S'ha Acabat! Not one step back

Àlex is a young Catalan, student of a double degree in Business and Law at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. On his first day of class this academic year, the professor of Public International Law announced to Àlex and his classmates that in his lessons he would always refer to Spain as "the Spanish fascist state" . This is how Spain appears systematically in the written exams that its students must pass in order to graduate.

The professor added that he did not care what the voters of Ciudadanos said, whom he described as "useless . " In the midst of a storm of expletives, he excreted that he did not care what the "façade subnormals" thought. Several strings of similar nonsense circulate on the internet, attributed to the same teacher. From his first contact with the students, he wanted to make it clear that the mere existence of a democratic dissidence to the Catalan independence movement caused the spontaneous combustion of the barretina that he wears , with a disturbing look, in his institutional profile photo.

Young Àlex waited patiently for the teacher to finish his tirade. In private, he asked him, please, from then on to refrain from insulting the constitutionalists, since he himself had felt challenged by his words. The teacher upset him that he tried to "censure" him, but not before giving his pupil the sanctuary of being "worse than the Francoists . " The next day, in front of the rest of the class, I would call him "pathetic" for belonging to the constitutionalist youth platform S'ha Acabat! .

The surreal succession of events is symptomatic of the delusion of unreality that exists in the independent university bubble . The professor's fanatical indignation reveals his defiant certainty of impunity. Indeed, in his mental ecosystem, what was scandalous was neither his insults, nor his disqualifications, nor his extemporaneous verbal violence in the exercise of teaching, but the civilized daring of Àlex in politely suggesting a little tolerance and academic manners .

For more than a decade I have been working as a full professor at a British university. During this time, I have also had the opportunity to represent colleagues of various nationalities as an academic unionist, in multiple cases of disciplinary proceedings, dismissal and the like , for the most varied reasons.

From this experience, I can assure you that a case like the one we are dealing with would be unthinkable in a university in another democratic state . The insults to the students, the pointing out of the dissenting party and the indoctrination are indefensible even for the most corporatist of union activists. If such a case were to occur at my university, the only thing I could do for him would be to try to obtain a decent settlement and a confidentiality clause that would cover up by alleging, being pious, an episode of temporary insanity.

In post-procés Catalonia , however, a dominant part of opinion condones totalitarian behaviors and points to the oppressed while celebrating the perpetrator . The youth of S'ha Acabat! They do not want to be heroes, but they run the risk that, by turning a blind eye, we will force them to be. They only aspire to study, and to live, in peace and freedom . Some, like Àlex, study Law and are in favor, such a rebellion!, That the laws are complied with. For this reason they have suffered harassment and attacks. Signatures against them have even been collected on Catalan campuses.

His case, unfortunately, is not anecdotal. It is the culmination of a process, this one perfectly planned and executed, of creating a militantly nationalist educational system in all stages of formation . From the 2000 Program of Jordi Pujol's governments to the proclamation, by the now fugitive Clara Ponsatí , that Catalan education was already, in fact, an independent state structure, a model hardly compatible with plurality has been consolidated and freedom typical of a democratic system.

Language and history as elements of identity separation and national destruction are just two of the bricks of a wall that extends from primary education to university. As someone who hears rain, we have known cases as bloody as that of the girl attacked by a teacher for drawing a flag of Spain. We have seen how secondary school teachers such as Francisco Oya suffered records and salary suspensions for supplementing their programs with materials of proven academic rigor that left the Catalans in a bad way .

And, of course, we cannot forget the role of the school in the events of October 2017, when school principals symbolically and physically handed over the keys to the centers for the holding of an illegal referendum; when the children of Civil Guards were shamed in the classrooms; or when, during electoral campaigns, public universities are filled with pro-independence symbols, contravening the mandatory political neutrality of public spaces and further eroding the democratic quality of Catalan institutions.

For the dignity of our own profession, and for the moral duty to protect these young people, the time has come to proclaim S'ha finished! Today, hundreds of teachers and researchers from all over the world, integrated in the Foro de Profesores and Universitaris per la Convivència associations and committed to democracy, are addressing the Rector of the Autonomous University of Barcelona to protect and protect these children. Its cause is that of freedom. His legacy, the first and only constitutionalist youth association in Catalonia . His fight, for a future in which no student is attacked, harassed or insulted for his ideas.

"Not a step back!" , says one of the mottos of S'ha Acabat! We walk proudly alongside them. Not a step back, guys. The best life lesson on our college campuses is the hope of freedom that you give us every day.

Carlos Conde Solares is a professor of Spanish History at the University of Northumbria (United Kingdom), a negotiator for the University and College Union academic union and coordinator of the Foro de Profesores Association.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• Spain
• Catalonia
• Jordi Pujol
• Clara Ponsati
• Citizens
• UK

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