Since there were two human beings on planet Earth, the history of humanity has been one of the struggle for power. Although the objective remains the same, the methods have been changing from the primitive brute force, to the most sophisticated propaganda techniques of today.
When, about a century ago, the American president Woodrow Wilson, who had been elected presenting himself with a pacifist program and non-participation in the World War I, changed his plans towards an interventionist sense, it was agreed to prepare public opinion, so that it would accept the new project, with the creation of an ad hoc propaganda team. It worked so well that in a short time the vast majority assumed that entering the war was convenient. Surely we have all seen movies, in which young Americans run excitedly to recruitment offices, with walls decorated with the mythical Uncle Sam poster pointing his finger and the slogan "I want you". From there, many countries and power groups followed the example and perfected it.
Today the fashion is "fake news", "post-truth", or in plain language, the continuous repetition of lies that do not need reflection to be accepted as truths, but of emotion or viscera. (I refer to the election of Trump or the Brexit referendum as palpable evidence). The current monothematic issue of Catalonia in the media is also a faithful example of this. Rather than talking about all the lies that are produced, we would finish earlier by pointing out the truths, which I suppose there are some. Propaganda has made progressive people, and even leftists, look favorably on an ideology, as reactionary today, as Catalan separatist nationalism. (I am referring to ordinary people, because parties can use different options only for electoral purposes).
Thus, all power groups, especially the economic ones, but also the religious ones, political parties, media, ideologies, commercial interests (advertising), etc., only intend to have fanatical followers who assume their slogans without the slightest reflection and become their enthusiastic defenders or unbridled consumers. Even today you have to be very careful with the Internet, because what could be a means of liberation, is becoming the largest space for control and manipulation of the human being, something like the Big Brother of Orwell's novel "1984".
Given this panorama, and taking into account that Mr. Puigdemont is still hesitant, I am going to go ahead and proclaim my unilateral declaration of independence. I am not becoming independent from any territorial entity, but from all this web that traps us and turns us into consenting slaves.
I recognize the difficulty, not because they are going to apply the famous 155 to me, but because of the effort it requires and because I have no more support than the exercise and improvement of my critical thinking. This should be obtained in the educational stage but, unfortunately, the most that can be achieved in it is that they do not take away the one you already have by natural intelligence.
To exercise it, you have to add good doses of culture and knowledge. Without the former we cannot have critical capacity. Our educational laws increasingly eliminate humanistic subjects, because no power is interested in cultured people, since they are the most difficult to deceive. Machiavelli already said five centuries ago that the ignorant is a slave to the one who knows. The latter are essential to be able to opine and make decisions on certain topics. Not all of us belong to the modern species of "homus tertulianus" that is characterized by having the ability to know and opine about everything. (I wish we had a Popular University that trained people, throughout their lives, for the simple fact of acquiring culture, and not for purely economic reasons).
In short, if we really want to be independent, because domination and inequalities continue, I only know the path of reflection and culture to achieve it. Reading and thinking/thinking and reading, are the two most revolutionary verbs I know.
By Diego Arrebola Gómez
