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INTERVIEW

JOSEP BENET, A MAN FOR

THEHISTORIAN, POLITICIAN AND LAWYER JOSEPBENET 1 MORELL(b. , 1920) WAS HONOURED ON 12 DECEMBER199 1 ON THE OCCASION OF HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY. THEBOOK MISCEL.LANIAD'HOMENATGE A JOSEP BENET,PUBLISHED BY PUBLICACIONSDE L'ABADIA DE , WAS PRESENTED AT THE CELEBRATION, WHICH WAS HELD AT THE IL-LUSTRE COL-LEGI D'ADVOCATS DE .JOSEP BENET IS ONE OF THE MOST REPRESENTATIVE CATALANSIN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE DICTATORSHIP AND THE RECOVERY OF CATALONIA'SDEMOCRATIC AND NATIONAL LIBERTIES. HIS COURAGEOUS DEFENCE OF OUR CULTURAL IDENTITY AND HIS RECOGNIZED MORAL AUTHORITY MAKE HIM AN EXEMPLARY FIGURE NOT ONLY FOR THE CATALANSBUT FOR ALL THOSE PEOPLES WHO ARE FIGHTING FOR THEIR DIGNITY. JOSEPBENET IS CURRENTLY DIRECTOR OF THE CENTREDIHISTORIA CONTEMPO&NIA DE CATAL UNYA. INTERVIEW

osep Benet is a key figure for -1n 1939, as a young man, you and a to provoke World War ZI seemed inde- understanding the character of few others carried on a dangerous strug- structible; the danger was absolute. Lcontemporary Catalonia. Since gle for the survival of Catalonia. the end of the , 1936- -Following the defeat as a consequence -When did the first contacts take place 1939, we find him involved in al1 the of the military occupation by General with a joint plural opposition, other acts of opposition to the Franco dicta- Franco's troops, a policy of cultural ge- than individual moves? torship. A dictatorship which, amongst nocide was followed in Catalonia. Gen- -Most of the intellectual and even tech- its undisguised objectives, apart from eral Franco's régime initially was totali- nical formations in Catalonia went into defending a society of privileges in the tarian, established on the basis of the exile: to , to many American Spanish state in a country which was totalitarian régimes of the time, Nazism countries and especially to Mexico. This considerably backward as regards the and . Democratic liberties were is something that will leave its mark on rest of , was set on making ag- lost here as in the rest of . Interna- the for a long time, gressive the basis tional aid allowed the Franco régime an because most of these people died in of the of the Catalan unconditional victory. You have to re- exile. The -which was language and culture. member that the régimes that were later banned in al1 public use- found refuge in INTERVIEW

Josep Benet

these countries, mainly in the publica- -0f course. On one hand what we did tion of books, magazines and news- was to join in the open fight of the allies papers. against Fascism, of the resistance against the information services, and on -Before the military uprising, Catalonia the other, later on, to take advantage of was a country that had almost been nor- EXlLl I MORT these contacts to publicize the case of malized culturally. Catalonia. -Yes, you could say that. As regards DEL press, radio, translation, etc., it would be PRESIDENT COMPANYS -You were a key figure in this work. true to say that the Catalan world was -Perhaps so, because my work as a law- that of a flourishing culture. Which yer allowed it. At that time I was secre- makes this policy of cultural genocide tary to Fklix Millet, one of the people even worse. with most international contacts. Re- When World War 11 started, people who member that in the forties the only news- were active inside Catalonia in spite of papers available came from Nazi-Fascist the brutal repression of those years states. A newspaper as unrevolutionary shared in the general idea that the Cata- as La Croix was banned. You can im- lan problem was the sume as al1 those looked to Northern Europe for its agine the rest. others who were fighting for democratic model? We had to pass out information on what freedom. That's why so many people ac- -From the very beginning, Catalonia was happening inside the country and tive in the Resistance were arrested and has always looked towards Europe. This bring in newspapers from outside so that sent to Nazi concentration camps, where has been so in al1 spheres. If we think of people wouldn't come to accept what was thousands of them were to die. In other the art world, its centre was Paris, and happening as normal. words, Catalanism didn't restrict itself not , obviously. The great names to this count6, it joined in 's in Catalan painting mude themselves -As a broad-minded Republican Catho- fight against Nazi-Fascism. known in Paris. Picasso, Miró, Casas, lic, you were constantly trying to bring Nonell, etc. are proof that they went to together the working-classes and the -Has the Catalan national issue always Paris for consecration, the cultural cap- Church, which gradually grew away manifested itself pacifically, by the way ital of the world at that time. The sume from the Franco régime. of integration? goes for literature. -Yes. We wanted to publicize the case of -This has been a characteristic of its Catalonia. We attended the Internatio- entire history. Political Catalanism, -Without formal or democratic liber- nal Congresses whenever we could. For which was born more than a hundred ties, how did Catalonia manage to example, I went to the talks organised by years ago, has always shown solidarity maintain a modern cultural level, with Florence City Council. At the sume time, for those peoples who demand theirfree- hostility from the state on top of every- we found out what was happening in the dom. With Greece, for example, when thing else? world of ideas and told our people about Crete was fighting to -itselffrom the - Very often through translations, and it. Al1 these international contacts mude Turkish yoke, this provoked hostility on later thanks to visits to Europe. A lot of for contacts between members of al1 the the part of Spanish nationalism, but also peoplefrom the world of Catalan culture parties. But we had great difficultyget- the fact that in Europe people realised had never been to Madrid, but had ting to the Vatican and giving them di- that there was a very important national strong links with Paris, where they went rect information about what Franco's problem in Spain, and that unless it was insearch of more open-minded intellec- dictatorship was and what its attitude solved there couldn't be a normal situa- tual positions. You have to in mind was towards the . We were boy- tion in the Spanish state. This was al- that the participation of Catalan volun- cotted by Spanish prelates who were on ready obvious to Le Journal de Génkve teers in World War I was for the sume Franco's side, and who from the state a hundred years ago, when it said that reason. In the French army, with the secretariat prevented our reports from another European issue was that of Belgian information services. Catalan- getting through. We got round this cen- Catalonia. The Catalan question has al- ism has always wanted to be present on sorship by means of the press. A Cata- ways been present to a greater or lesser the international scene. lan, Monsignor Bonet, said to us, "the extent in the international context. Pope reads Le Monde every day". After -1s this behind its contacts with the in- that, a lot of our efforts were directed at -Has historical Catalanism always ternational press? making sure this newspaper reported on INTERVIEW

