Few images circulating globally from earlier yesterday (October 1) seemed to risk being more damaging to the Spanish government’s attempts to woo over a majority of Catalans to its concept of a lawful constitutional democracy than that of helmeted Civil Guard officers using a hammer to break a window and a lock cutter to break open a door at a sports centre near Gerona.
Tougher tactics have been used before by British and other European police including Catalonia’s own force the Mossos D’Escuadra to deal with violent protestors, criminals, and terrorists.
But this was a non-Catalan police force ordered by Madrid to act against a peaceful civil protest expressed by Catalans claiming to exercise their right to vote for or against independence. The action, followed by other examples of heavy-handed tactics by the Spanish national police, and magnified by wide coverage in the international media, has played into Catalan nationalism’s historic sense of victimisation at the hands of Madrid.
In the town of Sitges,just south of Barcelona, yesterday morning the majority pro-independence local town council gave the green light to activate various voting centres around town. I watched hundreds of civilians, growing in number in response to the news coming in from Gerona, lining up to vote in various polling stations, with the only security presence that of two Mossos d’Esquadra assigned to each. During the day I interviewed Catalans who were voting yes; Catalans who were voting no; and Catalans who were not voting because they thought the referendum a sham. and did not agree with the way the Catalan government was radicalising politics.
Looking and acting very much in the style of the traditional community based English village ‘bobby’, the most senior of the two Mossos d’Escuadra read out an official order declaring the referendum unlawful before asking everyone to abandon the vote and to be allowed in the premise to withdrawal of the ballot boxes This was rejected by the crowd, and the peaceful voting was allowed to go on.
A similar pattern was repeated in other voting locations around Catalonia in what the Mossos claimed was proportionate policing as compared to the tougher tactics used by other forces.
When the Mossos did put on their riot gear and adopted a less passive attitude was when they moved in to separate a group of extreme right Spanish nationalists who had briefly clashed violently with pro-independence radicals and anarchists in Barcelona’s iconic popular square,the Plaza de Catalunya, itself another disturbing image of how emotionally charged the Catalan issue has become.
Later the Madrid headquartered Spanish Federation refused a request from FC Barcelona that a League match scheduled for the afternoon be cancelled in solidarity with the injured victims of the police violence used against Catalan voters. Instead the match against Las Palmas was played bending closed doors.The club denied reports that the main reason was because of security concerns that the match might be disrupted by angry pro-independence fans .
It was surreal to be among a few dozen journalists allowed to watch the match live. A heavy sense of mourning as well as defiance seemed to hang about some of the players as they pursued a 3-0 victory amidst the cavernous silence of the 98,000 seated Camp Nou .
Fourty years ago I sat in the same stadium and watched the stadium filled with Catalan and Basque flags for the first time since the Spanish Civil War as Johan Cruyff led out Barca and Iribar, Athletic Bilbao. Catalonia’s exiled regional president Josep Tarradellas was on his way back to Spain after striking a pact with Spanish prime-minister Adolfo Suarez . Spain’s transition to democracy twould include a new constitution giving Catalonia and other regions of Spain autonomous powers under the unified nation state headed by the Spanish Crown.
Fourty years on, the empty Camp Nou stadium testified the extent to which many Catalans feel that Spanish democracy, as interpreted by the current centre-right Popular Party government in Madrid, has failed them.
After the match against Las Palmas , the Catalan nationalist player who plays in the Spanish national squad Gerard Pique made an emotional statement in support of the people of Catalonia and in denunciation of police tactics. Yes, FC Barcelona has a civic conscience. Barca es Mes que un Club.
So where does this leave Catalan politics?
In desperate need of statesmanship in Madrid, moderation and pragmatism in Barcelona, and the kick-start of serious political dialogue that a majority of Spaniards can support and which can connect with Catalans who have a strong sense of their cultural identity but do not necessarily want to be independent from Spain.
The current polarisation between the Spanish right and Catalan nationalists will only lead to increasing violence. Pehaps its time for an external mediation to identify Spain’s common good lies in dealing with Catalans with more respect , and that includes engaging with those who did not vote today because they thought it unlawful and those who voted because they thought it their right.
Comments