When last Friday the spokesman for the Spanish Government, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, pronounced solemnly from the official board from which he addresses every Friday to give an account of the Cabinet Meeting agreements, that every government worries about violence, in relation to what might happen to Catalonia during the next weeks, something that until now was only a rumor was elevated to the category of being news: are people working from the sewers of the Spanish state [also in reference to TV documentary 'Spain's Secret Cesspit' about the 'Operation Catalonia'] so that an incident occurs in the coming weeks?
Otherwise, it is difficult to find a reasonable explanation for the words of the spokesman. Since 2010, six major demonstrations have been celebrated in one way or another in Barcelona concerning the sovereignty of Catalonia. The first, as a protest against the ruling of the Constitutional Court against the Statute of Autonomy, that marked a process of no return to the former situation and the end of the autonomous region, as had been conceived until then. The other five, every year since 2012, have done nothing but unify the independence movement and to set its objectives. The rest has been done by the Spanish government of the PP (Popular Party) with its continual negativity. At none of these concentrations, in which millions of people have been mobilised — six, eight, so many — has there ever been the smallest incident. It's not that there have even been minor incidents, it is simply that none has occurred. I repeat, none.
In the year 2014, I remember it perfectly, some news already warned about destabilizing the concentration of 11th September. In recent days, the Spanish government has gathered together repression and violence in the same news package. The repression is already being seen the last days with complaints, notifications to a thousand public officials, searches of printers and media. This spiral will increase from Tuesday, since somebody in Madrid has decided that it is necessary to let the Diada pass (11th September, Catalonia's National Day), before elevating the response. In the meantime, television channels like La Sexta and star presenters like Farreras have set out to insinuate that in Catalonia the situation will end with violence. Marhuenda (editor of La Razon newspaper) has also spoken about violence in Catalonia and Cebrián has used the El Pais newspaper to also speak about violence. One reaches the conclusion, and it is not very difficult, that it seems they wish for violence, because there are no examples that support their concern.
In fact, violence related to the Catalan independence process has not come from those who defend the referendum, but from the other side. It was seen at the Blanquerna Cultural Centre in Madrid in 2013, with prison sentences of up to four years for public disorder and aggression, and it has also been in some concentration that has been celebrated in Barcelona.
This Monday, hundreds of thousands of Catalans will manifest themselves again on the streets Barcelona. And they will do so as always: in peace, converting a national day into a festivity, enrusting that this will be the last time that the ANC and Òminum will summon everyone for a massive demonstration on 11th September.