Atrocities are difficult to reconcile. Both those done to you, and those you have committed. I love Catalunya, even when it turns away from me, even when it refuses me: “You don’t belong here. Where are you from? Where do you belong? Where do you belong?”

Nowhere. Certainly not here.

I love this country, my country dragging its bloody, bloated weight into the new century, soaked with what it has destroyed. My family left Spanish Morocco to resettle in Barcelona, and then the Regulares marched across their new land. I can’t make my heart ache for one more than the other, but I can certainly flagellate myself for loving what I shouldn’t.