our situation. We avoided the Church -What was the Assemblea de Catalu- being used against Catalonia. Zn al1 nya? these years, not one Catalan bishop was -Zt was another sign of the rime, a move- appointed the bishops that were appoin- ment with special characteristics. Tak- ted were not only outsiders, they were ing part were clandestine organisations also Francoists. It was essential then to along with organisations that were tol- consolidate our contacts with the leading erated and others that were totally legal journalists of the international press. like the Professional Associations. It was Which we did, to explain the truth about exemplary; it allowed this coexistente the situation in Catalonia and Spain that later showed itself in Catalan poli- and to activate communications and tics, and at the sume time it was a politi- open ideas. cal training ground. Zt was also a mani- festation of the Catalan people's jight -The younger generations have always against the Franco régime to recover de- presented you as the link between the mocratic liberties and once more retrieve Republican period and the period of the Catalan autonomy stolen as a result recovery of democracy and autonomy. of the civil war. Without this great move- -Those of us who did what we did was -What kind of country is this that cre- ment, the political transition in Spain because of what we had lived through. ates a parallel country to the official would have been different. When Fran- There were very few of us left in the one, from Catalan schooling to clandes- co died, the Assemblea de Catalunya sixties; a lot of people had died because tine cutural institutions? alone was able to mobilize thousands of the repression or exile. So we had to -Catalan was forbidden, but we needed of people. This gave Catalonia a lot of form the bridge, so that people would teachers, educators, etc., and al1 this was political weight at the beginning of the know about the past and have an idea of done clandestinely. Zt was done through transition. what the country had been. To avoid cultural and recreational organisations, political sectarianism from imposing the Church, or in private homes. And so -And the neighbourhood movements? itself: at the end of the Franco era thousands of -There's been nothing like them in Eu- people appeared who had been formed rope or Spain. That was quite unique -After the resistance to the worst of the clandestinely. Zt's something very inter- too. From Barcelona it spread al1 over Franco years came the time to build. esting and not very well-known; a peo- the country. Helped by the clandestine - We had two objectives. To resist al1 we ple's Jight to teach and learn its lan- political parties, it was very much a could and also to reconstruct the guage in clandestinity. grass-roots movernent. It helped stimu- country. Francoism lost the little politi- late people's awareness, not only of the cal hegemony it could have had at the -And what was this struggle like, bear- need for political change, but also of the beginning of the sixties. You could say ing in mind that Catalonia had a large need to take part directly in local poli- that Francoism in Catalonia was socio- non-Catalan immigrant population? tics, from which we were absent. By giv- logical, strongly marked or produced by -The arrival of thousands of people who ing the population access to municipal the trauma of the civil war. didn't speak the language of the country democratic life, very often it was possible Reconstructing the country in al1 its as- was a problem. A language that wasn't for them to take on posts of responsibi- pects was vital; it was what was called present in schools or in any of the media. lity in the democratic Town Halls. They 'Ifer país" in every possible jield. From There was a danger that two communi- were important in halting the savage publishing clandestine books and news- ties might be formed. Luckily, the right speculation, both in tourist areas and in papers to promoting popular and mo- approach was found. The political par- the cities. dern music, the choral movement, and ties and trade unions in clandestinity gradually occupying what we called acted in such a way that, while respect- A prestigious Italian journalist, Angelo areas of freedom. Zt had to be done ing the rights of the people who came to del Boca, wrote at the end of the fifties during those years so that the younger Catalonia from al1 over Spain, at the of Josep Benet disappearing into the generations, who had been brought up sume time these people learned the lan- labyrinth of streets in the old quarter of under Francoism, would realise that the guage and culture of the country that Barcelona, on his way to another resis- frontiers had been opened and that the was to be their homejiom then on. This tance task. More than thirty years later, way to the world wasn't the way of Fran- case has gradually been resolved in a this is still an accurate description of his coism. peaceful and civilized manner. life.