The situation in Catalonia is reaching unsustainable extremes of absurdity. It's incomprehensible that at this stage of the conflict in Catalonia an activist is interviewed on television being described as anti-fascist and, speaking of critics of the independence movement, calls to "Identify them", "keep them under control", "find where they work", "point them out" , "pressure them in their work", "make their life more uncomfortable and difficult" so that "they cannot be at peace", because "their ideas are dangerous" and "they can't be allowed to express theirselves freely" while a presenter and several talk companions nod respectfully as if they were listening to the list of human rights read by Nelson Mandela himself.

Because that's what happened on TV3 last week in the Planta baixa show. The interviewee was Pol Andiñach, journalist, author of the book Everyone can be anti-fascist, although for that matter the book could have been titled Everyone can be fascist, since the techniques he described were widely used 80 years ago in Germany against the Jewish population. The interviewer, Maiol Roger, solicitously added that "hidden behind this presumed constitutionalism are fascists", and warned viewers that the tactics to be announced were illegal, although neither he nor any of the commentators criticized them. It must be taken into account that both in TV3 and in the Catalan independence movement in general, something being illegal doesn't necessarily mean that it should't be done, but rather that you have to be careful, since in the Catalan independence movement one of the usual mantras is that unfair laws (understood as those that can be an obstacle to independence goals) must be disobeyed.

At the height of the absurdity, while this Antiñach (how that ñ must sting in his last name!) stated that "they shouldn't be allowed to freely express their ideas", TV3 showed images of the yellow plastics that the cleaning brigades had removed from the public thoroughfare and had deposited in the Plaza Sant Jaume in front of the balcony of the Generalitat, in which a poster hypocritically defended "Freedom of expression and opinion: Article 19 of the universal declaration of human rights". A contradiction that nobody on TV3 knew how to see.

Interview cut (Source - Dolça Catalunya)

But Nazism is not the only antecedent to the phenomenon i'm pointing out. The headline of this article is quite explicit: I'm talking about the famous McCarthyism Witch Hunt. In 1950 and for six years, American Senator Joseph McCarthy carried out a relentless pursuit of Communist agents on American soil. Anyone could be accused of being a communist. The term was so misrepresented (like fascism today) that being a communist was equated with being "unpatriotic". The media invited people to denounce their neighbor at the slightest sign of communist tendencies, and to disagree with the ruling regime was already enough indication to be considered a "bad citizen". The presumption of innocence disappeared and the accused was the one who had the responsibility to demonstrate the highest degree of patriotism possible so as not to be labeled a communist. If he could not clear the doubts, the only possibility to clean his image was to expose alleged communist collaborators. In most cases the defendants were not really communists, and it was enough to dislike a powerful person to receive an accusation that provoked furious reactions in the population exacerbated by propaganda in the media.

Change the "communist" of the McCarthy regime for the "fascist" of the Catalan independence regime. The phenomenon is the same. Psychosis is very high, but where it reaches its maximum degree is in small towns, where the visibility of nationalism is hegemonic and the dissent is silent out of fear. For the independentists, defending a stellate flag in a roundabout is key, since the dissenting party has to think that the entire town is hostile to him. "We are not afraid!" the nationalists shout in the streets. They are right. It's the dissenters who have are, scared at the idea that one day at their doorstep, the Repression Commands, the brown shirts of our days, will take a bite out of them.

The nonsense that no one, apparently, sees the hypocrisy that I have just described would not be understood without the propaganda machinery of TV3, which tirelessly issues its style book day after day so that black appears white and white appears black.

Will the credibility breaking point ever be reached? Will there come a time when the independentista viewer of TV3 begins to feel uncomfortable because something does not fit him? It's evident that until now they don't need to exercise gray matter, since TV3 gives it everything already thought out, but will a viewer ever get up from his chair and look up (if only out of curiosity) the word fascism in a dictionary (or even the wikipedia itself)? Perhaps he'll will be surprised when he read the list of characteristics of such an ideology, the harassment of dissenters, the propaganda in the media, the indoctrination in schools, the directed culture, the rights of "the land" before those of the citizens..? Will his world feel reeling and suffer an epiphany? Probably not. He'll surely sit back in his chair, consume another couple of hours on TV3 and Catalunya Radio and let himself be lulled by the regime's media, who'll tell him that everything is fine, that his side is the right one, that victory is within reach of the hand (as they have been telling him since 2012) and that with the advent of the nation he'll be able to stop feeling restless because happiness and calm will finally come.

Although the dissenting ones won't have a place in that future. Because that's what witch hunts are for.