Toni Comin

This au­thor was re­cently at the pre­sen­ta­tion of Toni Comin’s new book “Cartes des del cor d’Eu­ropa” (Let­ters from the heart of Eu­rope), which was at­tended on­line by this multi-lay­ered politi­cian. Along with his pals from the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment, Car­les Puigde­mont and Clara Pon­satí, he may best re­flect the Cata­lan in­de­pen­dence drive. Rather than being “un Català de soca rel” (a Cata­lan with deep old roots), he pos­si­bly bet­ter rep­re­sents a so­ci­ety as mul­ti­di­men­sional as Cat­alo­nia’s is, where more than half of its cit­i­zens have roots out­side the land, from Spain, es­pe­cially, and be­yond.

In­deed, Comin’s fa­ther, was raised in a tra­di­tion­al­ist fam­ily in next-door Zaragoza, ar­guably one of the most con­ser­v­a­tive parts of Spain, and, for that mat­ter, with a pub­lic opin­ion as anti-Cata­lan as you can find. Against all odds, Comín turned into one of the key fig­ures of anti-fas­cism and Cata­lanism, set­tling here after grad­u­at­ing in en­gi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­sity of Barcelona. Hav­ing paid with prison and tor­ture, today, telling of his lead­er­ship, stature, and par­tic­u­larly of his con­sen­sual fig­ure, there is the “Plaça Al­fonso Comin”, a ded­i­cated square in Barcelona.

Toni Comin has also ex­pe­ri­enced the cruel and venge­ful na­ture of Madrid, push­ing him into an exile of six years so far. Leu­ven is his cur­rent res­i­dence, where he lives with his male part­ner and their only daugh­ter, born in exile. It is an exile mocked by some be­cause it (sup­pos­edly) has no place in a (sup­posed) democ­racy. Yet it in­volves no minor sac­ri­fices on the per­sonal level, be­yond those on the pro­fes­sional and po­lit­i­cal lev­els. For in­stance, he went through the early loss of his brother and, more re­cently, of his beloved mother (also a coura­geous fighter against op­pres­sors); both of whom had moved to Leu­ven to spend the end of the lives to­gether.

Comin’s join­ing the pro-in­de­pen­dence move­ment comes out the aver­sion of Madrid to ac­com­mo­date Cat­alo­nia’s na­tion­hood. For Cat­alo­nia was ask­ing, back in the 2000s, some­thing that Eu­skadi and Navarra were granted after the dic­ta­tor­ship for­mally ended, a “primus inter pares”, in­clud­ing a fair fis­cal bal­ance with Madrid. The umpteenth of the state’s murky games came dur­ing the failed ne­go­ti­a­tions of the Cata­lan “Es­tatut”, or Con­sti­tu­tion (2004-06), fol­lowed by for the Cata­lan So­cial­ists, a fed­er­al­ist out­let of the more Ja­cobin Span­ish ver­sion.

Hav­ing seen first-hand Spain’s ever­last­ing Cata­lanopho­bic po­lit­i­cal at­ti­tude, Comin joined Es­querra Re­pub­li­cana de Catalunya (Cat­alo­nia’s Re­pub­li­can Party), one of the two main po­lit­i­cal par­ties that, after the mass ral­lies call­ing for in­de­pen­dence from some 13 years ago, ac­tively de­fended the need of state­hood. He be­came Cata­lan health min­is­ter in 2016, propos­ing a pro­gres­sive so­cial agenda, pro­mot­ing equal­ity in ac­cess to health and sta­bil­ity for health staff. His tenure was cut short when Cata­lan in­sti­tu­tions were sup­pressed by Madrid after the in­de­pen­dence ref­er­en­dum on Oc­to­ber1, 2017, was held against all the odds.

Comin, and his col­leagues from the Cata­lan gov­ern­ment, knew what was ahead, be­yond the con­stant bul­ly­ing from Madrid’s servile media; their choice was un­am­bigu­ous, prison or exile. Yet he kept on, strong­minded like his fa­ther, moved by firm de­mo­c­ra­tic con­vic­tions. Fur­ther­more, be­liev­ing that po­lit­i­cal taboos have no place in a democ­racy; in fact, dur­ing the gloomy years of Basque and state ter­ror­ism, Madrid had the motto that “every­thing was on the table if pro­jected peace­fully”. Ob­vi­ously, that was just an il­lu­sion, pure rhetoric from a po­lit­i­cal mind­set that sees the Cata­lan speak­ing re­gions as war booty rather than po­lit­i­cal sub­jects. Yet let’s con­clude with a hap­pier and in­spir­ing note from his exile: https://​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=2kP​8HCp​p5to