The light is beginning to shine through

Since Friday, many people in this country have suffered a lot. For the fact of not knowing what was happening nor where we were headed. In these last hours the light has finally begun to shine through, and it seems quite clear to me that if the government of the Republic meets today in Brussels and talks, everything will be seen in a different light. That is why I would like to explain a few things about what has happened during this long weekend, and what awaits us.

About the weekend

1. I think we should all be aware of what happened on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. After the declaration of independence there was an undeniable risk of a violent confrontation in the streets. And the Catalan government and its president opted to defuse it, consequent with the deeply pacifist nature of the movement. The price was very high, but there were alternative outcomes that we are beginning to see now. The government acted with a responsibility that perhaps was excessive, but it didn’t want to jeopardize the stability of the country, nor especially, that of its public servants. The threat of a brutal intervention by the Spanish government was made clear on October 1st, and became more than real on Friday.

There will be those who will say that this should have been worked out beforehand and that it would have been better not to declare the Republic, or not to have chosen the path towards independence at all. I don’t agree with this. After the heroic attitude of the people on October 1st, not declaring independence would have been a betrayal, indeed. The principal and most important element was not to bend the knee, and that’s why regional elections were not called. Today Catalonia is a territory in dispute apparently controlled by Spain, but it has an independent government apparently in exile. And in this sense it can operate from Brussels or Barcelona equally. I would even venture that, at the moment, it is better if it operates from there.

2. I believe there is a reality that we should all get into our heads: democracy as we have known it up to now is finished. We are again living in a time when you can spend years in prison for your political views. Proof positive of this is Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez’s imprisonment. The things that everyone does naturally in a democracy must now be done again as we used to. Therefore, this weekend the government and its structure took stock of and measured the extent of the repression. At any moment they could have been detained and brought before a court that has illegally taken on itself functions that don’t belong to it, that fabricates crimes, and that has an explicitly vindictive spirit, against the spirit of the law, as clearly shown in the headings of its documents [1]. In this context, to ask for abundant explanations, press conferences, or public statements, as if nothing had happened and we were living in a democratic regime, isn’t very realistic. I would have liked for them to have spoken clearly and been more forthcoming, but if they’ve gone into exile, don’t you think that their safety was a priority?

About today and the days to come

1. If the government of the Catalan Republic meets today, and even more so if it talks and makes decisions, the situation will take a radical turn. Even more so if it does so as a government in exile, which will create a major internal conflict within the European Union. If this is confirmed, we will always have to be grateful to Flanders and Belgium for a very difficult gesture that they were under no obligation to make.

2. We should understand that we are faced with a triangle with three points: the government of the Generalitat (or of the Republic, which is the same), the Catalan public administration, and the people. With Friday’s gesture, the government allowed the administration to be controlled by Spain, but with the decisions that they could make today they would strengthen the two great pillars that have brought us to this point: politics and the people. Of the three points of the triangle, the administration was the most dispensable if you didn’t want the independence process to stop. Without a government we would be left with only chaos– which is why we had to proclaim the Republic, and why we did so– and without citizens, without the people, we would have nothing. The choice was correct.

3. The objective to be achieved is very clear: combat the repression and Article 155, restore democracy and respect for the rights of all, and return to managing the administration of the country now as an independent republic, which is why it was declared. That is, make use of all means within reach to return the country to its legitimate government. Along these lines, anything goes: from resistance by the country’s institutions, the municipalities for example, to participation in the elections. The only rule is to demand that the government govern. It cannot direct the administration, but it can direct the independence movement politically, and that is its role.

4. To do this it will be necessary to focus emphatically on the origin of this crisis. It is not usual for a territory of the European Union to declare independence unilaterally. It is surprising that a democratically elected government finds itself obliged to go into exile. And it is not normal for the people of a country to be attacked for wanting to vote. The blame for all of this falls on the Spanish government. A government that has refused to acknowledge reality for the past ten years and has a serious political problem in Catalonia that can only be resolved as political problems are resolved in western democracies: through dialogue and voting. With all things considered, we have arrived at a decisive moment: to make Europe and the international community understand that it is not possible to solve the Catalan crisis without counting on the Catalan government as a principal interlocutor. And we are saying to Mariano Rajoy that he has before him a president, the President of Catalonia, a government, the government of Catalonia, and a people, the people of Catalonia, that have declared their nation to be independent, and will not fail in the task of making it a reality.

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Translator’s note:

[1] It has recently transpired that the Spanish prosecutor’s file detailing the charges of rebellion and sedition lodged against the Catalan authorities had a revealing heading: “The harder they’ll fall” (in Spanish).