To form a sentence, you need a subject, a verb and an object. Spain's Constitutional Court finds that we can no longer say a word, so we might as well nip the sentence in the bud. But the Catalan political process is one thing and its collateral effects on the debate of ideas and political thinking is a different matter. They are two different items on asymmetrical paths. Whatever happens between now and autumn is part of a rather unpredictable political conjuncture: many facts that are taken for granted now may take a spectacular turn in a matter of hours, one way or another. However, I am certain that the new debates about the independence process that have cropped up, not only in Catalonia but all over Europe, will have a longer, more nuanced evolution. For good or bad, debates about ideas typically occur in succession and have a longer shelf life than those driven by conventional political events, whose changeable nature often makes them unpredictable.
The Catalan issue has started, so far, three great debates that will stay with us for a long time. The first one is to do with the nature of the European Union (but not of Europe: few things are more European than a Swiss town). The second debate is about the confrontation of democratic legitimacy vs. the established legality. Finally, the third is about the notion of what is a political subject. As you can see, these issues are far from mundane. At any rate, it is noteworthy that the time-honoured question of collective identity vs. the notion of individual rights (a classic debate not many years ago) has been wiped off the face of the earth. Fortunately, the inevitable weekend lucubrations about the offspring of Peronella of Aragon and other ersatz political debates are also on the wane, although years ago they used to be highly acclaimed by critics and moviegoers alike as a nice afternoon passtime. The list of ancient debates that have vanished into thin air goes on and on.
Let's begin with the European Union. Now we know that Europe, the old Gothic Europe of gentle interior translucence, where they listen to Mozart and eat lovely cakes, is one thing. And we know that the European Union of official forms and subcommittes of deputy undersecretaries to the acting Vice President of the cross-sectoral subsection of the Board, as reflected on Durão Barroso's sleepy and slightly cynical facial expression, is something altogether very different. The recession has also shown the dark side of the euro, a rat trap that encouraged the southern countries to get suicidally into debt, precisely because they were protected by a hard currency. Furthermore, in the case of Catalonia this debate has entered a new dimension: the Europe of the peoples and the citizens has disappeared without trace. I am certain that this is but the start of the debate, and not just in Catalonia.
The question of democracy cannot be plotted on the conventional axes of debate anymore. Totalitarianism had been democracy's traditional enemy. That threat is still around, of course, but the alibi against real democracy stems from other places: from legalism, from red tape, from lobby groups, from the new populism born out of the recession ... A whole new scholastic has arisen and it seeks to restrict the right to vote on substantial issues while, at the same time, it aims to exarcerbate it when it comes to trivial matters which, generally speaking, belong in social networks. You are not allowed to vote on the future of your nation, but if you don't click on "like" or "dislike", you are a nobody. This collateral effect extends beyond Catalonia, although here we have to put up with such rubbish as Alfonso Alonso's comparison between guns and ballot boxes.
Finally, there is the most complex and interesting issue of all: that of the political subject. Are we a political subject because we are a nation or is it the other way round? Yesterday we learnt that we are neither. In the 20th century, the construction and legal embodiment of a political subject was usually accidental and unpredictable. Thanks to the ruling pens of colonial topographers, the Kurds don't exist now but the territorial abstraction known as the Lebanon does. Nevertheless, I would say that this is the 21st century and nowadays political subjects should be based upon democratic rationality. But I am sure I am wrong and Mr Alonso is right, since he is such a crack political philosopher. As is Pérez de los Cobos, the former PP member, whose all-embracing might allows him to mock the Catalan parliament's democratic decisions. Now then: If we are not a political subject, what are we?
