Negotiating Spain and Catalonia

Competing Narratives of National Identity

Fernando León-Solís

• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781841508894
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book is a narrative study of four main discourses of national identity in Spain, with a special focus on Catalonia as disseminated in the Spanish press in the period between 1993-1996. The narrative analysis of the discourses of national identity is contained within two sections. The first deals with Spanish press coverage of the 1994 USA Football World Cup. The second section studies the process of negotiation towards a political pact between Partido Popular and Convergència I Unió after the 1996 general election. This study is not confined to the identification and description of discursive elements intended to shape identities, but deals heavily with the symbolic struggle between different ideological agents. The narrative approach and systematic application to two particular and very concrete cases makes this work unique in its field. This book would be useful as a reference text for courses not only on Contemporary Spain, but also on the wider field of Cultural Studies and Media Studies. However, the issues dealt with and the style in which it is written, make it of interest to a wider and not necessarily academic audience.

CHAPTER 1

FOUR DISCOURSES OF SPAIN AND CATALONIA

1. Introduction

I have distinguished the four discourses regarding whether they have the whole of the state or the (Catalan) periphery as their point of reference. I have categorized the Catalan discourses as ‘differential and ‘disjunctive’, and the all-Spanish as ‘conservative unitarian’ and ‘liberal regenerationist’. This categorization does not have a clear-cut territorial base, since there are ideological groups that belong economically and culturally to the periphery but share the values of the centre. There are also groups whose political focus is the state as a whole, but provide a policy for the accommodation of peripheral ideology. And furthermore, groups which, although having the region as their main field of action and object of their policies, entertain ideals for collaboration in the state and even its transformation and improvement. Furthermore, these positions may vary depending on the political circumstances.

2. Two Catalanist Discourses

Following Fernández et al., Catalanist conceptions of the Spanish State are based on the following axiom: ‘Spain is not a nation. National unity was a reality historically imposed by the Absolutist Monarchy and has been maintained all along by the different political regimes of contemporary Spain’ (Fernández et al., 1983: 27). The political interpretations of this axiom have given rise to two main variants of Catalan nationalism (independence vs. devolved powers). They, in turn, have generated two types of discourse, called here ‘differential’ and ‘disjunctive’. The idea behind this sub-categorization is the particular conception of the Spanish State and the relationship of Catalonia with it.

The differential discourse is a heterogeneous category that includes different readings that go from the least radical autonomist, to the conception of Spain as a federal State or a ‘confederation of National States’ (Fernández et al., 1983: 29). These theories do not deny the legitimacy of the Spanish State but emphasize the idea that the State is a problematic administrative structure formed by ‘different century-long national realities which are prior to the State ... which have beenartificially grouped together and integrated in a centralist project by authoritarian means’ (ibid). This theory is more concerned with home rule within a multinational state than with full independence.

The governing thesis of the disjunctive discourse is that Spain and Catalonia are two incompatible realities and that the only possible solution to the conflict is independence. Historically, this is the Catalanist trend that has had fewest adherents and least opportunities to implement its policies.

Differential Catalanism

Right Wing

Up until the mid-1920s Catalanism was primarily a middle-class conservative movement which, as Hobsbawm points out, ‘belonged primarily to the local middle classes, to small-town provincial notables and to intellectuals’ (1990: 146). Conservative Catalanism carried out a policy of cooperation with Central Government, as exemplified in the political action of the Lliga Regionalista, founded by Prat de la Riba in 1901. The Lliga had an ambitious project both for Catalonia and for the whole of the Spanish State – nothing less than its reform under the hegemony of the bloc formed by the bourgeoisie in Catalonia. This double Spanish–Catalan preoccupation was reflected in the manifesto ‘per Catalunya i l’Espanya Gran’ (‘for Catalonia and a Greater Spain’) written in 1916 by Prat de la Riba himself and signed by a series of Catalanist politicians.

Ever since the beginning of the century and right up to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936, the increasing strength of Catalanism in Spanish politics displayed a moderate attitude that combined demands for more regional powers with an interest in and cooperation with central government. That was the case in the collaboration – at the beginning of the century – between Cambó (in Catalonia) and Antonio Maura (in central government) that gained Cambó the accusation of defection and betrayal. The ultimate sign of the half-way house (at times contradictory) attitude of the Lliga towards Central government was its support for the military coup d’état of Primo de Rivera in 1921 in the belief that ‘while reestablishing order and authority, he would adopt a sympathetic attitude to Catalanism’ (Keating, 1988: 99), which would be proved wrong.

