The news that president Jordi Pujol, 92 years old, was being operated on at the Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona for a cerebral ischemia and that the doctors' aim was to remove the blood clot that had formed and revascularize the brain, was a shock to all of us who, on many occasions from positions of discrepancy and on others with great affection, have had the opportunity to get to know, up close, the person who is without any doubt the most prominent Catalan political figure of the last decades. The Catalonia of the 21st century, which has confronted Spain in a quest to become an independent state, would not be where it is without the huge nationalizing task in society, which promoted Catalanism, better said, nationalism, as a vertebral column in the defence of the Catalan language and Catalonia's institutions.
Pujol has always declared that he was not an independentist because in his generation there were very few who believed they could make the Spanish state give way. But politics is action and the work of the government. And it is in this sphere where the steps taken so that Catalonia would not be dependent are countless. Also the struggles and the challenges. If not, how would the current Catalan public media corporation have been created? By keeping one's head down and accepting Madrid's crumbs, surely not. The late president Josep Tarradellas, once when asked why he didn't challenge the Spanish government of the then-prime minister Adolfo Suárez, in a matter related to the provincial diputacions, responded: "Look, I'm 80 years old and battles with Spain are always lost." This was the mentality of that time and perhaps the only thing Jordi Pujol could do in those years was to sow so that another generation would reap the fruits. Or would there have been no difference if Joan Reventós had won the elections in 1980 instead of Jordi Pujol? Is anyone able to argue that with the slightest conviction?
This very weekend, Jordi Pujol, who had already overcome the toughest part of the ostracism of recent years and had normalized his presence in public events, spoke of his legacy and did so with some concern. Also, on the other hand, with the natural consternation of someone who has indisputably been a political reference and led the work of a government that lasted 23 years. It is normal for this legacy to have its opponents and critics, as it cannot be in any other way in a plural society like the Catalan one, which expresses itself politically from the extreme right of Vox to the anti-capitalists of the CUP. But it is a mistake to think that this is the majority sentiment of a Catalan society that is capable of distinguishing between a personal error and a political management that then had an entity and a sense - a sense of state too - which is hard to find today. That Generalitat government, which was sometimes more of an illusion than a real centre of power, and at other times had such great power that in other countries they preferred to hear Pujol's opinion than that of the Spanish prime minister, had sufficient entity that it left no-one indifferent.
Now Pujol is recovering from medical intervention after a serious stroke and the doctors are hopeful. With the concerning question mark of whether it will leave consequences and effects in the area that governs speech and writing. This will depend on how long the brain was in ischemia. President Pujol's schedule was once again full of people of different ideologies at the end of the summer, who were still looking for a sign of approval or complicity from him. "I don't do politics", said an insatiable Pujol who knew perfectly well almost everything that people were going to tell him. It was his most used phrase and a sample of how at the age of 92 you can continue to be an indisputable reference.