Until now correspondent of The New York Times in Spain, Raphael Minder, has expressed his disappointment with the country due to the increase in Spanishness that he has detected since he traveled to cover the pro-independence process. “I arrived in a Spain without flags and now I live in a neighborhood [de Madrid]Chamberí, where many walk a dog with a collar with the flag of Spain. Nationalism and the tensions unleashed as a result of Catalonia’s independence movement have been a notable change. When I arrived there were tensions, of course, but they focused on how to pay the mortgage or the dismissal of Judge Garzón and the fragile acceptance of the legacy of the Civil War. In this sense, Spain has changed,” he added.
Minder, who will now be the correspondent for the Financial Times in Poland, affirms that the most complicated part of his correspondence with The New York Times It has undoubtedly been the Catalan independence process. “Yes, it has been the most complicated because I entered this subject very well prepared. An English publisher had proposed me to write a book regarding Catalonia and I had a fairly deep knowledge, I had done 200 interviews for the book [ The Struggle for Catalonia: Rebel Politics In Spain]. But I quickly realized that the emotions that accompanied the subject surpassed me. For some people it was almost impossible to speak without losing control of emotions. I have suffered sometimes complicated personal attacks. And that has hurt me especially on the part of people with whom I had had a very good relationship and who suddenly, when bothered by an article or by something they had heard and had not even read, they no longer wanted to talk to me, sometimes in a rude.”
Reactivation of the process
According to the journalist, the Catalan pro-independence process might be reactivated at any time, because the issue “is not resolved”. “I think there’s a little less emotion, but it’s still a latent theme, a fire with the ashes still very much alive. The issue is not resolved. Fire has less vivacity, but can be reactivated“, recognize.
Minder sums up that he has lived in the Spanish state for an unusual decade. “I thought that not much news awaited me, but the financial crisis broke out, Spain assumed the presidency of the EU and the first thing I had to cover was the rescue in Greece. From here I have lived an exceptional decade,” he says. The correspondent was the author of outstanding chronicles regarding the 1-O referendum, the initial Spanish confusion, and the subsequent intervention of the Catalan Government.