Even today the proposals of political Catalanism for the whole of the State are clearly based on active intervention in the affairs of Spain. As the President of the Catalan Generalitat and leader of CiU, Jordi Pujol, observes (from the centre–right Catalanist perspective):

the two main pillars of political Catalanism ... have been, on the one hand, and as something absolutely paramount, the national assertion of Catalonia ... But another great pillar of this political Catalanism, at least in a very important part, has been the attempt to be effectively present in Spanish politics. With the objective, on the one hand, of giving Spain a structure that allows Catalonia to fit in ... And on the other, to attempt (with a whole series of Spanish regenerationist programmes we have put forward) ... a modernization of the State, a degree of modernization of Spain (Pi and Pujol, 1996: 224).

Pujol further claims that this participation in State politics is driven by an ‘ideal of grandeur’ (ibid: 230) in the same way as Prat de la Riba and Cambó fought for a ‘Catalonia and a Greater Spain’. These ambitious plans for the whole of Spain, this self-assigned role of redeemer, contrasts strongly with the accusations of ‘blackmail’ and ‘suspicious deals’ that every so often Catalanists come under in the rest of Spain and which turn them into the ‘villains’ of the State.

Left Wing

Until the second decade of the 20^th century, the ‘anarchist working class, both Catalan and migrant, remained suspicious of nationalism on class grounds’ (Hobsbawm, 1990: 146). On that point, Keating further points out that

[t]he cultural and religious revivals had little impact on the industrial working class, who tended to support the anarchist or socialist movements. These in turn often saw linguistic issues as divisive of the interests of native Catalan and immigrant workers. Catalan speaking was nevertheless widespread among the native and some of the immigrant working class and ... was to provide a basis for the nationalism of the left which emerged in the twentieth century (1988: 70).

It must be noted, however, that as early as 1848 the first federalism started to take shape as a reaction both to the centralist policies of the government and to hegemonic nationalism which was bourgeois and separated from the masses. One of the main ideologue of federalism was Pi i Margall (1824–1901), a strong defender of the structuring of Spain into regions on an equal footing. These federalist theories proposed a bottom-up construction of the State, which implied a rejection of an administrative structure imposed from the centre and a total respect for the differences amongst the regions. Pi i Margall’s concern was not only the interests of Catalonia but also of the rest of Spain, while other federalist proposals such as Valenti Almirall’s were more concerned with ‘a solution for Catalonia’ (González Antón, 1997: 480).

Pi i Margall’s federalism was strongly linked to the concerns of the working class, which made it unpopular with the Catalan ruling classes, who advocated decentralization of the State but in an orderly fashion. In general, it can be said that for the working classes the regional question was not one of its priorities and it would not be until the beginning of the 20^th century that Catalanism ‘started to finally leave behind the indubitably reactionary connotations of the previous decades … and slowly gain wider social support’ (ibid: 544)¹.

PSC (Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya), the Catalan Socialist party with strong links to the PSOE and headed by Pasqual Maragall, could be regarded as the heirs of this left-wing moderate political Catalanism. CiU follows the tradition of conservative Catalanists.

What are the differences between CiU and PSC? Apart from the ideological differences within the political spectrum, these two groups differ from each other regarding the political relationship between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. According to regular columnist of El País, Santos Juliá, Jordi Pujol’s strategy is based on:

a principle that Catalan nationalism has cultivated since Cambó: to conquer all power in Catalonia in order to be strong in Madrid. And although, unlike Cambó, Pujol has never felt tempted to exert his influence in Madrid by being part of the Governments of the State ... he has managed to have power in Madrid, especially after 1993, when absolute majorities came to an end (El País, 12 September 1999).

The stance of the Catalan Socialists (of Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya, PSC–PSOE) on the Catalonia–Spain relationship is based on the recasting of such a relationship ‘on a federal basis, which means a Catalonia open to dialogue with the Basque Country, but also with Andalucía or Aragón, asserting the differences but without belittling the common inheritance’ (ibid).

The Disjunctive Discourse

This discourse gathered momentum after the First World War at the time when wide sectors of Catalan society were demanding a home-rule deal. However, (as noted above) when faced with the threat of class struggle in the period 1917–1923, the Catalan elite and middle classes withdrew from these demands for devolution and ended up supporting the dictator Primo de Rivera who crushed the working- class protests manu militari. Against that background the Catalanist movement of the left started to gather momentum; and if, beforehand, the compromising attitude of bourgeois Catalanism represented by Francesc Cambó prevailed, a more radical left-wing Catalanism led by Francesc Macià and his Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya developed with the aspiration of turning Catalonia into an independent Republic within a Spanish Federal State. This tendency dominated politics in Catalonia from 1931 up to the Civil War.

