Without complexes before authorities and political representatives, the president Òmnium Cultural, Xavier Antich, has called on the independence movement to overcome the cycle after 1-O to start a new one that allows new complicities to be agreed before “the self-destructive trend” is consolidated. It is a slap on the wrist for the entire movement, parties and civil entities, but also an attempt to reactivate an independence movement that he believes has entered “paralysis.” “The formula of these five years no longer works. We need new sensitivities and new voices”, he remarked.
Òmnium Cultural does not seek to have the upper hand, but neither does it want all the effort accumulated by the independence movement in the last decade to be burned. Antich has not beaten around the bush. He has valued 1-O and everything that he entailed, but at the same time he has demanded to turn the page. But, above all, he has called on the ERC, Junts and the CUP, as well as the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) to abandon systematic disputes. It does not intend to lead, but Antich did offer its association during the speech this afternoon on Paseo Lluís Companys as a catalyst, point of union and attraction for these new complicities that the entity intends to integrate into a new Estat Major, similar to to which he worked and made the referendum of October 2017 possible, but with a greater representation and variety of pro-independence agents.
“We have a problem: we run the risk of losing the collective strength, social cohesion and wealth of a plural democratic movement,” Antich has come to say.
“At what point do we forget what we are working and fighting for? When did we give in to the temptation to fight each other instead of strengthening ourselves to achieve the goals we pursue? Why so much energy in confronting who we have next to us, with accomplices and allies, instead of doing it with who we have in front of us?
Antich has lamented that the independence movement has neither “shared strategy nor common objective”. The tone has been harsh. And even more so if one takes into account that, in his opinion, the result of this evident lack of strategic understanding in the last five years is what has caused “discouragement, demobilization and disorientation.” “We are not where we want, we are where they want: paralyzed,” he insisted.
The event was attended by Pere Aragonès and six of his ministers, in addition to several members of the leadership of ERC and Junts, including the president of the Republicans, Oriol Junqueras, and that of Junts, Laura Borràs. Also Dolors Sabater and Carles Riera from the CUP, and members of the commons Jaume Asens and Gerardo Pisarello. In fact, the ômnium will be the only act capable of bringing together –although not uniting- all the main sovereignist sensitivities.
