CATALONIA TODAY 16 OPINION THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2008 PLATFORM COMMENTARY BY AGUSTÍ PONS.Writer BY CLAIRE AUBREY. Journalist Think you have problems? Iraq is our problem, too ive years since the invasion of Iraq and it is Try moving back to Britain hard to find anyone – whether the man on magine my horror from our previous flat (who the street or an expert – who does not when I discovered that cares that we wrote it our- think that the war has been a political and I haven’t existed for the selves in English and our es- Fhumanitarian disaster. From the outset this never past two and a half tate agent signed it?). In Cata- seemed a necessary war. There is such a thing as a years. I have no credit lonia we spoke to one Catalan just war, when intervention means bringing con- Irating, no previous address and had our phone line con- tinued hostilities to an end. Never mind Churchill and I haven’t earned a penny nected in a few days. In Britain and Chamberlain, you only have to look at the in all that time. You see, I’m a I spent 40 pounds and three Nato bombing campaign on the military facilities returning ex-pat, but as far as weeks getting a phone line of Belgrade, without which Slobodan Milosevic Britain is concerned I might as connected that only works in would still be in power and Kosovo would con- well have been on the moon. one of the two sockets. tinue to be terrorised by Serbian militias. Maybe it’s me, but I never ex- It’s not easy to go back, es- It is important to recognise that this is not an pected going back would be pecially when you told every- exoneration of Saddam Hussein, a dictator in the harder than moving to Cata- one that you would never re- mould of Stalin who did not hesitate to execute Remembrance of the demonstrations against the Iraq war lonia. turn and they believed you. dissidents or wipe out whole communities. But So why does Britain treat The fact that you are under the the words of Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz violence, the aim of which is to browbeat the inno- people who have lived abroad radar when you live in an- still hold true: “War is merely the continuation of cent, defenceless local population. It is this crimi- like lepers, but it’s as easy as other country is one thing, but politics by other means.” It cannot be denied that nal fanaticism whose anti-Western philosophy led loading an old Nissan with using it against you when you war forms part of wider political strategy, but what to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto or the can- everything you own and driv- try to do normal things on sort of strategy lies behind the ousting of Saddam cellation of the Paris-Dakar rally. Can we continue ing through France for a week your return is even worse. Hussein? If there ever was one, it failed as soon as to pretend that this conflict has nothing to do with to get into Catalonia? This has So why did we come back, I hostilities began. The US command, for example, us? to be a cultural difference, hear you wonder? Well, if you committed the same error as the leaders of the Sec- Seen from Catalonia and Spain as a whole, this namely that in Catalonia you want a truthful answer, for ca- ond Republic in the early days of the Spanish Civil obligation is even clearer. The contempt towards always know someone who reer opportunities and, if you War: disbanding the army. When a victorious the foreign policy of Prime Minister Rodríguez knows someone whose sec- want a half-truth, for the Franco entered a city, he did so with a list of mili- Zapatero comes from the way Spanish troops were ond cousin twice removed is superior television. tary, civil and political nominations. withdrawn from Iraq. That is not to legitimise married to girl who works in For those sitting in the However, now there is no going back and this former PM José Aznar’s decision to send troops to the same office as a person Catalan sunshine right now, war places obligations on all of us, especially in de- Iraq because, as I have already pointed out, this who can really help you out. complaining about how long mocratic Europe. There are two reasons for this. war was unnecessary. However, you cannot aban- In Britain you wait, and, you had to wait for this or that, The first is that it is impossible for us to stand aloof don a war as if leaving a queue at the cinema. For a ironically, you need the pa- remember that you could be to what happens in the US. The second reason is government to behave in such a manner is irre- tience of a Catalan to cope stuck in a 45-minute queue to because the terror in Iraq is not being perpetrated sponsible. It is time that here in Catalonia, we with the endless queues you a call centre several countries by American and British troops but by extreme opened our eyes and recognised that being an in- have to wade through to get a away, feeling your blood sectors in the Muslim community who find them- vader is not the same as being a terrorist and that perfectly simple service that pressure rocket and your pa- selves in conflict, especially those terrorist ele- the militants causing turmoil in Iraq are using the you are, in fact, paying for. My tience deteriorate. Let that ments associated with Al Qaeda. Even if you con- war as an opportunity to extend their message of husband and I had to apply for comforting thought wash sider the invasion as the base cause for this terror- death and destruction. So far, when walking a flat, even though we both over you and wipe away ism, nothing justifies the suicide attacks that cause around Catalonia’s city streets, I have yet to come had good jobs and a reference worries over “demà, demà.” the deaths of many victims, the kidnappings that across a demonstration against the massacres of end in the murder of the hostages and the general Iraqis by Islamist terrorists.

FRONT PAGES FROM HISTORY BY JOSEP BOSCH. www.josepbosch.net Dawn, Karachi, Pakistan - Saturday January 31, 1948

oday when the culture of viol- “You must not lose faith in humanity”, ence has deeply impregnated he also said. “Humanity is an ocean; if a society at all levels, to revindi- few drops of the ocean are dirty, the cate Mahatma Gandhi’s mess- ocean does not become dirty”. Tage of non-violence takes courage. But, His death came while he was going to perhaps, less than the courage he him- pray with scores of his followers. As this self showed throughout his entire life Pakistani newspaper reported: “A man and that earned him a reputation as a probably between 30 and 35 in a khaki man with an overwhelming degree of tunic, who was in the congregation, humanity, candour and goodness. fired four shots from a revolver at a Gandhi said that violence could only range of about two yards as Mahatma be effectively met by non-violence, since Gandhi was approaching”. He was shot non-violence is the greatest force at the in the chest and immediately collapsed. disposal of mankind and mightier than He died half an hour later. the mightiest weapon of destruction de- As the editorial in “Dawn” said: “Thus vised by man’s ingenuity. Violence, he has fallen one of the world’s greatest suggested, when it appeared to do good, men –a martyr to his convictions. Thus had only a temporary effect while the he also taught people never to bow to the ways of truth and love have always has ended the life of the greatest Hindu evil it did was permanent. And he con- anyone, even at the cost of their lives. won. There have been tyrants and mur- of modern times – at the point of a tended that “an eye for an eye only ends And he trusted in humankind’s best derers and for a time they can seem in- Hindu’s revolver”. But Gandhi’s mess- up making the whole world blind”. Yet, qualities saying that “all through history vincible, but in the end they always fall.” age had to live on.