BarcelonaEquity and Reconciliation Council deputy Alianza Catalana has long targeted Najat Darwish, the first woman to wear the hijab in Parliament. “It is the loophole that political Islam has found to shape our society in its image,” the leader of the xenophobic group, Silvia Orioles, said when she arrived in Barcelona last Thursday. At the same event, Barcelona list president Luis Arenes asked himself: “Why should we allow women in our parliament with covered hair to encourage misogyny?”, referring to Dariush.
The Republican lawmaker, who has previously confronted the Orioles over the networks, lured the leaders and followers of the far-right party into a trap on Sunday. No. 4 on the ERC list in the 12-month election trolled Aliança Catalana with an anti-racism video. Various official accounts of the far-right party on social networks published a video clip in which a voiceover warns that the Catalan language and culture are “in danger.” “Save Catalonia”, the alliance slogan for 12-M, also appears.
But the person behind the video is Dariush, and indeed the voiceover is written by him. Thus, the European Reform Party candidate mocked Orioles supporters, uploading a video in which she appeared calling for social cohesion. “Now is the time when the prejudices come in,” says Dariush – who was born in Morocco – before appearing in the photo.
In a message to the The message adds: “If you have fallen on all fours, and many of you shared the first part of the video, it is precisely because you are loaded with prejudices and racism.” Some of the X accounts that shared the video were the head of Lleida’s AC list, Ramon Abad; Tarragona candidate Aurora Fornos and the party’s official accounts in Camp de Tarragona, Terres de l’Ebre and others.
The short video, about thirty seconds long, contains music and images of pro-independence demonstrations, castles, landscapes and various sites in Catalonia, as well as translation, drawings and music. It begins with images of the Orioles getting out of the party truck while Driewicz’s voice is heard saying “There are those who want to obliterate our nation, our identity, our culture and our language are in danger, Catalans.” That is why he believes it is necessary to defend the language, the backbone of the country, and that is why he urges the Catalans to defend it. “I’m so tired of them changing me to Spanish at the first change – and there’s no shame in saying it -, of them coming to steal our Catalonia that I have to feel like a stranger in our house,” he continues. . The election letter, pretending to be from the AC, concluded that there are plenty of reasons to vote on all of this in 12-M. This is the end of the short video.
Long video
In the long video, the music and images suddenly stop and the same blurry audio and image of Dariush is heard saying: “You don’t know where you come from yet.” It shows that language is the most cohesive element, which makes us more equal, but now is the time when prejudices appear. “. The blurred image shows the Republican speaking to the camera: “Hello, my name is Najat, I was born in Morocco, and I arrived in Catalonia in the third year of the EGB. Catalan is my language, partly thanks to my studies at public school, high school and university in Catalonia.”
“While some, in good faith or not, change my language when they see me, others, in the name of Catalonia, want to strip me of Catalonia. They say I am not good enough, with insults full of spelling mistakes,” while several offensive messages against her appear on the screen. Because she is Muslim. For all of them, it reminds them of the foreign origins of Catalan traditions such as sardana, tomato bread, slates or barça. Darwish concludes in the video, saying: “While they want to turn us into a national minority, we want to continue building a nation of everyone for everyone.”
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