Article by lawyer Gonzalo Boye, who represents Catalan president in exile Carles Puigdemont, and several other pro-independence politicians.
It seems that everything has already been said about the pardons of the jailed pro-independence leaders and now, apparently, all that remains is to know when Pedro Sánchez will take the political step of enacting them. However, what people are not being told to expect is the reaction to this measure that will come from the most radical sectors of Spanish nationalism and, if we are not careful, we'll see how the price to be paid individually and collectively will be much higher than has been foreseen.
I am sure that Pedro Sánchez has carefully weighed up the various scenarios that may and will arise from the Spanish cabinet's approval of the long-awaited pardons. There will be a cost-benefit evaluation on each of these scenarios and, thus, the government will agree on them at the moment when they consider that the price is right and the supplementary costs are most acceptable.
This analysis, with all the variants and their cost-benefit relationships, has undoubtedly already been made by the central government and, also, by the main Spanish political parties. What I am not so clear about is that the same exercise has been carried out by the pro-independence parties or, at least, whether certain pro-independence sectors and actors may have omitted it.
The main difficulties for performing such an exercise from the independence movement come from the lack of ability to identify the scenarios and, above all, from the virtually non-existent control they have over their material and timing aspects. Not knowing when or how pardons will be carried out complicates the analyses, but does not make them impossible, and it is from this point that what is probably a major error arises: thinking that what might happen afterwards cannot be predicted.
Delimiting the scenarios is always a basic step in the establishment of the framework for action and, in cases as complex as that of Catalonia, without preliminary work of this type, you end up not only losing control of what happens with the pardons, but also falling into the misconception that what will happen after they are granted is unpredictable. This is an error as well, and it is so because an important part of what will happen after the pardons D-Day - that is, on D+1 - is already being seen now.
Whenever it is that the Spanish government finally chooses to grant the pardons, whatever prison-sentence metrics they contain, whatever situation the prisoners are in once they are signed, what is clear is that from D+1 the reaction of the most radical sectors of Spanish nationalism will be to set in motion a perfectly predictable dynamic that will focus on a new wave of repression, about which the central government will be able to do nothing or very little.
They will apply the same recipe used, since the beginning, to fight what is a political problem: the judicialization of politics, which is the terrain where Spanish nationalism feels most comfortable and where it has the best and most solid supports
The key, in any case, will not be in how the Spanish government acts or fails to act, but rather, in the responses of those directly and indirectly affected by this reaction from Spanish nationalism, which, as I say, will take the form of a wave of repression.
Day after day we see how a series of proceedings that have been, you could say, dormant, have suddenly picked up great speed with the clear intention of hurriedly advancing to points in the process from which any turning back is difficult. This, precisely, is the first of the reactions of a Spanish nationalism that remains in command, in control of major levers of power within the state, of a power that has already become stronger than that of the Executive and the Legislature.
The form of this new wave of repression will be based, firstly, on these dormant cases and, afterwards, on new proceedings that will be constructed on the foundations of these supposed investigations and evidences accumulated after lengthy inquiries on which the different executor arms were already working.
The independence movement will again be linked to terrorism, corruption, misuse of funds, crime... In essence, they will apply the same recipe that has been used, since the beginning, to fight what is a political problem: the judicialization of politics, which is the terrain where Spanish nationalism feels most comfortable and where it has the best and most solid supports, and where there is not any real possibility of counteracting a power which has been endowed with tools to make it omnipotent.
The question of "how" the pro-independence forces will respond is the question that all of us should ask ourselves, but above all, the most appropriate of questions would be to ask "from where?"
The success of the response will depend not so much on how it is articulated, but from where it is launched, and this means analyzing whether there is a will to face this new wave of repression that has already begun or if, on the other hand, the idea is to yield to it in the hope that it will eventually end without leaving an aftermath as crushing as some hope.
The onslaught of this new wave of repression will be so brutal that withstanding it will only be possible from a position of unity, and those who do not want to see this now will have enough time to regret it later
Before answering the "from where", it is important to keep in mind that an essential part of this wave of repression arises as a response to unitary action by the independence movement which was implemented through a series of actions that, seen from any European perspective, were nothing more than persistent acts of civil disobedience, and therefore not criminal.
Basically, it was the unity of the independence movement that generated the mobilization whose repression is now beginning - a good example is the criminalization of the Democratic Tsunami.
On the basis that the essential factor that provoked these cases was the unity of the independence movement, I have no doubt that the place from which this new wave of repression must be fought is none other than that from whence the cause of the repression was generated: unity.
To think, as many do, that what is personal and partisan is more important and urgent than what is held collectively is a complete error, but, above all, it is a form of collaborationism with the repression.
No-one should be confused by this - and everyone should demand explanations from those who end up being responsible for disunity in the independence movement, because it was unity of action that led the movement to accumulate the strength necessary to reach the position it now occupies, and only if this unity is maintained will it be possible to resist a wave of repression which no doubt is counting on division in order to go on winning, something which, in terms of repression, means prison sentences unable to be pardoned.
Again, the onslaught of this new wave of repression will be so brutal that withstanding it will only be possible from a position of unity, and those who do not want to see this now will have enough time to regret it later, because the problem is that this wave will drag in both those close to it and those far away from it.
The hardest thing is not the prison, it is not the court proceedings endured, it is not the blows received, which have been important; what is truly devastating has yet to come. And, as I never tire of saying, to resist the D+1, it is no longer just necessary but vital to return to unity or, putting it another way, construct a new unity in which the collective takes precedence over the individual, bearing in mind that D+1 is no longer tomorrow, but today. Therefore, it is urgent.