Maybe we'll have to start coining words so we can understand each other. In the same way that almost 70 years ago, McCarthyism, headed by Catholic senator Joseph McCarthy, had the objective of creating a permanent atmosphere of suspicion, fed on rumours and slander, forgetting the principle of the presumption of innocence, with the aim in turn of hounding Communists, Montoroism, for Spanish treasury minister Cristóbal Montoro, has for some time been stubbornly pursuing a true witch-hunt against the independence movement. The request from the secretary of state of the Spanish Treasury, José Enrique Fernández de Moya, requiring the Catalan government's comptroller general to inform him of the payments and grants awarded since 2015 to some 60 people, entities, media outlets and businesses whose only common trait is their supposed pro-independence ideology or a favourable position towards the 1st October referendum has at least an inquisitorial air, taking advantage of the power vacuum the Spanish government has created by suspending Catalan autonomy.
Montoroism is indispensable in the witch-hunt against the independence movement. Just like, from another point of view, the creation of the false narrative which, unfortunately, has crystallised in Spain about the violence of events last September in Barcelona in front of the Catalan Economy ministry and for which Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart remain imprisoned. Everyone knows that it wasn't an act of violence, nor of rebellion, nor of sedition that took place outside that building, but that narrative has been imposed based on fake news and many millions of spending on propaganda. The perspective that only time gives will be needed to find out in detail how the whole string of lies was woven which allowed for going from the violence in the Basque Country to the violence in Catalonia. There, with hundreds of deaths caused by the terrorist group ETA, and here, with the model peaceful attitude of the independence movement, even on 1st October, when the Spanish police were responsible for scenes of indiscriminate repression which were seen around the world.
This Montoroism list, which has to be sent by the Catalan government before 10am on the 12th, by coincidence the day and time the Parliament debate on investing Jordi Sànchez president is meant to start, is full of well-known names of both associations and individuals. From the business conglomerate Mediapro to the newspaper Ara passing through communicators as important as Toni Soler, Antoni Bassas, Xavier Bosch, Albert Om, the businessperson Ferran Rodés and the company Agrolimen. Also to feature are Jordi Sànchez, Jordi Cuixart, Neus Lloveras, Oriol Soler, Eduard Voltas and a long etcetera. Montoro's unconcealed objective is to link any payment made with the funding of the independence process and use that to lay out a case of misuse of public funds.
Let's return to McCarthyism and the atmosphere of permanent suspicion. Does it sound like an exaggeration to say that the same methods of rumours and slander to discredit people and entities for the simple fact of having a certain ideology can be seen in Montoroism? Isn't this more than comparable with that anti-Communist witch-hunt in the United States, accepted by the country's establishment of the time, which has here and now become a hunt of independence supporters?