When the launch of a book on politics arouses interest, it is usually because of one of two things: either it is a retired politician publishing his memoirs, or a writer who brings together so much information that it is worth being there. The event at the Casa del Llibre bookshop for Merèixer la vitoria ("To Deserve Victory"), written by David Madí, corresponds without a doubt to the second case. The book published by Columna has 321 pages and will not leave anyone indifferent. There is praise and criticism, analysis and reflection, tactic and strategy, and when the author says that he is not sectarian, he does not mean that his view is optimistic and naive. Madí is an unrepentant fighter for victory in a country which finds winning too difficult and makes do with losing by a narrow margin. That "we can still do it" when erected in front of you is a State that only knows how to win because it has almost always won. By civil means or military.
To Deserve Victory is a passionate reflection of a period on which a lot of literature has been published from the more journalistic side, but not from those who were actively at work in the kitchen - read Estat Major, the so called "General Staff" - and without being the parents of anything, were part of the family. Madí does not say it, but he seems to manifest a certain frustration with too many attitudes that lack professionalism or a knowledge of history. He does not criticize this, because many of the actors found themselves present without any GPS to guide their movements when facing a capital that once had an empire and thus, if it has learned anything over the centuries, it is how to defend itself. There is no room for playing for a draw, when they lose, they lose everything. But when they win, they do so without second thoughts. They step over old allies and use all branches of power - including the tax agency, which he describes as the New Inquisition.
There is an idea hovering above the work that is timeless and at the centre of many of the defeats: division. Madí is a staunch defender of the pro-independence unity that has caused so many headaches and arguments between the two parties that are central: Junts and Esquerra. His position is based on a proven maxim: victories have always come from the hand of unity. But things are never that easy, especially when the road to be travelled is full of obstacles and here everyone is responsible and everyone has wounds, grievances, disappointments and humiliations. Turning around and looking at the adversary from your own ideological position has, for many of them, become an impossible action. I always remember, in these situations, Jordi Pujol when, after the attempts of Felipe González's government to incriminate him in the Banca Catalana case, returning years later to the Moncloa palace for an appointment with the Spanish prime minister who now needed his help. "I will never be able to forgive him, our relationship will be like a broken mirror that is impossible to put back together. But if I put it in a drawer and don't open it every day, things might be different," he explained before starting a negotiation that bore fruit.
Madí defines the period 2018-2023 as the five Cainite years and considers three scenarios for the future: that we do nothing, that we do it again or that we do it differently
It should be easier between Carles Puigdemont and Oriol Junqueras than between Jordi Pujol and Felipe González, because, in the end, what is at stake is the future of Catalonia and here the broken mirror is none other than Catalonia itself, dismembered and to be rebuilt. Madí defines the 2018- 2023 period, the point where he ends the book, as the five Cainite years and proposes three future scenarios: that we do nothing, that we do it again or that we do it differently. He rebels against the first two options, but he is not sure that the third can be done, as he doubts that there is enough of a long-term view, nor the essential political unity and suitable political approach, to find a space that can provide Catalonia with all the political, economic and financial resources, taking advantage of the situation of the pro-independence parties in Madrid, before a new definitive assault. These are not the reflections of an outsider, but of someone who is considered by many in both main political spaces to be one of Catalonia's leading strategists. If not the chief strategist.