It was not the first time that the president of the Community of Madrid interrupted her speech. It is an optimal strategy to warm up the environment. You listen to how little by little the shouting spreads, you decide if you want that slogan to be imposed, you stop talking, you measure each second, everything goes very fast, but you have time to think, you remain silent and thus you make the proclamation still resonate. with more strength. Practical example on a Sunday at noon in Puerta del Sol. Isabel Díaz Ayuso—the pop and populist leader of Spanish conservative nationalism—continued with her speech about national agony. She established a dialectic about the situation of political freedom that exists between Catalonia and the Basque Country and the rest of Spain. She said they wouldn’t give up. It happened right at that moment. She captured the angry, rabid and vengeful message of the citizens who, en masse, transform into something different. And then she stopped talking. She wouldn’t say it, but she was encouraging the thousands of people gathered to shout it angrily. “Pedro Sánchez, to prison.”
Instantly, from home, I thought of Josep Borrell. It was easy to rescue the moment. It is preserved on the Spanish Television website—the media outlet that yesterday was stigmatized with the same cry that was heard during the processes: “Spanish, manipulative press”—. Borrell and his speech on October 8, 2017 in Barcelona almost at the end of the constitutionalist demonstration. I was not there, but I remembered a detail of his intervention. All the speakers had spoken with a repeated and confrontational speech. Borrell, on the contrary, spoke as a European democrat who firmly demanded that the civic rights of all Catalans and their representatives be respected. He warned of the dramatic consequences that could arise if President Puigdemont unilaterally declared independence. And after pronouncing his name, an obsessive, punitive, disastrous cry began to be heard, which was repeated yesterday in all the calls organized by the PP: “Puigdemont, to prison.”
That October 8, unlike what Díaz Ayuso did this Sunday, Borrell listened. He raised one hand from the lectern and with his finger began to say no. It would have been easy to encourage hatred. But first he said no with his finger and then he said it several times. Four or five. “Do not scream like the mobs of the Roman circus. “Only whoever the judge says goes to prison.” And he continued, with emphasis, with the following: “I ask you please to show extreme respect.” He repeated that phrase. Because at that moment a real politician knows that his credibility is at stake not as a leader of a movement, but as an example of democratic conduct. Díaz Ayuso, who had accused Sánchez of trampling on the separation of powers, chose not to defend democracy, but to encourage the cry calling for the imprisonment of the Prime Minister for a bill that has not yet been registered in Congress.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, instead of challenging this antidemocratic drift, questioned the legitimacy of the Government that may be formed in the coming days with the argument that the Popular Party was the most voted list on July 23. This does not reinforce our institutionality. It cracks. We are at a critical moment. Let’s all show respect.
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