Jaume Roures

Read­ers of La República have voted Jaume Roures Re­pub­li­can of the Year, the film pro­ducer pip­ping cook Ada Par­el­lada and foot­ball coach Pep Guardi­ola to the award. His pro-ref­er­en­dum stance and de­fence of po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers, but as a non-in­de­pen­dence sup­porter, make him a much lis­tened to voice in cir­cles that ex­tend well be­yond the pro-sov­er­eignty and even re­pub­li­can spheres. Re­spon­si­ble as ei­ther di­rec­tor or pro­ducer for the doc­u­men­taries Les claveg­ueres d’In­te­rior (The Sew­ers of the In­te­rior Min­istry) and those ded­i­cated to the events of 1-O and 20-S, Roures has of­fered a coun­ter­point to the of­fi­cial his­tory being im­posed by the four pow­ers of the Span­ish state. From his Me­di­apro watch­tower, Roures has been and con­tin­ues to be one of the cen­tral char­ac­ters in the evo­lu­tion of the media land­scape in re­la­tion to Eu­rope. How­ever, our con­ver­sa­tion fo­cuses mainly on these del­i­cate po­lit­i­cal times in Cat­alo­nia.

Your doc­u­men­tary Les claveg­ueres d’In­te­rior was first shown in May 2017. In hind­sight, it only re­vealed a lit­tle of the quag­mire. Was that also your per­cep­tion when you made the doc­u­men­tary?

We had many per­cep­tions, but we only had the ev­i­dence we showed, be­cause if you don’t want to lose cred­i­bil­ity from a jour­nal­is­tic point of view, you can only base your work on what you have. We showed what we had that was cor­rob­o­rated by the po­lice. Be­cause, let’s not kid our­selves, what gives this doc­u­men­tary its power are the state­ments by the po­lice. We’re now work­ing on the sec­ond part, in­ves­ti­gat­ing who fi­nanced every­thing be­yond the money from the Min­istry of the In­te­rior. In ini­tial con­ver­sa­tions, we’ve al­ready seen that large pri­vate com­pa­nies are in­volved, and we’re now work­ing on this issue.

How is it pos­si­ble to build up a para-of­fi­cial es­pi­onage net­work of such mag­ni­tude?

The theme of state sew­ers is not one we’ve just dis­cov­ered, but has been re­cur­rent through­out this cen­tury and be­fore. The theme ex­ists and I don’t want to say that it will con­tinue to exist be­cause I still trust in hu­man­ity, but it ex­ists, also be­cause from the out­side it is un­der­stood that we al­ready know things hap­pen that mean the state has to have sew­ers. Politi­cians, judges and even jour­nal­ists think this. To put it bluntly, many see the case of Vil­larejo as being nec­es­sary. That is, they pun­ish him but in the end he is part of dirty wars that are ul­ti­mately nec­es­sary. There are peo­ple who argue that there is no state if there are no sew­ers. That’s the worst thing about it.

If that’s the dom­i­nant view, how can a state be made with­out sew­ers?

Well, the de­mo­c­ra­tic, po­lice and ju­di­cial mech­a­nisms must serve to fight them. But the sit­u­a­tion is that in gen­eral, so­ci­ety ac­cepts that sew­ers must exist. After our doc­u­men­tary, they ei­ther had to throw us or them in jail. But noth­ing has hap­pened, and Vil­larejo even turns out to be a nice guy.

Be­fore there was this hypocrisy, at least in pub­lic opin­ion, of ac­cept­ing that the sew­ers ex­isted but were kept quiet. But today there’s a scan­dal and every­thing stays the same. What has to change to make peo­ple react?

I think that it’s the re­sult of a long lack of a de­mo­c­ra­tic cul­ture. After the dic­ta­tor­ship, not only are there cer­tain ap­pa­ra­tuses of the state that have not been touched, but also the un­der­stand­ing that peo­ple have about what free­doms and democ­racy are is very lim­ited. This is the prob­lem, and we see it now with the Cata­lan issue. We tried to show the doc­u­men­tary about 1-O in Madrid and the man from the PP there comes out and says that it shouldn’t be shown. The same hap­pened with Julio Medem and La pelota Vasca. Be­fore it pre­miered it had al­ready been con­demned, be­cause it gave a voice to all par­ties in the con­flict. This should not hap­pen in a democ­racy. Some­one can re­lease their doc­u­men­tary and the man from the PP who doesn’t like it should have to show the footage from cam­eras on the po­lice hel­mets and try to show that the po­lice were the ones being at­tacked by our grand­par­ents and our chil­dren.

Why are there no doc­u­men­taries that show the op­po­site to yours?

Be­cause they can’t exist. It’s like the one on Sep­tem­ber 20. I find it hi­lar­i­ous that they tell me that the ones we make are “bi­ased”. I don’t know who they’re bi­ased to­wards, but then why don’t they do the same? Be­cause it’s about stop­ping ours from being seen. And here, be­yond the po­lit­i­cal stance, it’s about cen­sor­ship. It’s not about con­fronting and dis­cussing, the point is that you do not hear dif­fer­ent opin­ions. This is a very se­ri­ous issue.

