In defense of B. Picornell, anti-Nazi
These days it has emerged that Balti Picornell had been summoned to testify following a complaint filed by the Vox deputy in Madrid, Jorge Campos. The reason: having taken a photo next to a graffiti that read “J. Campos, fucking Nazi”.
I admit that I have a special weakness for the former president of the Parliament and the rest of the anti-capitalists of that first Podem; and it’s not that they didn’t often make things difficult for us, the more institutional and social democrats of MÉS! But I always recognized in him, and I still do, an incorruptible will to dignity represent the desires for change of a people tired of renunciations, attacks, and betrayals. And in this, we always found ourselves and we will find ourselves, and from this a complicit bond that is maintained and reaffirmed over the years.
Balti also has a gift: freed from institutional and party burdens, he says what he wants, when he wants, and how he wants. For me, who comes from a much more formal school, his style doesn’t cease to surprise me; but it surprises and moves me from the fascination caused by the indomitable freedom and the unbridled, torrential affirmation of ideas that are the defense of a country, of a people, and of a land that are mine.
And since I don’t like to remain silent when mine are attacked, I cannot remain silent in the face of this insulting complaint.
It is outrageous that a guy who has spent his life insulting everyone who doesn’t think like him in the most vulgar way possible becomes fussy. A guy who has called OCB fascist or MÉS militants friends of assassins, now becomes sensitive and whines, claiming that taking a photo next to graffiti that calls him a ‘Nazi’ (him or Javier, Jesús, Juan or Julián Campos, whom they are still looking for for M. Rajoy) is an attempt to dehumanize him through an insult. As if the troop that organizes his party on social networks didn’t say more dehumanizing things to me every day before my first coffee.
It is evident that we do not live in interwar Europe or in the German Third Reich, and that, therefore, National Socialism is not applicable to our time. However, can any sensible person think that the ideological legacy of those people died with Hitler’s suicide? No, just as fascism did not end with Mussolini and National Catholicism survived Franco’s corpse.
All these ideologies evolved, and for a time they remained in semi-clandestinity until the great explosion of populist far-rights across Europe and the world, especially a decade ago: Trumps, Bolsonaros, Le Pens, Orbans, and Salvinis. And here, Vox.
A far-right that, despite accepting the prevailing ultraliberal schemes, shares with its ancestors from the first half of the 20th century positions against immigrants, against unions, against feminism, against science, aggressively against left-wing movements and parties.
It also shares ultranationalist positions of imperial, conservative, and Eurosceptic roots, with a constant recourse to lies and an almost messianic cult of the leader. And, evidently, in our country, a furious anti-Catalanism as a premium brand.
Because yes, ideological predecessors of the Spanish far-right organized 'the Blue Division' to support Hitler while ideological predecessors of the Catalanist and sovereignist left died in Nazi concentration camps. That is why Campos's party wants to eliminate democratic memory laws, and that is why it insists on banning parties like MÉS, ERC, and the BNG; and precisely this places it clearly in an ideological line that crosses decades and centuries, but remains in some core elements.
And it must be said: Vox's discourse regarding Muslims is a mimicry of what was done in Europe against Jews a hundred years ago. Also clear is the connection with the exaltation of warmongering and the use of force that we hear day after day when they talk about Iran, Venezuela, and Gaza; and the value of a supposed racial and cultural purity that hides behind concepts like 'the great replacement'.
Evidently, any political scientist will say, correctly, that the great differential line between the current populist far-right and the fascism and Nazism of the interwar period is the legitimized, systematic, and large-scale use of physical violence and the manifest will to formally end liberal democracy. But these differences, which currently exist even though they are sometimes pushed to the limit and even crossed, cannot hide the fact that, effectively, there is a connection between one ideology and another. And everyone understands it this way.
And stating it is not dehumanizing Jorge Campos or anyone, and much less is taking a photo next to a mural, which by its very nature is not a political treatise, but a spontaneous manifestation of a shared feeling: the danger to democracy that Vox represents.
Jorge Campos said he would also take to court everyone who supported Balti Picornell. I offer to accompany the former president, and not just out of personal affection: because in confusing times it is important to speak clearly, even if it is in a simple way, and to stand by whom you should.
