Fights for Spain: back and again with the new Spanish nationalism

Abstract

This critical note reflects on what has been called the new Spanish nationalist phenomenon. It begins with an admonition to the cautious silence it provokes in the media. This is followed by a brief summary of the state of the art at a historiographical level. Very modestly, given the ambitious objective, the article also tries to understand how and why national “living” enjoys such deep emotional legitimacy in these times. To this end, from the virtuality of the paradigm of “banal nationalism” as a method of analysis for the exploration of the nation “from below”, some of the cultural artifacts that are contributing to the “interiorization” and naturalization by the Spaniards of a certain national identity are cited. Finally, it includes a very personal reflection on the difficulties, the failure of identification that one has with this nationalist design, or any other. Something that, moreover, seems to us to be a sine qua non condition for being master of ourselves.