BarcelonaFar away are the days of the massive independence demonstrations, those who ended up marking the political course and generating a turning point in the Catalan and also state paradigm. Catalonia has been standing for at least a year and a half-when the independence movement lost the Government of the Generalitat after the 12-M election-in the post-process and this year’s day. However, although it is true that the mobilization of this September 11 has had even less participation-about 41,500 people between Barcelona, Girona and Tortosa-that a year ago-70,000 throughout Catalonia-the streets continue to fill with unconditional ones that show that the movement has not disappeared. It does not have the institutional power it held until a year ago, with the Generalitat as the maximum exponent, but the independence parties continue to condition the Catalan and state legislatures. In fact, they have the key. And as it happened before 2010, when the process was just starting, it is no longer marking the political agenda on the way to a state of its own, but questions of the day to day but also a nation. Catalan is the clearest example and this day has become a spearhead.
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The Catalan language is, precisely, the question that generates a consensus between two worlds that have been repelled throughout the process: independence and the entire PSC space. The government of Salvador Illa does not share – and announced that the route would be the decision of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) this Wednesday to cancel much of the linguistic decree that the Government of Pere Aragonès approved to shield Catalan at school as a vehicular language and that linguistic percentages were not implemented. The independence movement also does not share it. With different shades and shades, but both the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa-who called for defending Catalan in his institutional speech-as institutional representatives of independence, such as the President of the Parliament, Josep Rull-who took advantage of the floral offering to the Rafael Casanova monument to charge against the sentence and present it as one of the elements that have come from the Catalan nation.
We will have to see if there is unity of action in response to the sentence. The most forceful message within independence has arrived, however, since the manifestation of Barcelona. It was by the mouth of the ANC President, Lluís Llach, who called for disobeying the TSJC’s ruling and set an example on 1-O. “We demand from our institutions that they do not allow the obsession of a judge to dynamize our school. And if the State and his courts want to impose this sentence, we disobey,” he said. In fact, Llach has gone even further and, following the strategic line of the assembly, also argued that this disobedience extends to the rest of the “violations of rights” to reactivate independence.
Llach has placed on the list of Sixena Greuges or surroundings. In this last question, the island government has also put the horn. Solving the mess of this railway service-which ERC agreed to transfer to the Generalitat in exchange for investing Pedro Sánchez-is one of the obsessions of the President of the Generalitat and also another of the topics that mark the political agenda in the post-process and generate consensus between socialists and independentistas.
The relationship with the far right
One of the images of this September 11 was as the independence movement received the leader of the Catalan Alliance, Sílvia Orriols, who participated in the manifestation of the Diada for the first time since she is the mayor of Ripoll. Orriols has not been the protagonist of the rally, but he has not gone unnoticed either: the rally escorted by the Mossos d’Esquadra has begun and has been received with Palestinian flags and anti -fascist shouts from a part of the protesters. The growth of alliance has tension of independence, which has been insisting on to unmove its xenophobic speeches and to emphasize how Catalonia has historically been a land of reception.
In fact, anticipating the presence of the far right at this year’s rally, Òmnium wanted to counteract this speech a few hours earlier. In the act that the cultural entity had to celebrate in Barcelona, but which has been suspended by the rain, its president, Xavier Antich, has given a speech accompanied by members of the entity’s board of directors to defend the “diversity” of Catalonia. “This diversity is not an anomaly. Immigration has been a structural phenomenon for more than a century, and we are proud of it,” said Antich.
Beyond the presence of Orriols, the manifestation-a prejudice of the sky until the last moment-has had a prominent absence, that of the ERC leader, Oriol Junqueras, who has preferred not to go there. Left did send a representation, headed by Elisenda Alamany, secretary general of the party. However, it is no secret that the ANC’s strategy is not shared by the Republicans, who still have the whistles they received in previous leaders such as Junqueras and the former President Pere Aragonès. However, as it happened last year, there has been no place for reproaches on this day, and Llach has even called on the unity of the independence parties. At present, however, this looks like a chimera. Each one is immersed in defining their own strategy and being the one who has the most influence in Madrid.
It is precisely the negotiating power that is now played together and ERC is also evidenced by the return to the years before 2010. In the floral offering to the monument to Rafael Casanova, it was as if the counter had been put to zero again. As if Catalonia had returned to the years before the process, when the PSC claimed the Catalan nation – the spokeswoman for the Government, Sílvia Paneque – had done and the pro -independence parties went a step further and called independence. Between the ERC delegation, shouts of “Visca Catalunya Free” have been felt and the representatives of Together have called “independence” after singing The reapers. The unknown is now if a day will come that is the spark that reactivate independence.
