BarcelonaEight years after the events of October 2017 there is still no defined consensus on what was the so -called process, a period that begins with the day of 2012, the first organized by the ANC, and that we can officially end up on May 12, 2024, when independence loses the majority in Parliament and the Government. During this period, with more or less intensity, the debate on independence and the self -determination referendum dominates the Catalan political agenda and, in part, the Spanish. There is no doubt that the culmination of the process was October 1, 2017, when more than two million people participated in a referendum on independence, thus challenging the prohibition ruled by Spanish judicial instances.
Seen in perspective, the process was an attempt by the Catalan political representatives who at that time held the majority in Parliament, to force the Spanish state to agree on a referendum on self -determination through a massive operation of civil disobedience. The great debate, and the great ethical dilemma that their leaders had to face, was where they wanted to bring this civil disobedience and what risks to the people involved were ready to take. Interestingly, the two leaders of the process, who have been confronted since then, agreed on this issue and opted for, in view of the state’s reaction to 1-O, not to create a situation that could, in addition to a deep Catalan social divide, could cause.
The process was an attempt to force the state to agree on a referendum through a massive operation of civil disobedience
Because today we know that deaths on the table would not have changed, or maybe yes, but worse for the Catalan part. The state was never against the ropes or willing to give in to a matter, that of territorial integrity, which is consubstantial to its existence. We also know that the European Union would never have moved a finger in the direction of jeopardizing the unity of one of its members. He could press for a negotiated solution to appease his spirits, as he did, but Spain could perfectly ignore these pressures, as he did, without any consequence.
The ‘Fol’ of Ponsatí
The problem of the process, and what has made its subsequent management difficult on the part of the independentists, is that it was never sold as it was, a civil disobedience operation to create a political crisis that forced the state to negotiate, but as a unilateral independence process that was impossible to carry out if the state, which has the monopoly of force, did not allow it. Is the famous lighthouse which Clara Ponsatí denounced. The alleged master play meant that a part of the Catalan population contrary to independence went into panic and corrected the money from the banks, and also that a fraction of independence was believed that with a simple political declaration in Parliament Catalonia would be independent as a magic art. But above all, the one who believed the threat was a part of the state, with the judiciary at the helm, which since then has been reluctant to abandon the role he played as a savior of Spain.
After 1-O there was still a time when trying to believe that the state could be forced to hold the referendum from exile, which, along with the wave of solidarity with political prisoners, allowed to hide failure for a good number of years. But the reality is stubborn and it has ended up imposing. And the end result, beyond the general loss of credibility of the pro -independence project, has been the emergence of a Catalan far -right project that feeds in part of the frustration caused by the process. And in the meantime, its leaders are still active and have not yet given a convincing explanation of what the process was. At least as clear as the one on this article.
