Ciudadanos: civil patriotism or nationalism?

¡°One of the nicest things that has happened to me in my entire career was singing the Spanish national anthem,¡± said the singer Marta S¨¢nchez on Sunday, right before launching into her highly personal rendition of the usually lyric-free ¡°Royal March¡± inside a packed Madrid auditorium, the Palacio de Congresos.

Watching her closely from their front-row seats were top officials from the political party Ciudadanos (Citizens), whose leader Albert Rivera blew kisses at S¨¢nchez as she began to cry, overcome with emotion. The event served as the debut for a new ¡°patriotic platform¡± dubbed Espa?a Ciudadana (Citizen Spain), which came officially into being amid waving flags, cries of ¡°?Viva Espa?a!¡± and people chanting ¡°Yo soy espa?ol, espa?ol, espa?ol...¡± (I am Spanish, Spanish, Spanish...).

Elsewhere in Europe, nobody is ashamed of defending their national flag or anthem

In¨¦s Arrimadas, Ciudadanos

Yet Spain¡¯s fourth-largest political party, which currently tops voter intention polls, insists that there is no nationalism in all this. To them, what happened on Sunday was an enactment of an ¡°open¡± project focusing on ¡°what unites Spaniards¡± and aimed at combating nationalism and populism.

¡°I think that the difference between patriotism and clannish nationalism is very clear. In Europe, people are very clear about it. Nobody would get [Emmanuel] Macron and [Marine] Le Pen¡¯s statements mixed up,¡± says In¨¦s Arrimadas, the spokesperson for Ciudadanos and leader of its Catalan branch, which earned the largest share of the vote at the last Catalan elections but fell short of a majority. ¡°Elsewhere in Europe, nobody is ashamed of defending their national flag or anthem,¡± she adds.

Arrimadas says that the citizen platform launched on Sunday is an example of ¡°civil patriotism that respects others,¡± as opposed to the brand of ¡°identity-based¡± nationalism defended by Catalan and Basque separatists, which ¡°excludes¡± those who are not part of the group.

Countering nationalism with more nationalism is not a good thing

Jos¨¦ Luis ?balos, PSOE

But other political parties in Spain are not convinced by these arguments. The head of the Socialist Party (PSOE), Pedro S¨¢nchez, called the platform ¡°a remastered version of a movie we¡¯ve already seen,¡± alluding to the use of territorial politics for electoral purposes, which S¨¢nchez believes former Popular Party (PP) Prime Minister Jos¨¦ Mar¨ªa Aznar exploited.

And Jos¨¦ Luis ?balos, the Socialists¡¯ organization secretary, called it an ¡°erroneous¡± decision that seeks ¡°confrontation¡± and represents ¡°a serious lack of responsibility.¡±

¡°Countering nationalism with more nationalism is not a good thing,¡± he said.

Podemos, for its part, feels that Ciudadanos leader Rivera has decided to ¡°add fuel to the fire¡± of the Catalan crisis, and that the party is now ¡°in competition¡± with the PP to see who can adopt a tougher stand against separatism.

¡°Rivera and [Catalan premier Quim] Torra are waving their own flags energetically because it¡¯s the only thing that makes them different from one another,¡± says Pablo Echenique, the number two official at Podemos.

¡°Rivera¡¯s project is to emulate [French President Emmanuel] Macron on economic issues and [Front National leader Marine] Le Pen on her exclusionary brand of nationalism. A Spanish Trump. This is a dangerous ultra-nationalist experiment that makes a permanent call to conflict among national identities in a Spain that has a plurality of identities,¡± says Alberto Garz¨®n, the head of the United Left federation.

¡°Jingoism¡±

Following the presentation ceremony on Sunday, the citizen platform Espa?a Ciudadana is going on tour. The same event will be re-enacted in several parts of the country, including the city of M¨¢laga on June 16.

¡°We want to create a reform-oriented, inclusive project for a diverse and united Spain,¡± said Arrimadas. ¡°The goal is to seek what unites us, not to focus on what divides us, which is what nationalism does.¡±

Meanwhile, at PP headquarters in Madrid, where the conservative party has espoused pro-Spain rhetoric for decades, none of this is going down well.

¡°Now there are those who would start handing out Spanish citizen cards,¡± says Rafael Hernando, the PP spokesman in Congress. On Monday, Hernando asked Rivera ¡°not to get patriotism confused with jingoism¡± because it is ¡°perverse¡± to claim that you can only be ¡°a good patriot¡± if you support Ciudadanos.

English version by Susana Urra.