Categoria: Opinions

We need the Catalan political parties (CiU and ERC) to organize a binding referendum as soon as possible and since elections are soon we need them to include this in their political program, these two parties combined have an absolute majority in the Catalan Parliament and we need them to commit to organise a referendum of independence the day after the elections.

Do CiU and ERC need a divine sign, or maybe a miracle, a lightning coming from the sky to carve in a stone in Montserrat a command telling them what they must do? Because Catalan society has spoken again and they don’t seem to listen.

Last weekend Catalan society organised itself again, fighting the news void organised by the unionist media which completely ignored the event and voted again that they want the independence of Catalonia.

Not only the results again showed that Catalans overwhelmingly want independence (94% yes vote) but even in the areas where votes do not traditionally go to the Catalan parties (CiU and ERC) where the spanish immigrants that arrived in the 60s and 70s and many of their descendants live, in areas where you’ll barey hear Catalan in the streets, even there, the results are an exact replica of the ones seen in Vic or other Catalan strongholds. They want independence because they know it’ll be the best for them. Some will say that the participation of a 21% is low but to me is a clear success considering the circumstances.

I’m wondering if the current parties are aware of what they have in their hands, I believe they do but they consciously ignore it. I don’t believe anymore that CiU’s (and ERC’s) leaders are what they say they are. I just can’t understand how neither of them are as we speak are in a meeting speaking about organizing a coalition after the elections to make a binding referendum for independence.

There’s loads of people from those two parties that have put an enormous amount of effort into organising the referendums and even some of their relevant members, like Alfons López Tena or Oriol Junqueras are 100% commited to work to help Catalonia achieve their independence but something is rotten inside those organizations, the current leaders of CiU and ERC are one of the main obstacles for Catalonia’s independence right now.

I cannot think of any more ways that Catalan society can express their desire for a binding independence referendum. In the meantime, CiU seem too busy thinking of ways to help Zapatero get Spain out the the crisis and ERC have been in a coalition government for 6 years with the PSOE and have made it possible for Montilla to be the worst president of the Generalitat to record, someone who has made every effort to turn Catalonia into a Spanish province.

Then politicians complain that there’s a low interest in politics in Catalonia, I’d say what really happens is that politicians are too busy keeping their shares of power rather than listening to what people want.

In this scenario we have two possibilities, that CiU and ERC elect new leaders that are going to move the country forward or someone needs to break the status quo in the Catalan Parliament, and the only organisation willing to do that is Reagrupament, the political association led by Joan Carretero, which has as a main target to gather a majority of deputies (no matter what party they belong to) in the Catalan Parliament and declare independence and judging by the attacks it is recently receiving is getting closer to its target every day. Also, Joan Laporta, seems to be starting his political career and he’s openly defending independence for our country.

Since the current parties seem too busy trying to save Spain instead of helping Catalonia my guess is that us Catalans have chosen the wrong representatives so far. We need change.

Everyone was holding their breath after Carretero’s announcement last saturday of his resignation as president of Reagrupament, the independentist catalan association.

Many people tought it was not fair, after so many hopes, so much work that all ended in such a silly way, everyone was surprised at the apparent lack of sense it all made. All I thought is that it didn’t make sense, therefore I waited to see the events and refrained from posting on the subject.

Apparently, 4 members of the elected management were having discrepancies with the leader and founder Carretero. Carretero informed them on a management meeting that that unless these 4 members resigned he’d resign, and with him the rest of the management.

It seems the disobedient members were making the same mistakes traditional catalan parties make and wanted regional representatives to be elected in a primary round, therefore pushing to create power lobbys inside the organization that later on could potentially destabilize it when the time of entering the Parliament came. On the other hand, Carretero thought it was more appropriate that in order to avoid inner fights to let associates vote directly any regional candidate in just one round of elections.

Reagrupament’s original intentions are of creating a radically independentist party inside the catalan Parliament to unstabilize it and center the debate on the independence issue rather than now, when it is (falsely) centered on the left or right debate. This makes no sense since Catalonia has very limited power to deal effectively with any political issues and has no real independence of action.

The news of Carretero leaving made it to the headlines in all Catalan newspapers and the forums, blogs, tweets and comments were reflecting different reactions about the situation. Supporters were showing disappointment and disencouragement while the other parties were relieved declaring that Reagrupament was immature and that it’s disappearance was normal.

On sunday, Joan Laporta announced on an interview with Avui that he’s considering making the jump into politics once his term as president of FC Barcelona is over and negotiations are ongoing with Joan Carretero to create a joint independentist project.

Laporta’s intentions to jump into politics are causing a headache to the the members of the other Catalan parties since they know the potential the Laporta-Carretero combo have of stealing independentist votes from their options.

Yesterday, Carretero gave an radio interview and declared that he had not left Reagrupament but he had left the presidency since he had no time to waste with power struggles inside the association. Shortly after this the 4 disobedient members anonounced their resignation, mostly by the pressure of the rest of the associates who made it clear that they didn’t have enough support to continue leading the association without Carretero. A few hours later Carretero declared he’d take back his responsibility as president of Reagrupament.

In a few words, Carretero has made a master move, he’s swiped the danger of making the same mistakes traditional parties have committed, has emerged as the unquestioned leader of Reagrupament and at the same time has cleared the way for Joan Laporta to come and join Reagrupament without oposition from other sectors. At the same time grabbing the media attention after having been largely (and intentionally) ignored by it, since Catalan traditional media is largely linked to either unionist or autonomist power.

I refrained from posting anything on the subject until things had cleared up since it wasn’t clear what was going on and we were able to see past the trees. I had faith that Carretero knows what he is doing and even though his unorthodox ways may surprise some they have proven to be very effective so far.

The road is clear for Reagrupament to revolutionize the Catalan Parliament next fall.

Last week Barça won the football clubs championship in Abu Dhabi therefore winning all six competitions it has taken part this year and being the first team to ever achieve this plus a very nice 2-6 result against Real Madrid last spring. I do feel proud and happy when the team of my city wins competitions and even more when it wins them all.

The most important for me is the way they have achieved it, thanks to Catalans like Pep Guardiola, Joan Laporta, Puyol, Xavi, Piqué, Valdés, Busquets and Bojan Barça has achieved their biggest success ever and become universal at the time when they have been more proudly and openly Catalan and independentist. They also win playing their way with no compromises: with hard work, no arrogance, beautiful game and putting the team before any individualism. This is how they have gained everyone’s respect and compliments and at the same time projecting Catalonia’s identity in the world. Pep Guardiola is to the architect of this success, the coach that has revolutionised Barça with his hard work and spectacular playing style has written a page in sports history.

Something you notice when travelling is that no matter where you are, in the smallest remote village in the mountains as you walk down the street you’ll eventually see someone wearing a Barça t-shirt, with the little catalan flag at the back, which makes me feel good when I am far from home.

Thanks Barça. Visca el Barça i Visca Catalunya!