I like Pere Aragonès. Even though I don’t know him personally and only follow his steps from afar. If I were registered in Catalonia, I might have been tempted to vote for him on election day, even though I disagree with almost everything with ERC, in substance and form. I could vote for him out of personal compassion, a reason that may sound frivolous in this serious political moment, but considering the reasons that drive others to vote, it doesn’t seem so bad. How can you not feel sympathy for a president whose last name is ambiguous? Every time President Aragonès is mentioned, you have to clarify to avoid confusion with the Aragonese president. Aragonès with a capital letter is fighting an impossible battle against irrelevance, as if he were a lowercase Aragonese. Lowercase Aragonese people are used to being unnoticed, we are simple folks, but the presidents of the Generalitat carry pomp in their title. A president is easily recognized by his demeanor and confidence, telling the press and the opposition: today is not the day. Even if he was high on caffeine and adrenaline, he wouldn’t pass as a president.
The Catalan president Aragonès has been trying to make the world aware that he is the president since the day he took office. And there is no way. Even when he went to the Senate, wearing the amnesty on his head, ready to troll the PP and grab the spotlight (both on television and in parliament), Puigdemont started giving interviews in de facto president mode and filled the air with bombastic and plebiscitary phrases, leaving Aragonès trembling with interim status. The poor man can’t even keep up in his own party, where the Rufians and Junqueras steal the show at the slightest opportunity. There is no sadder figure in Spanish politics than Pere Aragonès. Blessed are the meek, says the Gospel of Matthew, and indeed, he does not have a fierce gesture at the podium, and his referendum threats sound naïve. Even if he were to fulfill them, others would take credit. It’s not bad to be meek. The problem is pretending to roar when all that comes out of you are meows and purrs. The world needs more meek and fewer bullfighters. Meek people who spread their calm instead of being swept away by the herd’s bravado. With half a dozen more like him in each party, the stormy waters that batter us daily would become a calm pond with little fish, and we would return to those distant times when politics was, alas, boring.
