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Spirit Door, Egypt, 1989, Linda Connor

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What the fuck is happening in Catalonia, by a Spaniard

You’ve probably already heard about what happened in Catalonia, Spain (for now), on October 1st. If not, here’s a brief summary:

Catalonia has had a big independance movement for a very long time (I’ll expose the reasons later). In the last few years, it’s grown much stronger, and after many attempts at talking with the Government to pact a referendum about that matter and being ignored time after time, the Govern (autonomic government of Catalonia) decided to make one nonetheless. They don’t have the power to do so, according to our Constitution, so it’s illegal; and the Government reacted by sending practically all the police force to Catalonia to stop people from voting. (All while the country is in a Level 4 of alert for terrorism — meaning there hasn’t been a terror attack in Madrid because terrorists didn’t want to.) And on October 1st, tragedy came. Despite being illegal, many Catalans went to vote, and the response of the policemen was hitting, harming, kicking, pulling, pushing. The international press referred to it as “Spain’s day of shame”, among others. Over 800 injured (the terror attack last month barely left 30!), a deep social crisis… and the President, Mariano Rajoy, said we’ve been “an example to the world”.

How did we come to this?

Originally, what we nowadays know as Spain was a bunch of different kingdoms, the biggest of which were Castile and Aragon. Many wrongly believe that these kingdoms were united when Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon (commonly known as the Catholic Monarchs) got married, but the truth is, they didn’t. They remained as two separate kingdoms that just happened to be ruled by the same king.

This system remained the same while the monarchs were from the house of Habsburg. However, in 1700 the king Charles II died without an heir, and Europe went into war for the Spanish throne. Castile and France supported the French candidate, and Aragon, Austria and England supported the Austrian, to name a few. The war lasted for 14 years, and eventually the French candidate, Felipe d’Anjou, became the new king. He was ruthless to the rebels from Aragon and there was an important repression: he burnt flags and hanged generals, even though he had promised he wouldn’t, and fully united the kingdoms. It’s only now when there’s a country actually called Kingdom of Spain. 

1714, the year in which the French and Castilian troops took Barcelona, has become a symbol in the independance movement; and September 11th, the day it happened, is in fact Catalonia’s day.

Since then, though Catalonia has always remained under Spanish rule, the thought of independance has never left them. For instance, when Spain first became a Republic (1873), the Govern (one-sidedly —is that a word?—) declared that Catalonia would be a Republic inside a Spanish Federal Republic. The Government didn’t let them, and the First Republic was such a mess it wouldn’t have worked anyway.

The Second Republic came in 1931, and it ended with the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), caused by a militar coup. In the war, Catalonia was in favour of the Republic; it was the last land to fall and suffered a lot in both the war and afterwards. The Civil War was followed by a fascist dictatorship led by general Francisco Franco, and ended with his death in 1975. Among other things, Franco prohibited any other languages besides Spanish to be spoken, and so Catalan (and Galician and Esukera) were banned.

After Franco’s death, there was a process called the Transition, in which politicians tried to have a pacific transition from the dictatorship to a democracy. The success of this process is still argued nowadays. In 1978, our current Constitution was written, and because the Catalan people wanted autonomy (and because Spaniards are like this, so wanted many others), in the end it was decided to have the system of autonomic regions we have nowadays.

That didn’t seem to be enough to some, and the independance movement in Catalonia has been growing since then. In the last few years it has increased drastically, accentuated by the economic crisis and the lack of response from the Government. 

Now you know the reasons behind Catalonia’s referendum. You may still be wondering how a Government can react with such violence.

The party that currently governs in Spain, Partido Popular (People’s Party) was founded by a few of Franco’s ministers. Remember our peaceful Transition? This is one of its ill effects: fascism isn’t banned, Franco’s flag isn’t banned, the Nazi salute isn’t banned. What would you expect from a party heir of a fascist dictatorship? The only way they know to solve things is violence. You may have wonder why Spain hasn’t suffered the rise of extreme-rightist (read: neo-Nazi) parties like many other countries. The answer is simple: they never left.

But please remember: that’s not Spain, That’s not us. Most of the population was sickened, disgusted and ashamed of the violence used in Catalonia against people who just wanted to be heard. On that same day there were demonstrations in many Spanish cities.

I took this picture in the demonstration in Madrid. We chanted “Catalonia, you’re not alone”, “Madrid stands with the Catalan people”, and “No pasarán” (”They shall not pass”, a famous line from the Civil War that’s become an anti-fascist motto in Spain). 

I’d hate for Catalonia to leave, but I’ll fight for their right to speak and be heard.

I don’t want my country to be regarded as the shameful pseudo-dictatorship of Europe.

I am repulsed and ashamed by what happened yesterday.

There are many who think like me.

Citizens of the world and Catalonia, please, don’t commit the mistake of thinking that the current Spanish Government is Spain. 

Spain is so much more than that.

And Spaniards have been through enough.

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Paolo Verzone and Louis Witter’s photos of the referendum day

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Babe

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From Bathroom Design (1985)

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By @michaelste

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“I wear no makeup in real life. I’m very simple. That may be why I go over the top for the red carpet. But otherwise, I’m very plain. I should make more of an effort, actually.”

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