Transcription of Ramon Cotarelo's speech in Ripoll for the 2026 Diada
Cotarelo defends Orriols and presents the expansion of Islam as a direct threat to Catalonia, Europe and Western civilization.
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Ramon Cotarelo was the protagonist in Ripoll of one of the most forceful interventions of the 2026 Diada. Invited by Aliança Catalana, the political scientist attacked what he defines as the «Catalan partitocracy», defended Silvia Orriols against accusations of far-right extremism, racism and Islamophobia, and presented the recovery of the Catalan State as an obligation outstanding since the defeat of 1714.
The toughest part of the speech came when he addressed Islam. Cotarelo defined it as «a totalitarian and sectarian political ideology», denied that Islamophobia exists and warned of a possible Islamic «conquest» of Europe. The intervention ended with a call with bellicose overtones, invoking a quote linked to the Battle of Salamis: «Free the homeland, free your children, free your women […] It is time for the final struggle.».
Full transcript of Ramon Cotarelo's gloss on Ripoll
Good morning, happy Diada. I am thrilled to have the privilege of speaking here, in the heart of Catalonia, about Catalonia, within this monastery. It is a privilege, and I am very grateful to the organisers, Aliança Catalana, for inviting me to deliver this speech, this dissertation on a matter that is also close to my heart: the commemoration of the National Day of Catalonia. Thank you very much, thank you all for being here.
You know that all the peoples of the world, all nations, align the day of their national holiday with some kind of victory. On 4 July, in the United States, the Declaration of Independence. On 14 July, in France, the storming of the Bastille, the beginning of the revolution.
On 12 October in Spain, the discovery, or what they say is the discovery of America. On 25 May across Europe, the Normandy landings to begin the liberation of the continent. Only one people, as far as I know, coincide their national holiday with a defeat: the Catalans.
Only we Catalans, parenthesis: I speak in the first person plural, because although I was not born in Catalonia, I am Catalan by definition and by personal choice.
The enemies of Catalonia are the Spanish oligarchy and the Catalan partitocracy.
Coinciding the national holiday with a defeat has consequences. A defeat is always a defeat. It leaves wounds that must heal if the body still wants to survive. And this national body, which celebrates its defeat from 300 years ago, survives as a kind of reminder and a necessity for resistance. This defeat also leaves an obligation, the obligation to restore what was lost in a “medium-scale” war, but is still present through its consequences for our current lives. And to heal, to move the nation forward, it must fight against its enemies.
And everyone knows who the enemies of Catalonia are: there are two of them – the Spanish oligarchy and the Catalan partitocracy.. There is no point in talking about the Spanish oligarchy; everything has already been said, and everyone knows that Spain is the dirtiest and most brutal enemy of the Catalan nation. All that remains is to talk about the Catalan partitocracy, a network of personal and partisan interests riddled with corruption, nepotism, patronage, even, I believe, simony – a corruption right down to the roots of a small oligarchy delegated by the great Spanish oligarchy to administer the peculiarities of the colony.
This corrupt partitocracy that everyone knows is corrupt, even they themselves. This partitocracy is supported by a system of controlled, bought media outlets to construct a narrative that justifies its ineptitude and its capitulation. A narrative commissioned from a subnetwork of media outlets with two objectives. The first is to conceal their corruption. They don't want any talk of Dgaia, of the party's B structure, of nepotism, of the patronage networks of one faction or another.
Catalonia has gone from being a beacon of Europe to sheer rubbish.
Let's not talk about what they've done to the country., that has gone from being a European luminary to being almost pure rubbish.. That there be no talk of what they have done, of what they have done wrong, of how they have taken advantage of the situation and the people's needs to carry on with their lives, to line their own pockets.
A discourse that, in addition to concealing its corruption, also aims to prevent it from serving as a host for the country's recovery and to achieve, if that is at all possible, the silencing of that voice which is Aliança Catalana. The figure of Silvia Orriols, as a promise of recovery and restitution of what was taken from us by force of arms 300 years ago, that is, the Catalan state. And this discourse, this mission, has, I would say, four legs.
The far right is violence.
Firstly, Aliança Catalana and Sílvia Orriols are the far right. As far as I know, the defining feature of the far right is the use of violence. as a political instrument. And here, the only ones who resort to violence against their political organisations are the far left (applause). That is to say, the far left and the far right touch because they are the same.
The second point is that Catalan Alliance, besides being the far right, is against immigration – a blatant lie. No one here is against immigration; it would be irrational and stupid to oppose immigration on a continent with a negative birth rate. What we are not against is illegal immigration.
Islam is a totalitarian political ideology and, above all, sectarian and criminal.
It seems unbelievable that one has to explain why it's reasonable to oppose something illegal. Because if it's illegal, it's illegal. And if one illegal act can be accepted, why not the others? Why not sexual assaults or murders in broad daylight? Opposing illegal immigration is a necessity, it's an obligation.
Third thing. Aliança Catalana and Silvia Orriols are racists. Racists (laughter). Islam is not just a race. Islam is a totalitarian political ideology and, above all, sectarian and criminal. It's not a race. It's a conspiracy. And when I say a sect, I know exactly what I'm talking about. Because, of course, how can you call an idea a sect when two billion people take part in it? Yes, 3, 7, 2,000, 2,000 million.
The sect-like character does not lie in quantity but in quality. Islam is an ideology from which no one can break away, because apostasy is forbidden and punishable by death. That is what makes Islam a sect: you cannot leave it.
