01 Nov 2012 Catalunya, una idea en moviment
On 11th September this year I was trying to march in Barcelona’s multitudinous rally for independence. While so doing, I was thinking about both my grandfathers. On one side of the family, granddad Álvaro, from Murcia, who had chosen to live in Catalonia; and on the other side, granddad Vidal, who had tried to build a fortune in Cuba in 1912 but had to return to his country without success. The present is the result of our History. This is why I thought of them amongst the crowd. Nothing happens by chance. I also thought of the late -and much missed- Josep Termes, a historian who wrote that Catalonia “is a miracle”. In particular (the citation is long but worthwhile) “a miracle within contemporary Europe. Because for the last two- or three-hundred years, except for those Nations which have a great State behind them, the rest have been gobbled up, like a small fish at sea eaten by the big fish. Catalonia is a historic example of the peculiar, strange and clearly troubled survival of a stubborn people. After its defeat in the War of Spanish Succession, everything seemed to suggest to the Spanish subjects and to the great European powers that Catalonia would disappear after 1714. Like so many other countries in Europe, the old, medieval country of Catalonia was losing its Courts, its Parliament, its Constitutions and its Laws. In 1714, therefore, Catalonia ceased to exist. It became just the geographic name of one of the many provinces of the Spanish sovereign, who acted mainly as King of Castile. Catalonia started then its life as a depersonalised province lacking its own institutions, laws, government and official language.” I carried on thinking, from one thing another. I remembered another late historian: the English Tony Judt, one of the most lucid, intelligent people of recent years. In his book Postwar, in the chapter “The Old Europe – And the New”, Judt wrote that “if Catalonia was an independent country it would be amongst the richest in Europe”. Such was the opinion of an impartial foreign analyst who examined the problem.
The rally on 11th September was truly multitudinous: one and a half million people marching peacefully. It certified that the country is not changing: it has already changed. This change has been taking place for years. These are exciting times but we are struggling to make the correct interpretations. We tend to compare the current events with those of the past, such as those in 1898, but History never repeats itself.
Currently, there are new factors never seen before in the conflict between Catalonia and Spain: the society’s loss of fear; the generational change; the exhaustion of the ‘peix al cove’ (easy-wins policy) as a way of obtaining competences and resources from Spain; the new immigration and the challenge posed by cultural offshoring; the Spanish State’s lack of solvency, due to an economic model which has reached its limits; the transformation of the classic concept of sovereignty in the EU; and the identity crisis of those Catalan nationalists which believed in the regeneration of Spain, and which reached its peak with the Spanish Constitutional Court’s sentence against some significant parts of the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia.
All these factors come together in unpredictable ways and make any comparisons with the past unreliable. In any case, today like yesterday, it is clear that Catalonia is, above all, an idea in motion.
But what is this ‘idea in motion? It is an ongoing project which is constantly being imagined and built. A work in progress. It was ‘work in progress’ for the men of the Renaixença, the 19th century literary and cultural movement which did not, however, propose a political alternative. And from the last third of the 19th century it started being an explicit idea, expressed in the Project of Construction of the Catalan State within the Spanish Federation, approved in 1883 by the federalists (following Pi i Margall’s ideas); in the Memorial de Greuges (‘Record of Grievances’), written by Valentí Almirall and promoted by the Centre Català, and which was handed to king Alphonse XII in 1885 by distinguished members of the Catalan society to defend the political and economical interests of Catalonia; in the Bases de Manresa (‘Manresa Bases’), the first autonomy project of importance championed by Unió Catalanista in 1892. By this time, the idea of Catalonia as a modern nation which wants to exist and take its own decisions about itself was starting to take shape, but it was still very basic.
After Spain’s 1898 jolt, the idea of Catalonia started to gather speed. This was the time of the Missatge a la Reina regent, a document asking for the autonomy of Catalonia jointly signed by the Ateneu Barcelonès, Foment del Treball and the Institut Agrícola Català de Sant Isidre, amongst other organisations. This is the time of the famous episode known as the ‘closing of tills’ (‘Tancament de caixes’), in which businesses refused to pay tax between June and November 1899 as a response to a substantial tax increase on top of the Spanish government’s refusal (led by Silvela and Polavieja) to award Catalonia the right to raise and manage its taxes. That was what today would be considered a train crash: Catalan shopkeepers lost the battle, but thanks to that resistance public opinion became aware of the grievances. And that awareness sunk in.
Thereafter, the idea of Catalonia was unstoppable. Considering the country’s history in thirty-year chunks, it is possible to realise that this idea has never been completely erased and has always made a come- back.
In the 1901 elections, the pro-regions candidacy known as ‘the four presidents’ (with the legend that was Dr. Robert and the architect Domènech i Muntaner) won in what was the first Catalanist victory at the polls. Support for the dynastic and despotic parties of the Restoration plummeted. That moment represented the birth of the conservative Regionalist League and the start of the Catalan political map as the separate entity that is still today. Much has been said about the landslide electoral success of the Catalan Solidarity coalition in the Barcelona and Girona provincial elections in 1907. Its importance was undeniable, for this instance of Catalanist unity had an impact on Spain and meant the emergence of high-profile names such as that of Prat de la Riba’s. But the harmony of this Solidarity was short-lived, and for this reason I would rather think of 1901 as a landmark.
