I know very well the history of Pablo Iglesias and Albert Rivera, two politicians whose trajectory I have followed especially due to the fact of sharing their same age (42 years old) and being part of one of the first generations of Spanish citizens ---in my case, due to that "legal imperative" affectation--- born in the imperfect democracy of '78 and raised in the pornographic-Olympic economic prosperity of the '90s. It matters little that the cultural origin of the two ex-leaders differs radically (Iglesias has in his blood the republican unionism resentful of the elites made in Vallecas and Rivera, much to his chagrin, is a typical product of the Catalan botiguer; the "owner's son" from Vallès who ends up moving to Madrid and ranting about Catalonia because he can't make enough pasta here): both are united by the same wound of my generation, a cohort that believed that in their thirties they would already live like their parents before retirement ---fixed salary, two residences, and little ones educated in subsidized schools---, but which the economic crisis of 2006 relegated to a state of minimal subsistence and boring precariousness.
Mine is the "disenchantment" generation, a group of men and women who trained in the best schools in the world to live well and with very high levels of freedom but who found themselves forced to scrutinize the seams of the '78 regime, not out of a regenerative vocation, but because when it was time to get paid properly and spend almost everything in Manhattan stores, the state left us completely naked, exposed, and with salaries that aren't even enough to buy diapers and baby food at the paki. In my case, and in that of most of my friends, independence was the hopeful escape route that gave us the promise of a new environment in which Catalonia could dialogue face-to-face with the rest of the world and individual ambition and the will to prosper would not fall into the bureaucratic net of the state (all that, in short, has prostituted the "procesismo" and our leaders have betrayed with such impunity). Iglesias and Rivera, on the other hand, are the last politicians who tried to invent an alternative to independence by appealing to the dream of a regenerated Spain.
The ideological apparatuses of the state, which are much smarter than TV3 wants us to believe, knew how to read the disenchantment of my generation and fed the ego of Iglesias and Rivera with two operations of surgical effectiveness. The Spanish elites immediately saw that, in case of a dizzying rise of independentism, the PSC would not be enough to stop the movement in Catalonia and greased the Ciudadanos machine (gradually converted into the bankers' dream of "a right-wing Podemos") so that the orange party could win elections to the Parliament. The operation, initially plotted as a nauseating crusade against linguistic immersion (even more fraudulent knowing that Rivera educated his own daughter in one of the most Catalanist schools in Vallès), bore fruit, and it is a clear evidence that, once independentism was castrated, Ciudadanos was no longer useful to Spain and most of its leaders will end up begging the PP.
It is a clear evidence that, once independentism was castrated, Ciudadanos was no longer useful to Spain and most of its leaders will end up begging the PPThus Rivera, who has ended up pretending to work with his friend José Manuel Villegas in the law firm of Rafael and Eugenio Martínez-Echevarría and Vicente Morató, names much more than close to the PP, who in recent years have expanded their activity in Andalusia, just coincidences, and who are preferred by the popular party when it comes to writing appeals to the Constitutional Court. From muscling up as a politician through a visceral critique of bipartisanship and the corruption of PP and PSOE, in short, poor Rivera has ended up living on the Spanish right's payroll like just another new rich Madrilenian, residing in one of those dreadful mansions in the La Finca neighborhood, enlivened by Malú's light songs. Finally, the grocer's son will be able to live as he had dreamed, without having to fearfully check the price of turbot in the capital's restaurants and with his spirit available in case the PP ends up devouring (even more) Ciudadanos and, as my spies in the capital tell me,Pablo Casado ends up asking him to lead his Catalan sectorial.
Life has a lot of humor, because in its beginnings Rivera shared a very similar anti-establishment discourse to Iglesias's, no matter how much he dressed it up with a tie and a middle-class haircut. The decline of the Podemos leader may seem very different, but Iglesias was fattened by the same media apparatuses that ordered El País to write laudatory editorials about Ciudadanos when the oranges approached the PSOE. Pablo quickly went from becoming popular arguing with the traditional right on 13TV to championing the 15-M discourse in Madrid's squares and having a sofa-bed in the Planeta group, whose televisions created the Plaza del Sol soufflé to counteract the impressive demonstrations that independence movements organized year after year. From remembering that the PSOE and Felipe González had "a past stained with quicklime," Iglesias whitewashed the PSOE's corruption by entering the Government as vice president until he made the mistake of trying to save Madrid from Ayuso.
While Ciudadanos mitigated the impact of the independence movement in Catalonia with fierce opposition and an increasingly evident sack of lies, Iglesias helped the state as a good cop, championing a phenomenon of apparent mass revolt alternative to secession, exciting the resentment of the popular classes in Madrid in search of economic prosperity (through tricks inherited from communism that, had they been applied, would only have impoverished them even more) and exciting the third way in Catalonia by taking an interest in the cause of political prisoners and promising Catalans that the PSOE would adopt more moderate positions regarding pardons. Doctrinally, Iglesias was a much kinder politician to the Catalan cause, but all of this is appearances, because he was driven by the same demonic forces that sought to whitewash state corruption with a simple shower. Iglesias's entry into the Government was his first death, a decline he would certify by returning to Madrid to commit suicide.
Iglesias's entry into the Government was his first death, a decline he would certify by returning to Madrid to commit suicideAs in Rivera's case, Iglesias ended up going from exciting the spirits of those oppressed by the suffocation of the system to looking for a new rich man's house in Galapagar where he could live peacefully with his three offspring. With his defection, the policy that was forged only has one resistant figure: Mayor Ada Colau, as Podemos will enter a process of marginalization very similar to that of Izquierda Unida. This is how my two colleagues from the same generation ended up; from raging against the system to fleeing the air pollution of Madrid in their dreadful gardens. Rivera already has his career well-oriented, and Pablo, I'm sure, will soon find a media space where his former promoters from La Sexta will allow him to vent, whether by hosting political debates or narrating documentaries about how the wildebeest survives on the African steppe. Finally,the two politicians will be able to live peacefully swallowing their convictions, if they ever had any, and the antiquated system of interests that pulls the strings of politics will breathe intact.
For my generation, the cases of Iglesias and Rivera are especially relevant because, in the same way that Madrid has guaranteed them a petty-bourgeois and golden retirement, the Spanish extension of the Madrid elites in Catalonia, procesismo, will try to buy our will with a slow return to autonomy, turning us into cynics and, in a much more modest way, guaranteeing us an economic subsistence enough to pay for our small apartment and not bother too much. Today, my generation finds itself at the crossroads between those who want to practice eremitism without bothering too much or those who continue to strive to try to defend what we believe and the moral perversion of any retreat in the country's desire for self-determination. Over the next few years, I will see many contemporaries fall into the sluggishness of just getting by, accepting a neo-autonomic reality where there is not a single incentive to prosper and be free. Iglesias and Rivera have already bought the "No, it can't be done": my generation must know if it wants to do the same or continue to fight.
If the careers of Iglesias and Rivera are to serve any purpose, besides definitively burying the dream of a regenerated Spain, it is to warn my generation that it still has the option of continuing to fight for what one believes or surrendering by dozing in a flea market cynicism with a retirement that, in general, in Catalonia is paid much cheaper than in Madrid. I, as you know, have already very much accepted the choice; here you have my dagger, well sharpened, overflowing with light and blood, every Saturday.
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