Vox and the National prize to Alzamora

Vox must think that literary awards should include a ‘good ideological conduct’ certificate, which would be one that says nothing that could disturb the guardians of the fatherland. That is why Vox brought to the plenary session of the Council of Mallorca a motion against the National poetry prize awarded to Sebastià Alzamora, because it considers it intolerable for the State to award a writer who shows himself to be critical of the State. That a political formation intends to turn a writer’s opinions into a motive for questioning a literary recognition is a very disturbing sign of what this formation would do with culture if it had more power.

The far-right hastened to say that it does not question the literary quality of the book, but rather the author’s opinions about Spain, the institutions, and history. It is a sufficiently transparent way of explaining how Vox understands any show of dissent: not as a right that must be protected, but as an insolence that must be punished. Thus, now it asks that an institution pronounce itself against the award to a writer; tomorrow, if it has more decision-making power, who knows what mechanisms it will want to activate to set aside, silence, or make those who do not share its ideology pay. Culture and creation—literary, artistic, or of any field—can hardly prosper under a gaze that passes ideas through the filter of political loyalty. It is enough to remember how culturally grey Franco’s Spain was until the end of the regime.

In any case, there is a detail that we cannot leave in the background. The award-winning book by Sebastià Alzamora is titled Sala Augusta followed by Mother Tongue. And ‘Sala Augusta’ is not an innocent reference or just any name: it refers to the former Can Mir warehouse, converted into a Francoist prison during the Civil War, where more than a thousand republicans were locked up in subhuman conditions and from where many left to be executed by the Francoists. The poem restores their memory and dignity. Mother Tongue, for its part, is Catalan and pays homage to the author's mother. Democratic memory and the Catalan language: it is hard to find two issues that better point to Vox's obsessions. That the party has specifically targeted this book is no coincidence. The problem is not only that Alzamora sometimes criticizes the State's actions in his articles in the ARA newspaper, but that he activates the memory of the crimes committed by the Francoists and also the language in which he writes his works. They haven't dared to say, I believe, that they find it intolerable for the Spanish state to give an award to a book written in Catalan.

The motion was rejected. The PP also voted against it, appealing to freedom of thought, the independence of the jury, and institutional respect. That is fine. But the Popular Party should take note: Vox is not an uncomfortable partner only when it stages a provocation in the plenary session. It is a force that already shows, without many complexes, what it would like to do with culture, memory, and plurality if it had more power. This is when the PP and Vox no longer hide that, if they can, they will govern Spain together and everything that is necessary.

Opinions are not intolerable because they disturb those in power. There are only limits when they violate human rights or defame; not when they question Spain, the monarchy, or its history. What is difficult to swallow is having to pay with public money for politicians who deny sexist violence, fuel racism, are climate change deniers, and go against fundamental rights. If someone needs an ideological commissar to read poetry, the problem is not the poetry or the poet.