Jaume Perich left us a definition that portrays very effectively a sure Catalan, Spanish and common proper.
Jaume Perich left us a definition that portrays very effectively a sure Catalan, Spanish and common proper. "Order: one thing that must be maintained as it's, which is how it's normally maintained."
It's a definition that makes you consider Villarejo and the patriotic police, however which additionally matches the perspective of FrancescCambó in three key moments: in 1909, after the Tragical Week, when he defended the repressive coverage and the motion of the navy courts; in 1923, when he consented to Primo de Rivera's coup d'état, and in 1936, when he supported Franco's rebellion. In all three, Cambó – and, with him, the League – sided with those that, as a way to keep order, subverted it.
Within the masterful biography Francesc Cambó, the final portrait, Borja de Riquer describes him as a politician who was all the time conscious of who he represented. He knew that he was performing on behalf of a bourgeoisie that felt deeply Catalan, however that was conservative and Catholic, a bourgeoisie that aspired to modernize Spain so as to have the ability to unfold its financial potential, however that above all needed there to be peace within the streets and in factories.
Borja de Riquer describes Cambó's complicated relations with Alfonso XIII, riddled with misunderstandings. In 1913, Cambó tried to persuade the monarch of the deserves of the Commonwealth undertaking, presenting it as innocent to the integrity of the Spanish nation and saying that it was solely a query of permitting Barcelona's surplus assets for use for the opposite three Catalan provinces. Alfonso XIII replied that he noticed no inconvenience, however why did not they type a Commonwealth between Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Huesca, for instance, leaving out Tarragona? So nobody may say that they endangered the unity of Spain. Pissed off, Cambó, who did not have a lot of a left hand, instructed him that it was nonsense. Understandably, the connection between the 2 cooled.
In 1922, Alfonso XIII supplied him the presidency of the federal government on one situation: that he surrender his position on the head of conservative Catalan nationalism (and, it have to be understood, that he cease selling autonomy). Cambó not solely refused the provide, however was offended. Alfonso XIII will need to have been perplexed. He was providing energy to a person who had fought all his life to get it. However Cambó was not the standard politician of the Restoration, prepared to vary his place when it suited him. If he gave up persevering with to behave as chief of the League, he would lose his political base, the one actual energy he had.
Cambó was a politician of remarkable stature and administration capability, deeply regenerationist, and studying his biography one can not keep away from the sensation that, if he had had the chance, he would have succeeded in modernizing Spain. However the potential to maneuver that characterised him turned towards him.
In Catalonia, many thought of him a traitor, even though he obtained the central authorities to just accept the Commonwealth and all the time defended a statute of autonomy to go additional, and regardless of every thing he did for Catalan tradition, with a piece of patronage unprecedented till then and by no means repeated.
In Madrid, regardless of the a whole lot of speeches in Congress projecting the imaginative and prescient of a robust Catalonia inside a affluent and trendy Spain, they noticed him as a harmful independenceist.
Riquer's biography brims with present resonances: the confrontations between republican Catalanism and the League; the discussions between the possibilist sector of the League, in favor of intervening in Spanish politics to attain the Commonwealth as a primary step, and the extra fundamentalist sector, which thought of it too little and didn't need to play politics in Madrid; the discussions on the Barcelona Metropolis Council each time Alfonso XIII visited town. At present's issues usually are not the identical as yesterday's, however there are moments which might be eerily related.
The regulation enforcement by no means thanked Cambó for his help. The indifference with which the Francoist institution handled him, throughout and after the warfare, makes us consider Luis Berlanga and the salesperson of computerized doorways from La escopeta nacional. They took his hair from day one. The extra he contributed to the success of the trigger – with political help, with cash, with a community of knowledge outdoors – the extra they laughed at him and the extra they humiliated him (him and all those that adopted him , similar to Josep Pla or Gaziel).
His naivety is shocking. The documentation supplied by De Riquer is irrevocable. Cambó hoped that, when it got here to governing, the insurgents would name on the League to show Spain right into a affluent nation. He left it written in his Diary and in quite a few letters. Holy innocence: He believed that, after the warfare, Franco would cede energy to him, that he would restrict himself to being the dangerous cop and ask him to be the great cop. He didn't perceive that for Franco the precedence was to retain energy, not for Spain to be a contemporary and affluent nation. In change for his or her help, Cambó and the League solely managed to get Franco to abolish Catalonia's autonomy, to launch a fierce marketing campaign towards Catalan and to sentence them to a tragic silence. Of enterprise, they might do as many as they needed. However politics, no.
What would have occurred if Cambó and his individuals had had just a little extra clairvoyance, if they'd thought of that, as a way to protect order, it was first essential to respect it and had remained devoted to the Republic, with out departing from the constitutional framework present?
Possibly nothing would have modified. In spite of everything, Cambó and the League weren't the basic items of the desk. Or possibly it's. Maybe historical past – the unhappy historical past of these years – would have gone down a distinct path. Who is aware of. However in the present day the determine of Cambó would shine with a greatness that he misplaced ceaselessly the day he supported Franco.
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