In defence of B. Picornell, anti-Nazi
These days it has become known 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 mural that read “J. Campos, fucking Nazi”.
I admit I have a special weakness for the former president of the Parliament and the rest of the anti-capitalists of that first Podemos; and it’s not that they often didn’t make things difficult for us, the more institutional and social democrats of MÉS! But I always recognized in him, and still recognize, an incorruptible will to worthily represent the desires for change of a people tired of renunciations, attacks, and betrayals. And in this we always found ourselves and 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 stop surprising me; but it surprises and moves me with the fascination that the indomitable freedom and the unrestrained, torrential affirmation of ideas that are the defense of a country, a people, and a land that are mine cause.
And since I don’t like to stay 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 crude way possible becomes sensitive. A guy who has called the OCB fascist or MÉS militants friends of assassins now becomes sensitive and whines, claiming that taking a photo next to a mural calling him a ‘Nazi’ (him or Javier, Jesús, Juan, or Julián Campos, who for M. Rajoy they are still looking for) is an attempt to dehumanize him through an insult. As if the troop that organizes his party on social media tells me, every day, more dehumanizing things 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 anyone sensible 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 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 trade unions, against feminism, against science, aggressively against left-wing movements and parties.
It also shares ultranationalist positions of imperial origin, conservative and Eurosceptic, with a constant recourse to lies and an almost messianic cult of the leader. And, obviously, in our case, 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' party wants to eliminate the laws of democratic memory, 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 spans 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. The connection with the exaltation of warmongering and the use of force that we hear day after day when they speak of Iran, Venezuela, and Gaza is also clear; and the value of a supposed purity of race and culture that hides behind concepts like 'the great replacement'.
Obviously, 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 exist for the moment although they are pushed to the limit and even crossed from time to time, cannot hide that, effectively, there is a connection between one ideology and another. And everyone understands it that way.
And to express it is not to dehumanize Jorge Campos or anyone, and much less to take 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 ex-president, and not just out of personal affection: because in confusing times it is important to speak clearly, even if simply, and to stand by those who need it.
