Solé i Sabaté, Josep M.

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert

INTERVIEW 
J O S E P  B E N E T ,  
A M A N  F O R  C A T A L O N I A  
THE HISTORIAN, POLITICIAN AND LAWYER JOSEP BENET 1 
MORELL (b. CERVERA, 1920) WAS HONOURED ON 
12 DECEMBER 199 1 ON THE OCCASION OF HIS SEVENTIETH 
BIRTHDAY. THE BOOK MISCEL.LANIA D'HOMENATGE A 
JOSEP BENET, PUBLISHED BY PUBLICACIONS DE L'ABADIA 
DE MONTSERRAT, WAS PRESENTED AT THE CELEBRATION, 
WHICH WAS HELD AT THE IL-LUSTRE COL-LEGI 
D'ADVOCATS DE BARCELONA. JOSEP BENET IS ONE OF THE 
MOST REPRESENTATIVE CATALANS IN THE STRUGGLE 
AGAINST THE DICTATORSHIP AND THE RECOVERY OF 
CATALONIA'S DEMOCRATIC AND NATIONAL LIBERTIES. HIS 
COURAGEOUS DEFENCE OF OUR CULTURAL IDENTITY AND 
HIS RECOGNIZED MORAL AUTHORITY MAKE HIM AN 
EXEMPLARY FIGURE NOT ONLY FOR THE CATALANS BUT 
FOR ALL THOSE PEOPLES WHO ARE FIGHTING FOR THEIR 
DIGNITY. JOSEP BENET IS CURRENTLY DIRECTOR OF THE 
CENTRE DIHISTORIA CONTEMPO&NIA DE CA TAL UNYA. 
INTERVIEW 
L osep Benet is a key figure for understanding the character of contemporary Catalonia. Since 
the end of the Spanish Civil War, 1936- 
1939, we find him involved in al1 the 
acts of opposition to the Franco dicta- 
torship. A dictatorship which, amongst 
its undisguised objectives, apart from 
defending a society of privileges in the 
Spanish state in a country which was 
considerably backward as regards the 
rest of Europe, was set on making ag- 
gressive Spanish nationalism the basis 
of the cultural genocide of the Catalan 
language and culture. 
-1n 1939, as a young man, you and a 
few others carried on a dangerous strug- 
gle for the survival of Catalonia. 
-Following the defeat as a consequence 
of the military occupation by General 
Franco's troops, a policy of cultural ge- 
nocide was followed in Catalonia. Gen- 
eral Franco's régime initially was totali- 
tarian, established on the basis of the 
totalitarian régimes of the time, Nazism 
and Fascism. Democratic liberties were 
lost here as in the rest of Spain. Interna- 
tional aid allowed the Franco régime an 
unconditional victory. You have to re- 
member that the régimes that were later 
to provoke World War ZI seemed inde- 
structible; the danger was absolute. 
-When did the first contacts take place 
with a joint plural opposition, other 
than individual moves? 
-Most of the intellectual and even tech- 
nical formations in Catalonia went into 
exile: to France, to many American 
countries and especially to Mexico. This 
is something that will leave its mark on 
the history of Catalonia for a long time, 
because most of these people died in 
exile. The Catalan language -which was 
banned in al1 public use- found refuge in 
INTERVIEW 
Josep Benet 
these countries, mainly in the publica- 
tion of books, magazines and news- 
papers. 
-Before the military uprising, Catalonia 
was a country that had almost been nor- 
malized culturally. 
-Yes, you could say that. As regards 
press, radio, translation, etc., it would be 
true to say that the Catalan world was 
that of a flourishing culture. Which 
makes this policy of cultural genocide 
even worse. 
When World War 11 started, people who 
were active inside Catalonia in spite of 
the brutal repression of those years 
shared in the general idea that the Cata- 
lan problem was the sume as al1 those 
others who were fighting for democratic 
freedom. That's why so many people ac- 
tive in the Resistance were arrested and 
sent to Nazi concentration camps, where 
thousands of them were to die. In other 
words, Catalanism didn't restrict itself 
to this count6, it joined in democracy's 
fight against Nazi-Fascism. 
-Has the Catalan national issue always 
manifested itself pacifically, by the way 
of integration? 
