My homage to Catalonia
Historic injustices, Spanish aggression and silence from the EU will now determine the region’s bid for independence, says novelist Colm Tóibín
News Review & Features
One evening in the middle of August, the busy holiday month in Catalonia, in a restaurant in a small town in the foothills of the Pyrenees, I noticed a minister from the Catalan government having a discreet supper with a number of prominent local people, including a mayor. The minister, who was a long way from home, was not on his holidays. Like all his colleagues, he was spending his free time travelling in the Catalan heartland of northeastern Spain, sounding out opinion and making arrangements, so that last weekend’s referendum on Catalan independence would go smoothly. The roots of Catalan nationalism go back to the second half of the 19th century. The founding of Barça football club, in 1899, was part of the fervour of that time, as was a movement that was known as excursionisme, which involved groups hiking and camping in the Pyrenees, as a way of reconnecting with their identity as Catalans.
It was this spirit that informed the run-up to Sunday’s referendum, the fallout from which is still far from settled. In general, Catalans are orderly and organised. Forty-eight hours before the referendum, voters began to camp out in the schools where polling would take place as a way of ensuring that they could not be locked out by the Spanish authorities, who were seeking to prevent it from taking place at all.
They managed to move ballot papers and boxes to the appropriate places under the very noses of the Spanish authorities, including the Guardia Civil, the national police force. Since those with the right to vote could do so at any polling station, people travelled to see friends on the big day. There was food available, and a sense of community and good cheer.
Many posted images of elderly parents and grandparents making their way to vote. It mattered that older people could come safely to the polling stations, not just out of the Catalans’ natural respect for the elderly, but because anyone over the age of 85 has terrible memories of the Civil War and its aftermath. During his dictatorship, General Franco sought to undermine Catalan identity and rights in every way he could, since the region had fought against him in the Civil War.
Since Franco’s death, much has been consolidated in Catalonia, not least the language, which is now used almost exclusively in many parts of rural Catalonia, and has more than equal billing with Spanish, even in cities like Barcelona where, for example, street signs are solely in Catalan. There is a Catalan police force, els Mossos d’esquadra, which has won huge acceptance in Catalonia; last Sunday, its members stood arm in arm – some in tears – to protect voters from the Guardia Civil at polling stations.
There is always a sense that Catalonia’s rights are fragile and cannot be taken for granted. When the high-speed Ave trains were introduced in Spain, Catalans noticed how the line from Madrid to Seville, by no means the busiest route in the
‘Catalan police stood arm in arm to protect voters from the Guardia Civil’
country, took precedence over a service to Barcelona, which is an economic powerhouse. There is still no fast train along the Mediterranean corridor, between the Catalan capital and Valencia. It has not escaped anyone’s notice that these decisions are made in Madrid.
The government in Madrid believes in the unity of Spain. Around a decade ago, concerned about the ways in which Catalonia was taking liberties with the freedoms already granted to it under a system of regional autonomy, the Madrid government sought a constitutional court ruling on the Catalan question. In 2010, the judges came to the conclusion that the Catalan language should cease to have precedence over Spanish, and that Catalonia could no longer consider itself a nation in any way that mattered.
For Catalans, this was a red rag to a bull – if they knew about red rags and bulls. (They don’t: they dislike bullfighting, and have tried to ban it as a sport across the region.) Slowly, in the years since, opinion has grown that the only way Catalonia can survive as a nation and thrive as a community is as an independent state.
Catalans are skilled at doing deals, making pacts. The party that has won most votes since the restoration of democracy is pro-business. When Artur Mas, president of Catalonia from 2010 to 2015, declared himself in favour of independence, the wider world should have taken notice. Mas is no hot-headed firebrand, but a cosmopolitan right-of-centre politician, part of a European mainstream. He would have had no difficulty sitting comfortably alongside Angela Merkel or Emmanuel Macron. His replacement, Carles Puigdemont – who shares power with two smaller parties to the Left of his own, and which are more fervent in their nationalism – is much the same.
Like a large number of Catalans, he views Madrid’s handling of the economic and banking problems of recent years as less than competent. He sees an opening now for something that he and his party would have always desired, if it were ever possible – the full independence of Catalonia from Spain. He believes that Catalonia would be richer economically and more secure culturally as a separate state within Europe, with close ties to Spain.
The Catalan strategy has long been to show themselves as modern Europeans: normal, serious-minded people you can do business with – like the Swiss, except with some good beaches. A nationalist and secessionist movement that uses only argument, promises only peaceful methods, and has support across class divisions is harder to deny than a terrorist campaign; when the Basques planted bombs and murdered policemen, they were roundly condemned. The referendum was Catalonia’s big chance to show the world that it is peaceful and well run.
Instead, Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish prime minister, allowed the Guardia Civil to beat and injure ordinary Catalans who had come out to vote, causing rage, and showing the world some pretty graphic reasons why Catalans might not want to live under brutal, coercive and repressive Spanish rule.
On Sunday night, Rajoy should have recalled the Guardia Civil and rebuked them. He, or one of his representatives, should then have visited the injured in hospital. He should also have made some gesture towards dialogue with the Catalan government. Instead, he sought help from the king, whose emergency speech last week suggested that the Catalans were unruly children who needed to be warned about their behaviour. Felipe VI did not once express sympathy to the people beaten and ill-treated by the police.
In Catalonia, the king’s speech sounded as though it had been written by Rajoy; to make matters worse, it was delivered by the head of state in front of a painting of Carlos III who, in 1768, outlawed the use of the Catalan language.
Catalans like doing business, and none of this is good for business. Many have been deeply disturbed by the failure of their efforts to launch themselves on to the world stage; despite a 90 per cent vote in favour of independence, turnout was just 43 per cent, with many ballot boxes having been removed from polling stations by Spanish police, and many Catalans who oppose independence boycotting the poll for fear of lending it legitimacy.
Yet those who do not seek full independence and would vote “No” in a legally sanctioned referendum are shocked by police overreaction to the poll and the EU’S near-silence on the state brutality. Many do not want the exercise repeated.
There is anger in Catalonia, and also depression. Puigdemont is under pressure to take one more step – though to prevent him from declaring independence, the Spanish constitutional courts have suspended the Catalan parliament’s next sitting on Monday. If he can find a way around this, Puigdemont will move rationally, carefully. And Rajoy will not know what to do.
The referendum was Catalonia’s chance to show the world it is peaceful and well run