The Immigrant President

The below text is from Josep C. Verges. It was published in the Catalan portal, Racó Català today, Monday 21 May.

I don't always necessarily agree with his views but I like to recycle his articles as there are not many opinion articles about Catalan politics available in English.
In this case, I broadly agree with the underlying premise of the article: millions of Spaniards emigrated to Catalonia yet, instead of adopting the cultural, social and political values of their host country, they still support the policies of the same state that expelled them from their land and made them destitute.

My parents are just another example of this. Destitute in Andalucia, they emigrated to Barcelona when there were early teenagers and met a few years later. My mum has adapted to Catalonia pretty well, and regularly votes for IC-V or ERC, and is fully aware of the issues. She speaks Catalan and regularly listens to Catalan radio or TV. My dad however is from the Troglodytes tribe and votes for the Spanish nationalists of the PP, even though he flirted with CiU in the ‘90s. After over 50 years in Catalonia, he hardly understands Catalan, let alone speak the language.

You can bet there are rather interesting discussions about politics at my parents. They don’t last too long though as inevitably someone storms off the living room sooner or later. I vote ERC and my brother Ciudadanos or PSOE, I am not too sure.

Anyway, here is the article from Mr. Verges. Some of the idioms read a bit awkward, not sure about the translations. Suggestions are welcome!


The Immigrant President
Josep C. Verges

“France has given me everything and now it's my turn to give everything to France” comments an emotional Nicolas Sarkozy, son of a Hungarian father fleeing from communism. The French voted massively with their head, not with their bottom as they say of Segolene Royal, wiping out the programmeless smile of the Socialists. Few immigrants govern in ethnic Europe. Not in Germany where the Eastern citizen Angela Merkel is seen as something exotic. Only in the United Kingdom you will see Scottish Gordon Brown as future prime minister, like the Welsh and Scots who preceded him.

The Europe of ethnic cleansing contrasts with the American melting pot. Two Irish, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, have governed despite being a minority and the mulatto, of Indonesian father and white mother, Barack Obama, may reach the White House a generation after the murder of Martin Luther King. America has obtained a huge amount of energy, economic and political, from its immigrants which explains why they are the only world power. Europe would like to be one but will never get there constructed by its ethnic States. The English have understood this and have become the most dynamic in Europe. After twenty years of Jacobin stagnation the French have finally had enough throwing themselves into the American adventure symbolised by Sarkozy.

Spain liberated with democracy the repressed energy of Franco's racist State, but we have reached the ceiling with the State of Autonomies, as can be seen with the bikini sized Statute of Catalonia which the troglodytes and Jacobins want to cut up leaving us with one hand in front and the other behind in ethnic Spain.

Spain is the most racist State in the European Union. You will never see a Catalan president in Madrid. France collaborated with the Spaniards in eliminating Catalan freedoms, because alone they never succeeded. Catalans are the only case in Europe of a people occupied by force. Imported Jacobinism only resulted in three centuries of despotism. 25 years of democracy have maintained traditional ethnic discrimination. Only one Catalan has ruled Spain in three centuries, General Prim, who set the foundations of a liberal State which took another century to translate into a democracy. He was assassinated precisely for being a liberal. Catalans are not Spaniards because they are too liberal. We want the Rule of Law, not the law of the ruler; we want equal opportunities, not sharing out the spoils among the Madrid crowd; in short we want a State that is efficiently run. Which Catalan can say today “Spain has given me everything and now it is my turn to give everything to Spain”?

Spain does not want us, but has stolen our constitutions, like it has stolen our language and steals our taxes and public investment. Look at Gas Natural, doubly rejected by the PP troglodytes and the PSOE Jacobins when it wanted to expand into ethnic Spain. Look at the daily incompetence of Renfe and the barefaced discrimination by Aena. Democracy has given us a freedom on parole. Welcome freedom, but unwelcome parole. What a contrast the welcome of millions of Spanish immigrants in Catalonia, expelled by the big landowners who live in Madrid, today subsidised by the European Union. They have little to thank Spain.

We have an immigrant president, from an Andalusian village submerged by Franco. Jose Montilla is no longer a Maoist who wanted to throttle the Catalan bourgeoisie. He has found jobs for the old socialist apparatchiks like Narcis Serra of GAL State terrorism, now president of the socialist Caixa Catalunya, but he has belittled Pasqual Maragall for his Catalan nationalism and he will now found a Democrat Party like François Bayrou. The immigrant president has never said: “Catalonia has given me everything and now it is my turn to give everything to Catalonia”. He prefers the ethnic Spain which expelled him to liberal Catalonia.