El fantasma de Lerroux

Alejandro Lerroux was a publicist and republican politician who boosted his career by confronting a rising Catalanism. Reviving an aged atmosphere like the Barcelona republicanism of the beginning of the century and cultivating his relations with the working class, Lerroux established himself as a nucleus of power. His legacy, known as Lerrouxism, has been used since then as a synonym for divisionism, for fueling the resentment of the lower classes and immigration against Catalan nationalism. However, the story of an evil outsider paid by Madrid who comes to Catalonia to set fire to churches and destroy social harmony has distorted his legacy. In the historical struggle between the forces that want to free human potential and those that want to keep it subject to the interests of a small group of people, the Lerouxist strategy consists in liquidating the yearnings for freedom of the Catalans by usurping the agency of the weakest , whether these are the workers, the poor, the immigrants or, right now, the pro-independence people. A policy made from within and without, which cannot be associated with any specific party or faction and which has been passed down from generation to generation. The ghost of Lerroux exposes some ideas, practices and lessons that can be drawn from the Lerrouxist legacy in current Catalan politics, lessons that can be absorbed as an antidote and also as a reminder that ghosts tend to populate the imagination of those who are more predisposed to see them.