Few images circulating globally from earlier today 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 sportcentre 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, magnified by wide coverage in the international media, has played into the Catalan nationalism’s historic sense of victimisation at the hands of Madrid.
In the town of Sitges,just south of Barcelona, this morning the majority pro-independence local town council gave the green light to activate various voting centres. I watched hundreds of civilians, growing in number in response to the the news coming in from Gerona, with the only security presence that of two Mossos d’Esquadra outside each centre.
The most senior of the two read out an official order at each centre declaring the referendum unlawful before asking everyone to abandon the vote. 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 in a minority of polling centres.
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 violenetly with pro-indepedence 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 FC Barcelona nearly cancelled before playing a scheduled league match behind closed doors in solidarity with the injured victims of the police violence used against Catalan voters.
The club denied reports that the main reason was because of security concerns that the match might be disrupted by angry pro-indepedence fans . Instead it allowed the Catalan nationalist player who plays in the Spanish national squad Gerard Pique to make an emotional statement in support of the people of Catalonia and against the harder line police tactics used today. Yes, Barca is Mes que un Club , never quite able to shed its civic conscience.
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 on increasing Catalonia’s autonomous powers 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 fully independent from Spain .
The current polarisation between the Spanish right and Catalan nationalists will only lead to violence. Perhaps 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.