But isn’t cen­sor­ing a doc­u­men­tary that can be up­loaded to YouTube a lit­tle like twen­ti­eth-cen­tury think­ing?

Yes, but in the end they get away with it. It’s not the same see­ing it at home on YouTube and talk­ing to your fam­ily about it as mak­ing it pos­si­ble to broad­cast it on tele­vi­sion, where it will have greater reper­cus­sions. There is free­dom of ex­pres­sion, but you don’t have a mi­cro­phone, which means that free­dom of ex­pres­sion is very lim­ited. Look at the scan­dal with the pro­gramme In­forme Se­m­anal and Jun­queras. We pre­vi­ously made a se­ries called Phi­los­o­phy in prison, and we went to prison and met pris­on­ers and they talked to the cam­era! And it’s al­ways been pos­si­ble to speak with pris­on­ers! In this case, the crit­i­cism is “How can you think about giv­ing a voice to some­one in prison?” Well we al­ways have. What do they want? They don’t want this voice to be heard.

The level of tol­er­ance in Spain with phe­nom­ena such as sew­ers or cen­sor­ship doesn’t seem to be ap­plic­a­ble to Cat­alo­nia. Are there dif­fer­ences be­tween Span­ish and Cata­lan pub­lic opin­ion?

Well, here we’ve had the so-called Cata­lan Oasis, and 3% and lots of other scan­dals...

Yes, but those scan­dals have led to the most re­spon­si­ble party dis­ap­pear­ing off the scene, for ex­am­ple.

What I mean is that we’re not that much more open and more de­mo­c­ra­tic than those in Spain. Yes, it is true that here there has been an evo­lu­tion that makes us focus on things more openly.

Even though it touches on other sub­jects, the doc­u­men­tary Les claveg­ueres d’In­te­rior was very much fo­cused on Cat­alo­nia. Now we see that no one comes out un­scathed. Is there any­one who can feel safe in Spain?

No­body can feel safe, but not just here, any­where in the world. Un­for­tu­nately, the sew­ers have now opened up and now every­thing is done openly, with ev­i­dence being in­vented as nec­es­sary. We have made a qual­i­ta­tive leap down­wards and the whole state ap­pa­ra­tus de­fends these po­si­tions by ap­peal­ing to ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence when if jus­tice were in­de­pen­dent, they wouldn’t have done every­thing they’ve done up to now. It’s ob­vi­ous that they [the judges] are ei­ther being guided po­lit­i­cally by the gov­ern­ment or the party that was in gov­ern­ment, or im­pos­ing their own po­lit­i­cal and ide­o­log­i­cal be­liefs on legal re­al­ity. Now we’re mak­ing a doc­u­men­tary about the judges, and what do we find? If you re­mem­ber the doc­u­men­tary on 20-S, the for­mer con­sti­tu­tional court lawyer Joaquín Urías said that of 250 law pro­fes­sors, 240 say that the ac­cu­sa­tions do not hold up. We went to look for all of them. But even those who say that this is all non­sense add: “But, well, you know what these guys are like...” Why? Firstly, be­cause there is this huge ide­o­log­i­cal and po­lit­i­cal weight, and sec­ondly, be­cause the pres­sure is un­sus­tain­able, and we need to be aware of this. The pres­sure on the Span­ish peo­ple re­gard­ing the Cata­lan issue means that those who sym­pa­thise with us, whether de­moc­rats, or those that think we should have the right to vote or that the re­pres­sion on 1-O was bar­baric, do not dare to ex­press it. If you ex­press it every­one will jump on you, and that’s re­ally messed up.

Is that what can carry weight when re­con­sid­er­ing some po­si­tions of the pow­ers of the state re­gard­ing the ju­di­cial process?

I think the judg­ment is al­ready made. It’s just a mat­ter of pass­ing sen­tence. The point is that even if the PSOE wanted to do some­thing about it, the pres­sure being ex­erted by the PP, C’s and now Vox is suf­fo­cat­ing. The day Min­is­ter Celaá came out and re­vived the idea of the im­ages from Oc­to­ber 1 being false, why do that? Be­cause they have to prove they’re not on the other side. We have to be aware of these things.

Is the issue of the pris­on­ers and ju­di­cial con­se­quences the basic ob­sta­cle to a de­gree of de­tente?

Ab­solutely. But what’s also hap­pen­ing is that the greater the prob­lems are, the more ca­pac­ity is re­quired to face them. In this re­spect, the pris­on­ers can­not be­come the ex­cuse, be­cause what mat­ters is to see what con­crete ac­tions we are able to im­ple­ment to re­solve the prob­lem of the pris­on­ers, ei­ther be­fore, dur­ing or after the trial. I don’t un­der­stand why peo­ple say that at least there will be a gov­ern­ment until the sen­tence. How does that help? What fu­ture are you paint­ing? You’re lim­it­ing your­self with a date. What does it mean that if there is a harsh sen­tence you’ll call elec­tions? Don’t say it now, be­cause we’ll have to see at the time and on the basis of fifty thou­sand dif­fer­ent fac­tors. Be­cause, in ad­di­tion, I think it is then that we should go out onto the streets en masse, be­cause there will be in­ter­na­tional at­ten­tion and we’ll have to demon­strate that we don’t ac­cept the pan­tomime trial. But what hap­pens if peo­ple don’t come out? Then it means that you don’t have enough strength to call elec­tions and come out of it look­ing bet­ter than you do now. Be­cause let’s be hon­est and ac­knowl­edge that al­though 21-D was a great vic­tory within the frame­work that ex­isted, it is quite un­re­peat­able, be­cause, for ex­am­ple, it would be very dif­fi­cult to get that same turnout again. There­fore, be­fore point­ing to the fu­ture you have to analyse the spe­cific sit­u­a­tion.

Was So­raya Sáenz de San­ta­maría more right than it first ap­peared when she said that she had de­cap­i­tated the pro-in­de­pen­dence move­ment?

Yes, but apart from mak­ing So­raya and her plan re­spon­si­ble, that also means we’re very weak, if with ten fewer peo­ple there is no clar­ity, even though these peo­ple send mes­sages every day. I be­lieve that po­lit­i­cal re­spon­si­bil­ity in the face of so­ci­ety in­volves a level of moral au­thor­ity that does not exist any­more. Be­yond Puigde­mont, be­yond Jun­queras, this moral au­thor­ity does not exist, the one that would give the lead­ers the ca­pac­ity to mark the line be­yond their the­o­ret­i­cal po­si­tions. Now they look like a bunch of head­less chick­ens, often say­ing com­pletely con­tra­dic­tory things. Be­cause we are a serene peo­ple we put up with it all, and I don’t think that, de­spite this con­fu­sion, peo­ple will be de­mo­bilised. But if this sit­u­a­tion gets any worse we will even­tu­ally have de­mo­bil­i­sa­tion.

Has the change of gov­ern­ment in Madrid changed any­thing or does this pres­sure that you men­tioned, this sur­veil­lance the PSOE is sub­ject to, make progress im­pos­si­ble?

The change of gov­ern­ment opens up some doors that were not open be­fore. We must ap­proach these doors in­tel­li­gently, mak­ing lit­tle noise, and ne­go­ti­ate things and ne­go­ti­ate them se­ri­ously, and also ne­go­ti­ate things we can ne­go­ti­ate on and de­liver po­lit­i­cal out­comes for. Be­cause, what is more, they do not have any. Pedro Sánchez came here as a re­place­ment, even within his own party. Po­lit­i­cal in­tel­li­gence also de­pends on giv­ing Sánchez ways out, not ul­ti­ma­tums. This is a slow process, and when I say slow or dis­creet I don’t mean: “Well, let’s see what hap­pens”, but rather con­crete pro­pos­als need to be taken be­yond the ref­er­en­dum prob­lem. We have to get back the laws that were taken away by the con­sti­tu­tional court, the PP’s labour laws can be done away with, the gag­ging law... In all of this, we must be the main dri­vers, be­cause then we will also teach the Span­ish that we also want to build a bet­ter so­ci­ety. It’s not that the Cata­lans are bet­ter look­ing, but rather that we have a plan for our coun­try, where it func­tions in a cer­tain way so­cially. What is in the­ory more ad­vanced here, at least in the leg­isla­tive sphere, is what we have to teach them. We will not win ma­jori­ties here or a cer­tain de­gree of com­plic­ity there if we are not ca­pa­ble of doing that. What is Spain’s prob­lem? Spain’s prob­lem is that it has no plan.

Spain doesn’t have a plan for Cat­alo­nia or for it­self?

It doesn’t have one for Spain! How do I un­der­stand gov­er­nance? It’s not just about de­fend­ing the gen­eral in­ter­est, but rather telling peo­ple “We’re going in this di­rec­tion” and our plan for 2025 or 2030 is to have A, B, C and D. That doesn’t exist in Spain, it’s a coun­try that takes one day at a time. I’m not pro-in­de­pen­dence, but I recog­nise that at least the pro-in­de­pen­dence move­ment has built a nar­ra­tive and said that the goal is not only in­de­pen­dence, but cer­tain el­e­ments that form part of that. This is what drags peo­ple away. Peo­ple haven’t seen the light from one day to the next, rather there’s a plan. But we must also bear in mind that peo­ple can­not be mo­bi­lized in­def­i­nitely. When you crash against the wall, and that’s the first issue that needs to be ac­knowl­edged, you have to look at how to re­build the sit­u­a­tion. You can’t think noth­ing’s hap­pened here and peo­ple will con­tinue to come out every time they’re called to.

And fi­nally, as a pro­fes­sional in the world of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, what ad­vice would give the reader in a world of too much in­for­ma­tion?

That so much in­for­ma­tion ac­tu­ally al­lows us is ac­cess to many things. So you have to read many dif­fer­ent things, trust in few and cre­ate some sort of cri­te­ria. Al­though Twit­ter and the so­cial net­works are doing a lot of dam­age. There­fore, read a lot and be thought­ful and se­lec­tive.

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