Often, to understand the present it is essential to know the past in order not to repeat mistakes. Although sometimes there is the temptation to trip over the same stone, to find out if we are able to overcome the rock this time. But the most common thing is that we do the same harm, or even more because time does not pass in vain.
These days I was reading volume III of the Complete Works of the journalist Manuel Chaves Nogales, which deals with the period of the Second Republic, where he highlights the mistrust that secessionist Catalanism aroused not only among the Catalan right, but also in the spanish left Chaves recounts a fable that he suggests was told to him by a politician from the League about what was happening in Catalonia, which could be just as valid today.
Two villagers are on their way and one brings a cow from the ronsal. In a pond they find a toad, which provokes a gesture of disgust in the farmer of the cow. The other, to counter the comparison, affirms that the toad is an animal like any other. “Would you be able to crack a toad?”, argues the cow. “I would eat it if I had to,” he replies. They argue and in the end make a bet: “I’ll give you the cow if you’re able to eat the toad”. Driven by greed, eyes closed and nausea suppressed, he grabs the critter and begins to swallow it. The other, terrified of the possibility of running out of a cow, proposes: “Will you give me back the cow if I am able to crunch half of the toad you have left?”. The toad eater accepts the proposal because the disgust he feels overcomes him and hands him the piece he has not yet devoured, which he puts into his mouth without opening his eyes. Then, they follow the path in silence and after a short while they stop and, staring at each other, they ask themselves in astonishment: “And why must we have eaten the toad?”.
The fable repeats itself: the Spanish left is ready to eat the toad of the amnesty even though it is indigestible and independence is about to swallow the other piece of the buffoon, which means renouncing to leave -se of the Constitution. Both, by the way, without any appetite. And is that good? Maybe so, but certainly not for the toad.