Two days after the victory of the left wing in the 1931 local elections (after which the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed) the Catalan Republic of the Iberian Federation was declared, although three days later it was mellowed down to the Generalitat de Catalunya, based on the idea of ‘self-determination’ and the restoration of the unity of Catalonia. A white paper for a devolved parliament was drafted and overwhelmingly approved in a referendum – but criticized out of hand by the Right and Centre because it meant a sundering of the fatherland. The furtherradicalization of the political pre-war situation led the president of the Catalan Generalitat, Lluís Companys, to declare the establishment of the Catalan State of the Spanish Federal Republic. The heirs to this political movement are the left-wing Catalan nationalist party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya which aimed at full independence beyond federalism – although nowadays the aspirations of this party vary from independence down to a co-federation with the rest of the Spanish state.

3. Two All-Spanish Discourses

The categorization of the all-Spanish discourses has been carried out along the well-established and almost mythical cleavage of Spanish society – the Two Spains, represented by two groups: the liberal regenerationists and the unitarian conservatives. At the risk of simplification, these two main discourses of Spanish national identity correspond with the centre–right conservatives and the (centre)–left-wing liberals, respectively. These two ideological trends have generated two types of verbal–ideological systems, called here the ‘liberal regenerationist discourse’ and the ‘unitarian conservative discourse’.

The Liberal Regenerationist Discourse

The formulation of liberal regenerationist ideology took place in the last quarter of the 19^th century with a new generation of intellectuals ‘with concerns about the nation’ (Fox, 1997: 56). This group of liberal intellectuals argued that the cause of the decline of Spain was attributable to the failure of the Restoration to modernize. The Restoration began in 1876 with the reign of Alfonso XII and provided a certain political stability based on the existence and alternation in power of two main parties: the conservatives (related to the landowning and Court aristocracy) and the liberals (representatives of the liberal professionals, traders, industrialists and middle classes). The reformists attacked the system for its inefficiency, corruption, clientelism, strong centralism, militarism, its support for the unproductive landowning aristocracy and its refusal to consider any new innovative ideas coming from the rest of Europe (García de Cortázar and González, 1994: 49) – all regarded as the causes of the backwardness of the country. The loss of the last colonies of the Spanish Empire in 1898, when Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines gained independence through war with the military support of the USA, galvanized the regenerationist movement.

This movement included the writers and philosophers Ortega y Gasset, Unamuno and Costa. These authors constituted a very heterogeneous and contradictory group. Even at a personal level some of the members of this liberal regenerationist generation adopted an ambivalent attitude towards ‘Spanish identity’ or the means to modernize the country. In fact they did not even belong to the same generation, with Unamuno as a member of the 1898 generation and Ortega y Gasset, a member of the 1914 one. But, despite contradictions, Europeanism, positivism and respect towards the differences within the Spanish State (albeit defending the existence of a Spanish nation) are the most characteristic and lasting features of this group. As García de Cortázar and González point out, one of its most salient features was its rejection of what had been previously established as lo español (the essentially Spanish). This rejection was based on the unsettled concept of identity encapsulated in the motto ‘the Genius of nations does not exist’, which means that for them, lo español was only the official national identity constructed by the establishment, and could be changed. For this generation, the way to transform the national character of Spain and to tackle ‘el problema de España’ (that is, its backwardness) was the study and application of science and technology in economic and social life (Fox, 1997: 56), the introduction of universal education and opening out to the rest of Europe. Indeed, the regenerationists turned the European ideal into a ‘programme’ (Morón Arroyo, 1996: 27). Europe became a kind of transcendental category with a series of associated values (still relevant in Spanish society), to wit: philosophy, science, technology and education (Morón Arroyo, 1996: 37–51). This positivist attitude is summed up in a well-known sentence by Ortega y Gasset: ‘Europe equals science; the rest is common to the rest of the planet’ (Ortega y Gasset, 1946: 102).

As far as the configuration of the Spanish State, despite their general support for devolved powers, the Spanish progressive liberals were driven by a ‘rationalist and uniform’ conception of the state (Keating, 1988: 100), especially when confronted with the ‘mystic/romantic conception of the Catalan and Basque nationalist right or the demands for self-determination voiced by the separatist left’ (ibid). However, the all-Spanish liberal movement, faced with the danger or threat of sep...