Catalonia: The resurrection of Jordi Pujol | Catalonia | The USA Print

Jordi Pujol’s return to public life at the age of 92 has been a soft landing, marked out since 2020. Little by little he has regained an audience in the media, after making a public confession, in July 2014, that he had kept a hidden fortune in Andorra for three decades. He expresident he lives obsessed with honor and how it will go down to posterity. His children are the ones who now keep his agenda, arrange interviews with old acquaintances and manage his appearances, aware of the opportunity that a process in low hours, with a decimated center-right that requires an iconic figure.

The stroke he suffered in September, his progressive attendance at public events and the activities of the so-called patriotic police In the call Operation Catalonia They have acted as an epic elixir to attract both young sectors of sovereignism and that elderly public that continues incorruptible, attending all demonstrations in defense of express independence. The former, who have just discovered pujolismo, feel seduced both by the judicial martyrdom that, in their opinion, the former president is suffering —the Prosecutor’s Office is asking for nine years in prison— and by his possibility, after the experience of a process that promised instant happiness and failed. “My children were burning containers a few months ago. Now they feel fascinated by the figure of Pujol”, assures a historical convergent. For the independentistas who comb gray hair, defending the expresident It is an unavoidable demand in the struggle to show the “repression” and how arbitrary is the treatment of the Spanish justice system for sovereignist politicians. “We are not going to return to the autonomist gradualism of the fish in the cove (Catalan expression equivalent to “bird in hand is worth…” in Spanish), but the lynching to which Pujol, who is an indisputable figure in the history of Catalonia, has been and is being judicially subjected, is unfortunate”, affirms a veteran pro-independence party.

He expresident has been lavished on acts of political significance —such as the presentation of the candidacy of Xavier Trias, mayor of Junts per Catalunya in Barcelona—, the 90th anniversary of the Catalan Parliament or more recently a calçotada with the Junts staff. The talk show host and journalist Pilar Rahola posted a photograph of those attending the roasted onion banquet on social media. There, next to the deputy Míriam Noguera, was Artur Mas, ex-president and dauphin of Pujol or ex-councillors such as Jaume Giró, who does not miss a Pujol act. All the center-right independence movement mainstream. The Junts staff has pardoned him, but the photo lacked that non-secessionist Catalanism that Miquel Roca embodied, and without which it will be difficult to restore the broken mirror of central Catalan nationalism that CiU embodied. Many aspire to a legacy that, in the case of Junts per Catalunya, has its first test with the candidacy of Xavier Trias for mayor of Barcelona. The formula that Trias manages is to capture the conservative electorate with the independentista. For this, the flag estelada It must go into the background, yes, well folded. Pure pujolismo.

The political heritage of the expresident with his personal resurrection. All of this began on January 12, 2020. He appeared on the TV3 news program 30 minutes speaking about Catalan development cooperation. On February 4 of that same year, she spoke on the regional channel of the documentary Mossos, llums and ombres (Mossos, lights and shadows). At the end of the program, a sign warned that some of the interviewees had registered their discomfort after learning that Pujol was participating. Many politicians were uncomfortable then that he had a platform when his confession was still hot. They were first scores.

The serious things began in 2021. In June of that year the book-interview was published between pain and hopein which the expresident He asked for forgiveness as a step prior to obtaining the acquittal of the Catalans for having kept his fortune hidden in Andorra. Pujol did not attend the presentation “due to his advanced age and because it did not seem appropriate to expose himself,” according to the president of Edicions 62, Josep Ramoneda. The book, written by the journalist Vicenç Villatoro and supervised by the expresident, it constituted the first approximation to the topic that occupies and concerns him: honor and how it will go down in history. Pujol, according to close sources, was not very satisfied with the reception. His excessive recourse to theological virtues, seasoned with a dose of realism not very liked by the independence movement at that time, did not sink in among the young mainstream center-right. He expresident He suggested that, given the weakness of the secessionist movement, it was necessary to “be open to non-independence formulas.”

Then came the new, enriched version of his prison notebook: Dels turons to the other band of the river, written in 1961-1962 while he was serving a sentence during the Franco dictatorship in the Torrero prison. The text contained epic ammunition, since it was revealed that Pujol then valued not asking for a pardon from the regime. patriotic suffering expresident He was highly appreciated by some independentist sectors.

On March 1, Pujol presented the last conversation, a book about the last meeting between him and the Japanese catalanophile Ko Tazawa shortly before his death. The call was so successful that an auditorium with more capacity had to be found. There – in addition to calling for a mobilization to prevent Catalan from disappearing – he said that he has a 130-page text ready on all types of honor, the subject that really mobilizes his writing. The path to forgiveness is becoming more expeditious every day. And a center-right in low hours needs a figure that combines pragmatism with a patriotic soul.

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