Islamophobia does not exist
And, above all, Aliança and Silvia Orriols are Islamophobes. They suffer from Islamophobia. This is one of the points where there is a divergence between my admired Silvia Orriols and me. She, who is very proud to be an Islamophobe: That's impossible, because Islamophobia doesn't exist.. Islamophobia is a word invented by the Iranian Shiite clergy in the late twentieth century to make any criticism of Islam impossible, to characterise any criticism of Islam as a crime, as blasphemy.
So, Our civilisation, our culture, says that there is nothing above rational and humane criticism.. What is irrational about being against genital mutilation, misogyny, all the peculiar cultural traits of Islamists? What is irrational about that? What is irrational about being against forced marriages? Nothing. It is perfectly rational. And what's more, it is a right. Everyone has the right to criticise religion, regardless of which religion it is.
The idol of these far-left fascists, Karl Marx, saw in his critique of Hegel's philosophy of law that the critique of religion was the beginning, the starting point, of social critique. And that is a principle for us. Nothing is above rational critique.
So, Islamophobia is a manoeuvre, the word, the concept, Islamophobia is a word to prevent us from defending ourselves against attacks by the Saracens.. Because we live in a culture that is a Christian-based culture. But precisely because it is Christian-based, and thanks to God, atheists can exist. And we live in a society where atheists can live alongside Christians because both are respected. You could even say that an atheist like me is a Christian atheist, because you can only be an atheist within Christianity. Within Islamism it is impossible.
Therefore, you can carry on being Islamophobic, but you're wasting your time, because Islamophobia doesn't exist. It's not irrational to be against Islam, which is what those who claim there's such a thing as Islamophobia are trying to say.
It is not irrational to be against Islam.
So you can carry on being Islamophobic, but you're wasting your time, because Islamophobia doesn't exist. It is not irrational to be against Islam., which is what they intend. Just an anecdote. Since they are so keen to convince everyone that this notion of Islamophobia exists, they have been convening people, councils and conferences for years in order to define Islamophobia. To this day they have not succeeded. In the United Kingdom, they have now been dealing with it in a parliamentary committee for more than eight years.. Trying to agree on what Islamophobia is, but it's impossible to agree on what Islamophobia is because Islamophobia doesn't exist.
Here in Catalonia, in Barcelona, a few years ago, during the term of office of Mayor Colau, a commission was also appointed to define Islamophobia and agree on what Islamophobia is. They did not succeed, but the fate of this commission and its outcome are a lesson for everyone about what submission to Islam means. And Submission to Islam is a redundancy because Islam means submission, that is, submission to submission..
In the group where they studied how to define Islamophobia, the far-left mayor, Ada Colau, invited a host of specialists, far-left Spanish philosophers. Even a prominent Muslim intellectual, Tariq Ramadan. They said he was a prominent professor at various universities in the United Kingdom, the United States, etc. Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Currently serving a one-year prison sentence in Switzerland for rape, and an 18-year sentence in absentia in France for rape. This bloke has something to say, not about Islamophobia, but about anything else. A functional rapist.
In a time when even the Pope calls for dialogue, for understanding with Islamism. And even a little corner in the Vatican was rented out to Muslims so they could perform their prayers there. The Vicar of Christ on Earth. Dialogue with whom? With an ideology and a sect that sees only one principle: to annihilate everything that is not them, and above all the Jews and the Christians.
It is impossible to have a dialogue with someone who has come to behead you.
It is impossible to have a dialogue with someone who has come to behead you. Then, The only thing that can be done is to stand up to the threat of a Muslim invasion., because it is in the Qur'an: the purpose of Islam is to annihilate Christianity through jihad. Jihad is the holy war, but the holy war understood in two facets.
The first, when Muslims are the minority in host societies, is infiltration into institutions and the exploitation of democratic freedoms to advance their sick ideology. The second, when there are enough of them to form a majority, is holy war. And the fate that awaits us Christians at the hands of the Pope's interlocutors is threefold.
Either we convert to Islam and live as second-class citizens paying a tax, or we go to war and, of course, we will be defeated. And if we reach this situation, it is something that does not depend on us but on those who have been trying for 1,400 years to “conquer” Europe. If we reach this situation, what do we observe? We observe that our countries, like Catalonia, of course.
The last two generations have not done military service.
We have enjoyed 75 years of peace, without war. For the first time in Europe's history, we have lived 75 years without war. That is to say, three generations who have never experienced war.
And the last two have not only never lived through a war but have not even done their military service. That is to say, We don't know how to defend ourselves, we don't know how to fire a weapon, they are not prepared for war.. And what has happened? That the women have taken the lead, and there are four women in Europe in whom we can place our trust.
Western civilisation is in the hands of women.
Four women. The responsibility for Western civilisation rests in the hands of women because they have the most to lose if Islam manages to “conquer” Europe. Alice Weidel in Germany, Marie Le Pen in France, Giorgia Meloni in Italy and Silvia Orriols in Catalonia (applause).
Applause doesn't count in the tally of facts. So, I am authorised to conclude with a quotation that I have loved all my life and in whose light I have grown. These are words that were first spoken over two thousand years ago in Europe. Before the Battle of Salamis, when the Greeks defeated the Persians and prevented them from conquering Europe, saving Europe for the first time.
These words were repeated in 1940 by the Prime Minister of Greece, Metaxas, when Fascist Italy invaded Greece. They are the words that must be remembered today, and with these words, which are words from 2,000 years ago, I conclude. We must transfer the corresponding names, and he says: forward, sons of Greece, liberate the homeland, liberate your children, liberate your women, the sanctuaries of your fathers' gods, the tombs of your ancestors. It is the hour of the final struggle. (Applause).
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