“We are no longer in 2017 but in 2024.” The best summary of this Onze de Setembre is from the president of Òmnium Cultural, Xavier Antich. He did so this Wednesday during the event that the entity is organizing for the Diada, where he also called for “self-criticism” to recover the political power that “the independence movement has lost.” Otherwise, he said, “we will not be able to move forward.” “Let’s get back on track!” emphasized the Catalan National Assembly.
The feeling, on this 11th of September, has been not so much one of weariness as of fatigue. The recent investiture of Salvador Illa, after an agreement between PSC and ERC, has marked the end of a few turbulent years that this Diada has rounded off with a certain frugality. Not even the flashy visit of Carles Puigdemont to Catalonia has served to make the independence movement renew the votes of fourteen years ago, when the Barcelona Police estimated that almost two million people demonstrated with the ANC.
The decentralized demonstrations this Wednesday were far from the figures of a few years ago, and that is also the reason for such disaggregation. Such was the expectation that for the first time ANC, Òmnium, Consell de la República and other civil society entities have demonstrated in a united manner. In some way, the picture shown in the latest barometer of the Center for Opinion Studies is avoided: support for independence is at the lowest figure in the historical series with 40%, while rejection gathers the highest percentage, 53%.
This afternoon, in fact, although the fight for independence is not hidden, the demand has been camouflaged with more palpable proclamations, each in a different city. In Barcelona, housing; in Tarragona, for railway improvements; in Lleida, for agriculture; in Girona, for public health; and in Tortosa, for water resources. Five “injustices” that, according to the demonstrators, are caused by belonging to Spain. However, in Barcelona barely 60,000 people have taken to the streets.
The president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, at the offering at the Rafael Casanova monument, during the Diada.
If the Diada is the best example of the strength of the independence movement, this year it has become clear that Catalonia has entered a new cycle in which the distance between civil society and political parties is becoming increasingly evident. If the Assembly blames the traditional parties for the loss of the pro-independence majority, they blame each other.
For Junts, ERC is to blame. For ERC, Junts is to blame. And so on. Meanwhile, Illa, calm, is giving himself over to contemplative political life. The president of the Generalitat has sent out the message that the Diada belongs to everyone, and little else. The further away from the dispute, the better, he must think.
But the parties are also immersed in their own disputes. All the pro-sovereignty forces, Junts, ERC and the CUP, will face their respective congress processes in the remainder of the year. Junts will try to consolidate the leadership of Carles Puigdemont and organize itself in such a way that it can present itself as the only pro-independence opposition to Illa.
ERC, for its part, is seeking to resolve the differences between its two most prominent figures, Oriol Junqueras and Marta Rovira. And they are doing so in a very public way, without leaving anything out, even though the political programme does not differ too much. For its part, the CUP is directly seeking to re-establish itself after the latest electoral defeats.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.es
