This is a
translation (by MS) of the excellent article "La posverdad
suprema", by Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca, published in La Vanguardia on
September 21 2018. I hope the newspaper and the author don’t mind.
The Supreme Post-Truth
Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca
01/09/2018 00:56 | Updated 01/09/2018 10:57
Post-truth can be defined as a certain indifference to the facts. The term is used above all to refer to the phenomenon of false popular beliefs: the image of post-truth that has been installed in the media is that of ignorant masses deceived by demagogical politicians through the social networks.
However,
the phenomenon of indifference to the truth is also perceived in the
highest spheres, in the exercise of power; it is a constant
throughout political history. One of the purest examples of
post-truth in recent times was the US decision. to attack Iraq. The
George W. Bush administration locked itself in its shell, eliminating
any source of information that was not in favour of its plans. The
internal control mechanisms failed and reality was disregarded:
there was no evidence of the famous weapons of mass destruction nor a
minimally consistent plan for the reconstruction of the country. The
result was catastrophic: Iraq succumbed to a frightful civil war from
which the insurgency of the IS arose.
Post-truth is the consequence of an "epistemic isolation": a more or less broad group of people shares certain ideas without submitting themselves to the reality principle. The more closed the group is, the more refractory it becomes to facing the truth. The reasons for this closure are very varied, from ideological sectarianism to corporate spirit, in which trust does not go beyond the limits of a professional body.
In these moments, the corporate and ideological post-truth is incarnated in an outstanding way in our Supreme Court and its determination to maintain the accusation of rebellion against the political leaders of the Catalan independence movement. Trying to fit the behaviours of the "hot autumn" of 2017 in the criminal type of rebellion is contrary to logic, common sense and Spanish law itself. The strategy followed in the investigation of the case amounts to a profound degradation of our legal system: seldom has the way ideological and political prejudices are imposed over a rational and impartial consideration of the facts been seen with such clarity .
The Supreme Court has got into its own epistemic bubble. The criminal type of the rebellion requires a "violent and public uprising". In order to speak of rebellion in the Catalan case, it is necessary to slide down a slope that ends up assimilating the events of last autumn to the attempted coup d'etat of February 23, 1981. But while coups d'état always entail violence (de facto or in the form of coercive threat), what happened in the months of September and October of 2017 does not fit in, however you look at it, with a "violent uprising".
The accusation of rebellion not only lacks empirical support, for the violence required by the Penal Code did not take place, but it also reveals a very poor conception of democracy, confusing protest, resistance and disobedience with insurrectional violence. In a healthy democracy, protest and disobedience, although they may on occasion degenerate into some violent behaviour in the streets, are not criminalized as if it were a coup d'état. Only by twisting the facts and distorting the concepts can the cause be kept up for the crime of rebellion. The judges have come to use the police repression that occurred on October 1 as proof of the violence of the independence movement. With great irony, it should be noted that the arguments handled by the Supreme Court judges about the phantasmagorical violence of the procés would delight those postmodernists who see ubiquitous violence in social life.
If the judges' reasoning on the Catalan rebellion were stripped of their institutional authority, they would not resist a minimum logical examination in the public sphere. The accusation of rebellion is so extravagant that it could even be a mockery, were not for the fact that there are politicians in jail. It is only possible to explain the position taken by the Supreme Court as a mixture of corporatism, arrogance and wounded national pride. They have set out to teach an exemplary lesson to the independence movement leaders, a punishment that makes clear to future generations the risk they run if someone tries a unilateral rupturist strategy again.
The Supreme Court is one of the most conservative institutions of the Spanish constitutional system. Its members are often chosen in view of political criteria rather than merit and professional ability. The Popular Party has controlled the General Council of the Judiciary for many years and has managed to get the Supreme Court really veared to the right. Moreover, the climate of Spanish politics allows judges to act arbitrarily and ideologically, since the mechanisms that induce a level of self-control by the Court are not operative. These mechanisms have to do with the fear of the political and social reactions that their decisions may arouse. In the current situation, the parties of the right, the main Spanish media, many intellectuals and an overwhelming majority of the public opinion are in favour of the imprisonment of those accused of rebellion. In these conditions, the judges feel unpunishable. Nothing stops them. They are willing to further deteriorate the democratic reputation of Spain, since the punishment for the challenge to the unity of Spain seems to them to be above all other considerations. To stop the nonsense and the injustice that is being committed with the accusations of rebellion, it would take a civil society to take seriously the fact that in a democracy it is inadmissible to judge some politicians for deeds they have not committed. We are not there yet.
Please visit http://miquelstrubell.blogspot.com/2018/02/opinons-de-diferents-juristges-sobre-la.html (in Catalan and Spanish)
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