Sant Jordi is coming. The brightest festival of Catalan. The true Catalan national holiday: no hymns of romantic resentment, no pompous ruling party, no booing purity guards. Certainly, like any other popular festival, Sant Jordi has an excess of sugar. The carmine of the rose tends to kitsch. But all mass demonstrations contain too much sugar and tend to sentimentality. The important thing is that it is an open and democratic party, more spontaneous than induced. In it, civil society weighs more than institutional powers; and this is an indicator of good collective health.
As happens everywhere, the Catalan people applaud soccer idols or celebrities. He also enjoys the carnival parades and the summer festivals. However, the festival of Sant Jordi, because it is infrequent, has a mysterious charm: it is very massive, but it takes place on a working day. It does not obey any spectacle, beyond the fascination of the mass contemplating itself in the mirror. Celebrate the importance of reading. Citizens queue up to meet writers (more or less good, more or less media, it doesn’t matter). And, in one way or another, even when buying books in Spanish, the public celebrates Sant Jordi for the fabulous survival of Catalan, a language that has not been a state language since the Middle Ages (and, then, it was together with Latin and Spanish). Aragonese).
A party that so naturally mixes culture and commerce, social bustle and literary values ​​can serve as inspiration in these uncertain and recessive times. Catalonia comes out very touched by the process. Globalization has left you with more problems than solutions. Division, irritation and malaise, very European ills, anguish us. We are trapped in a labyrinth cemented by serious objective problems (geopolitical, economic, climatic), but also by our own mistakes. Now, complaints and regrets are useless. The civil initiative that embodies Sant Jordi, on the other hand, could indicate the way out of the labyrinth. Assume with joy, without reluctance, our internal plurality. Recognizing the cultural and social richness that this plurality implies would favor unity, which is essential to defend more forcefully the two factors that characterize our singularity: the Catalan language and the Barcelona economic axis.
Catalonia can have problems, yes. Many. But it is still very innovative and lively; It has a magnificent economic and labor tradition. It continues to have a privileged place on the physical map of Europe. We need to recover the quiet joy of mainstreaming and focus on possible victories. Leave divisive lawsuits aside, distance ourselves somewhat from the primacy of politics. Return to the creative force of society. Rediscover confidence in ourselves. Stop doing so much politics (so useless, so exhausting!). Make country again.
