Everything that doesn't move, breaks

In the spring of 2022, I had the opportunity to interview Oriol Junqueras. He had been released from prison just under a year before. I began the interview by addressing the division among pro-independence individuals and groups concerned with preserving the unique identity of Catalan culture. Junqueras suddenly alerted me: in Europe, discussing identity issues is frowned upon, especially now with the rise of the far right and the fear that we are regressing to the situation before the Second World War.

Junqueras's warning also reminds me of other statements I heard from Joan Reig, drummer of Els Pets, in a discussion group.The ClubThe afternoon magazine program that Albert Om presented for several years now, many years ago. Reig said that Catalan nationalism or separatism should always be on guard because it could have similarities to or coincide with fascism.

Now we've seen it firsthand: the Orriolist drift we're experiencing (and which is now also beginning in Mallorca) should put us on high alert. It increasingly seems as if the right has positioned itself as the sole champion of the purest Catalan identity and the most uncompromising separatism, while the more the self-centered left approaches the values ​​of solidarity and humanity, the more it seems it has to renounce the separatism it championed until just a few years ago. And now, as never before in our country, the right wing is seizing this identity banner from positions of privilege and supremacism, of moral and cultural superiority, aligned with the same tenets used by the far right in powerful European nations like Spain, France, Italy, and England, ridiculously terrified by a [unclear - possibly "one who is not" or "one is not"] Wanting to be [unclear - possibly "one who is"] is not fascism. Wanting someone else to be [unclear - possibly "one who is"] is.

Inevitably, however, all of this affects us, those of us who want our people to be free and, at the same time, a more just society. Today it seems that among the self-centered progressive world, permission, or apologies, must be sought to speak of 'being' rather than 'doing'. And yet, the issue is troubling. These past few days, the Manacor History Museum has inaugurated an exhibition entitled 'Manacorinities', in the plural. It is an exhibition that, based on surveys, aims to discover what it means today to 'be from Manacor'. Everyone is free to make their own assessment of the method and philosophy behind this exhibition, but its success lies in its impact. The buzz on social media surrounding the exhibition has been significant and has sparked heated debate in cafes and among internet users (both the sensible and the... hatersThe opening filled the Museum's prehistory room to overflowing, where actors Toni Gomila and Yunez Chaib faced off (poetically and theatrically speaking) in defense of two Manacors that coexist and, it's unclear, make much of an effort to avoid becoming incompatible. Gomila recalled the elements that helped forge a cohesive society until the end of the 20th century, the nostalgia for the early, agricultural Manacor, with its nicknames and cossiers (a type of traditional clothing), and the festival of Saint Anthony, without, however, concealing the hypocrisy so characteristic of endogamous societies, the penchant for the double... he warned, without mercy, that the Manacor Gomila described "was already part of the past." In fact, the great controversy for those of us who can now call ourselves "middle-aged" lies in the evocation of a world that has only been recounted to us, because we, in fact, have already lived another. And today, between what we could not be and the lost legacy of what we have been, we are only a bridge that threatens to collapse.

Trains, when they're on the track, are bad at braking if it has to be sudden and reactive. And if they do, they derail. We will never return to the bucolic Mallorca of our godparents, not even to the Mallorca of our childhood. We have been greedy for the money and well-being that the tourist capitalism we have embraced has brought us—we, who were once so poor, so rustic, and so afraid of hunger. And today we also pay, in large part, the price of that greed: we are a country growing to the point of deformity without the tools or power to manage its changes. And those who profit are not the people who come here seeking a chance at life, but capital and Spain, which drench us in money and erode our national spirit.

The revolution of smiles that led to October 1st was an expansive movement, welcoming and full of hope. The movements that are forming today are those of seclusion, exclusion, and frustration. Culture, if static, fossilizes. Francesc Valcaneras said it in the magnificent documentary Cosier de Mallorca, Directed by Toti Garcia: "Everything that doesn't move, breaks." Identity is not a concept but a construct. With the skein of the Catalan language on the spindle, we spin thread; we must reweave, with harmony, with a willingness to embrace difference, with a desire to understand otherness, a convivial, cultural, and human fabric that sustains us all. And it will be then, together, that we can reinforce the foundations of that bridge that threatened to collapse, each of us laying a stone of our own size and color.