Every day the Guardian has an article “From the archive”,
one that was published on that date in a previous year. It’s a good idea to
look back on previous events. What did it celebrate on 4 July? The anniversary
of Spanish prime minister Adolfo Suárez agreeing that the Generalitat (Catalan government)
should be restored as part of the system of regional
government that would be implemented in all of Spain.
Why
did it choose that article to remember? And why this photo of a flag that was hardly known then? Who can say? Was it at the behest of Diplocat,
the external propaganda wing of the Catalan government? Very probably. The Guardian
has shown great willingness in the past to weigh in on the side of the Catalan coup
d’état against an EU member state, having on
one memorable occasion described the Generalitat offices as the presidential
palace of the new Catalan Republic.
The article commemorates what was certainly an important
date; even so, Suárez’ recognition of the Generalitat on 28 September of that
year was surely a greater event, as certainly was the return of Josep Tarradellas
on 23 October of that year. Why did Diplocat choose to have it published on Thursday?
Because it has other things up its sleeve for the autumn with the verdict of
the trial, and anyway the coincidence of the date with American independence is
a fine subliminal message.
Incidentally, the article repeats the old canard that Franco
“tried to obliterate the Catalan and Basque languages”. As these images show, the
dictator was welcomed to the Catalan city of Lérida with a sign in Catalan
(1963), and a plaque from an irrigation community honours his name in that
language (1964).
The Guardian is of course free to choose which archive articles
it publishes, though this choice does bear the murky footprints of placement by
Diplocat. On wonders too why they chose to commemorate this rather than other 4
July events:
1914: The funeral of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his
wife Sophie.
1934: The death of Marie Curie.
1943: The Battle of Kursk.
1946: The Philippines attains independence.
1947: The Indian Independence Bill is presented to the House
of Commons.
1976: Israeli commandos raid Entebbe airport in Uganda.
1987: Former Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie is convicted of
crimes against humanity.
2012:
The discovery of particles consistent with the Higgs boson.
What is certain, however, is the Guardian’s own editorial
decision to illustrate the article with the rebel flag, the estelada. The Guardian
knows perfectly well that the estelada is not the Catalan flag and captioning it
as a photo of a demo against the suspension of Catalan autonomy in 2017 simply
won’t wash when the article carries an illustration of Tarradellas’ return in
1977 showing the constitutional flag, which is what happened at the time. As
I have described, that suspension of autonomy has been ratified by the European
Court of Human Rights in pungent terms (describing the appeal as “manifestly
ill-founded”). The Guardian knows that perfectly well too.
Yes, the Guardian knows these things perfectly well and
has nevertheless acted as an agent of the propaganda department of the rebel Catalan
government. A powerful news source of the size, scale and global reach of the Guardian
is deemed a priori to know perfectly well what it is doing. It does not get the
benefit of the doubt.
Sources (in Spanish)
El País
(The
day that Suárez recognised the Generalitat)
El País
(Suárez-Tarradellas: first step to the re-establishment
of the Generalitat)