Thirty years later, in 1931, the beginning of the Second Spanish Republic certified that Catalonia was a beacon of modernity within a Spain whose regime was changing but which, unfortunately, had not solved its deep social inequalities and entrenched conflicts: the power-struggle between State and Church and the threat posed by the army, based on a colonialist tradition and with a pro-coup ideology. The idea of Catalonia became personalised in the first leader of the Catalan masses, Granddad Francesc Macià, a charismatic and romantic figure like a late Bolívar or Garibaldi. The war, though, shattered the civilised idea of Catalonia (inspired in the early 20th-century cultural movement Noucentisme), and sentenced it to years of exile, illegality and silence.
1961 was a flagship year. It saw the birth of the cultural and political association Òmnium Cultural, as well as that of the band Els Setze Jutges (a strong precursor of the Nova Cançó movement which would promote Catalan culture in Francoist Spain). Two years earlier, the first issue of this very magazine had seen the light of day and still one year earlier Salvador Espriu’s The Bull-hide had been published. 1961 was also the year of Kennedy’s arrival to the White House. The following year saw the beginning of the Second Vatican Council and the founding of the publishing house Edicions 62. The world was rapidly changing and the excellent coming of age of the Catalanist cultural resistance under the Dictatorship signalled that Catalonia was again a strong idea in motion. Another proof of this had taken place in 1960, when a group of young people had shown their defiance of Franco in the Fets del Palau, by singing the Catalan song El cant de la senyera at the Palau de la Música despite it having been prohibited by the authorities. These events led to the trial and imprisonment of, amongst others, Jordi Pujol, who would later become President of Catalonia. Thanks to remarkable men such as Josep Benet and Josep Mª Ainaud de Lasarte, the idea of Catalonia had overcome the long post-war period and could finally be redeveloped by those who had not fought the war and did not have direct memories of it.
In 1991, Catalonia was enjoying autonomy within democratic Spain. But momentous events were taking place throughout the world. The fall of the Berlin Wall gave way to the process of unification of East and West Germany and to the most important act of self-determination, change in borders and national assertion in Europe since 1945. Nobody had seen it coming. This, together with the peaceful independence of the Baltic countries and Slovenia had an unquestionable influence on the reformulation of the idea of Catalonia. So much so, that separatism in Catalonia grew –as could be appreciated during the 1992 Olympic Games- and people ascertained that a Spain divided in autonomous regions would not actually solve the problems of the nation. During those years, Pujol led a country which became used to obtaining certain gradual perks. Pujol stated once that “Catalonia is like Latvia, but Spain is not like the USSR”. Was this pragmatism or ambiguity? Probably a bit of both. At that point, society was not asking for more. However, in 1989 the Catalan Parliament passed for the first time a declaration by which Catalonia was not to waive the right to self-determination. Pujol enjoyed a long term in power, during which he had time to show his support for President Felipe González in 1993, amidst corruption scandals, and for President José Mª Aznar (who was not very keen on the idea of Catalonia) in 1996, when he won the general election with absolute majority. The idea of Catalonia was taking on a new look, trying to fly on its own, but was still clinging to everyday issues. Back then, people used to say that the Baltic countries were coming out of a historic parenthesis like the Catalans had done in 1975. When it comes to national issues, the East is not the West.
Thirty years on from 1991, we reach the next horizon: 2021. This is, in nine years’ time. Us Catalans have a decade to take decisions and to work very hard. What will be then the idea and the reality of Catalonia? I do not know. The only thing I know is that nowadays’ idea is not that of 1901, 1931, 1961 or 1991, although there is a very clear thread of continuity. Today is not about moving from literary to political Catalanism, nor to subordinate Catalanism to the success of a Spanish Republic void of true republicans, nor to resist a murderous tyranny which had fought a war in order to put an end to the Catalan anomaly. Today is not either about explaining ourselves in Spain so that they understand our differences (the ‘fet diferencial’). The issue today is something different: it is about not putting the fate of our collective survival in anybody else’s hands but ours: the Catalan people’s hands. It is simple but complex. And it is also about taking part in the re-designing of the European sovereignties without middle-men, joining as free Catalans in the construction of a true continental federalism which represents a more efficient, democratic and fair continental federalism.
This is the time to break the tie. The Catalan writer Gaziel used to talk about a tie of impotence between Spain and Catalonia. If it is time for a tie-break, this means that we are reaching the final. The challenge is encouraging but we must not kid ourselves: it will not be easy and it will be costly. We must accept it. We will be asked to make efforts, sacrifices and compromises which we cannot even start to imagine. Also a lot of intelligence and generosity will be required.
Two dangers are looming: on the one hand, resistance to change and the bogeyman of social rupture; on the other, haste and brotherly divisions. These two dangers are real and pose a threat to many collective hopes. It is essential to be able to estimate properly our energies as a nation in order to manage them adequately.
Catalonia has been and still is an idea in motion. An idea which has overcome wars, dictatorships and attempts at cultural genocide. An idea that people have made their own because they have found in it a project for freedom, justice, dignity and wellbeing which is worth fighting for. We are an idea in motion and we have finally reached our destination.