia, let's talk about the blocking of information from reaching the Mossos, about their absence from international organisations like Europol thanks to the Spanish state's veto or the seven years during which there were no meetings of the Security Board of Catalonia, including months with the anti-terrorist warning level at 4 out of 5. Not about an informal email between a Belgian police officer from Vilvoorde and a Mossos agent asking about the Ripoll imam and sent 18 months ago. If anyone wants to seriously talk about security, then they should explain why the Spanish police had a criminal record on the imam and didn't send it to the Mossos
They will not make credible the media fan that has been switched on and is turning everything that has been done in Catalonia from the afternoon of the attack in Barcelona until the shooting of the last terrorist in Subirats into a dung heap. Did they not have enough with the unfounded rumours after the 2004 Madrid bombings? Did they not learn a single lesson? How can they bet everything on convincing the public that nothing is what it seems and that the success is just skin-deep, since everything smells so bad?
They will not make the Catalan society and institutions leave Saturday's demonstration in their hands. Everyone is welcome and all shows of solidarity with Catalonia are to be thanked, wherever they come from. #NoTenimPor. #We'reNotScared. Still, it would have been even more to be thankful for if some of the 46 Spanish provincial capitals or two autonomous cities -not counting the four Catalan capitals obviously- had organised their own demonstration for this Saturday. Barcelona, for example, was brought to a standstill when it held a demonstration after the Madrid attacks on 11th March 2004. 11 million people were reported to have turned out around the whole Spanish state, a million and half in the Catalan capital.
They will not erase what the international media has published. Not one, two or three outlets. But an infinity of them and, among them, the main points of reference worldwide. The New York Times, The Wall Sreet Journal and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung are three examples and the same conclusion goes for them all: the lies spread are for internal consumption because there is no such debate abroad.
And they will not make fear the main driving force behind a free society like Catalonia. They will not.