-This has been a characteristic of its 
entire history. Political Catalanism, 
which was born more than a hundred 
years ago, has always shown solidarity 
for those peoples who demand theirfree- 
dom. With Greece, for example, when 
Crete was fighting to free-itselffrom the 
Turkish yoke, this provoked hostility on 
the part of Spanish nationalism, but also 
the fact that in Europe people realised 
that there was a very important national 
problem in Spain, and that unless it was 
solved there couldn't be a normal situa- 
tion in the Spanish state. This was al- 
ready obvious to Le Journal de Génkve 
a hundred years ago, when it said that 
another European issue was that of 
Catalonia. The Catalan question has al- 
ways been present to a greater or lesser 
extent in the international context. 
-Has historical Catalanism always 
EXlLl I MORT 
DEL 
PRESIDENT COMPANYS 
looked to Northern Europe for its 
model? 
-From the very beginning, Catalonia 
has always looked towards Europe. This 
has been so in al1 spheres. If we think of 
the art world, its centre was Paris, and 
not Madrid, obviously. The great names 
in Catalan painting mude themselves 
known in Paris. Picasso, Miró, Casas, 
Nonell, etc. are proof that they went to 
Paris for consecration, the cultural cap- 
ital of the world at that time. The sume 
goes for literature. 
-Without formal or democratic liber- 
ties, how did Catalonia manage to 
maintain a modern cultural level, with 
hostility from the state on top of every- 
thing else? 
- Very often through translations, and 
later thanks to visits to Europe. A lot of 
peoplefrom the world of Catalan culture 
had never been to Madrid, but had 
strong links with Paris, where they went 
insearch of more open-minded intellec- 
tual positions. You have to bear in mind 
that the participation of Catalan volun- 
teers in World War I was for the sume 
reason. In the French army, with the 
Belgian information services. Catalan- 
ism has always wanted to be present on 
the international scene. 
-1s this behind its contacts with the in- 
ternational press? 
-0f course. On one hand what we did 
was to join in the open fight of the allies 
against Fascism, of the resistance 
against the information services, and on 
the other, later on, to take advantage of 
these contacts to publicize the case of 
Catalonia. 
-You were a key figure in this work. 
-Perhaps so, because my work as a law- 
yer allowed it. At that time I was secre- 
tary to Fklix Millet, one of the people 
with most international contacts. Re- 
member that in the forties the only news- 
papers available came from Nazi-Fascist 
states. A newspaper as unrevolutionary 
as La Croix was banned. You can im- 
agine the rest. 
We  had to pass out information on what 
was happening inside the country and 
bring in newspapers from outside so that 
people wouldn't come to accept what was 
happening as normal. 
-As a broad-minded Republican Catho- 
lic, you were constantly trying to bring 
together the working-classes and the 
Church, which gradually grew away 
from the Franco régime. 
-Yes. We wanted to publicize the case of 
Catalonia. We attended the Internatio- 
nal Congresses whenever we could. For 
example, I went to the talks organised by 
Florence City Council. At the sume time, 
we found out what was happening in the 
world of ideas and told our people about 
it. Al1 these international contacts mude 
for contacts between members of al1 the 
parties. But we had great difficulty get- 
ting to the Vatican and giving them di- 
rect information about what Franco's 
dictatorship was and what its attitude 
was towards the Catalans. We were boy- 
cotted by Spanish prelates who were on 
Franco's side, and who from the state 
secretariat prevented our reports from 
getting through. We got round this cen- 
sorship by means of the press. A Cata- 
lan, Monsignor Bonet, said to us, "the 
Pope reads Le Monde every day". After 
that, a lot of our efforts were directed at 
making sure this newspaper reported on 
INTERVIEW 
our situation. We avoided the Church 
being used against Catalonia. Zn al1 
these years, not one Catalan bishop was 
appointed the bishops that were appoin- 
ted were not only outsiders, they were 
also Francoists. It was essential then to 
consolidate our contacts with the leading 
journalists of the international press. 
Which we did, to explain the truth about 
the situation in Catalonia and Spain 
and to activate communications and 
open up ideas. 
-The younger generations have always 
presented you as the link between the 
Republican period and the period of 
recovery of democracy and autonomy. 
-Those of us who did what we did was 
because of what we had lived through. 
There were very few of us left in the 
sixties; a lot of people had died because 
of the repression or exile. So we had to 
form the bridge, so that people would 
know about the past and have an idea of 
what the country had been. To avoid 
political sectarianism from imposing 
itself: 
-After the resistance to the worst of the 
Franco years came the time to build. 
- We had two objectives. To resist al1 we 
could and also to reconstruct the 
country. Francoism lost the little politi- 
cal hegemony it could have had at the 
beginning of the sixties. You could say 
that Francoism in Catalonia was socio- 
logical, strongly marked or produced by 
the trauma of the civil war. 
Reconstructing the country in al1 its as- 
pects was vital; it was what was called 
'Ifer país" in every possible jield. From 
publishing clandestine books and news- 
papers to promoting popular and mo- 
dern music, the choral movement, and 
gradually occupying what we called 
areas of freedom. Zt had to be done 
during those years so that the younger 
generations, who had been brought up 
under Francoism, would realise that the 
frontiers had been opened and that the 
way to the world wasn't the way of Fran- 
coism. 
-What kind of country is this that cre- 
ates a parallel country to the official 
one, from Catalan schooling to clandes- 
tine cutural institutions? 
-Catalan was forbidden, but we needed 
teachers, educators, etc., and al1 this was 
done clandestinely. Zt was done through 
cultural and recreational organisations, 
the Church, or in private homes. And so 
at the end of the Franco era thousands of 
people appeared who had been formed 
clandestinely. Zt's something very inter- 
esting and not very well-known; a peo- 
ple's Jight to teach and learn its lan- 
guage in clandestinity. 
-And what was this struggle like, bear- 
ing in mind that Catalonia had a large 
non-Catalan immigrant population? 
-The arrival of thousands of people who 
didn't speak the language of the country 
was a problem. A language that wasn't 
present in schools or in any of the media. 
There was a danger that two communi- 
ties might be formed. Luckily, the right 
approach was found. The political par- 
ties and trade unions in clandestinity 
acted in such a way that, while respect- 
ing the rights of the people who came to 
Catalonia from al1 over Spain, at the 
sume time these people learned the lan- 
guage and culture of the country that 
was to be their homejiom then on. This 
case has gradually been resolved in a 
peaceful and civilized manner. 
-What was the Assemblea de Catalu- 
nya? 
-Zt was another sign of the rime, a move- 
ment with special characteristics. Tak- 
ing part were clandestine organisations 
along with organisations that were tol- 
erated and others that were totally legal 
like the Professional Associations. It was 
exemplary; it allowed this coexistente 
that later showed itself in Catalan poli- 
tics, and at the sume time it was a politi- 
cal training ground. Zt was also a mani- 
festation of the Catalan people's jight 
against the Franco régime to recover de- 
mocratic liberties and once more retrieve 
the Catalan autonomy stolen as a result 
of the civil war. Without this great move- 
ment, the political transition in Spain 
would have been different. When Fran- 
co died, the Assemblea de Catalunya 
alone was able to mobilize thousands 
of people. This gave Catalonia a lot of 
political weight at the beginning of the 
transition. 
-And the neighbourhood movements? 
-There's been nothing like them in Eu- 
rope or Spain. That was quite unique 
too. From Barcelona it spread al1 over 
the country. Helped by the clandestine 
political parties, it was very much a 
grass-roots movernent. It helped stimu- 
late people's awareness, not only of the 
need for political change, but also of the 
need to take part directly in local poli- 
tics, from which we were absent. By giv- 
ing the population access to municipal 
democratic life, very often it was possible 
for them to take on posts of responsibi- 
lity in the democratic Town Halls. They 
were important in halting the savage 
speculation, both in tourist areas and in 
the cities. 
A prestigious Italian journalist, Angelo 
del Boca, wrote at the end of the fifties 
of Josep Benet disappearing into the 
labyrinth of streets in the old quarter of 
Barcelona, on his way to another resis- 
tance task. More than thirty years later, 
this is still an accurate description of his 
life. 


Josep Benet, a Man for Catalonia

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Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert