It's not a good day to be an optimist. Nor is it a good day to believe in justice, or, at least, in this justice system. Much less is it a good day to forget those who have, with lies and infamies, fabricated a narrative that the Catalan government and Parliament had led a coup d'état. Yet, however, it is a good day to believe in Catalonia. It is a good day to remember the many things done by the government of president Puigdemont to give voice to the public in the referendum on 1st October. And it's a good day to feel close to the eight members of the government, starting with vice-president Oriol Junqueras, who were ordered into preventive custody without bail by a judge of Spain's National Audience court, Carmen Lamela.
At this time, and it's hard to say it like this, we all have friends in prison. Friends with whom we have disagreed many times, who have asked us for our opinions during these months and with whom we've argued. Honest friends. Upstanding. Political prisoners. Good people who have been saying goodbye to their families in recent days because they don't know how long they'll be in prison for. Some saying goodbye to their elderly parents who they don't know if they will see alive again; all saying goodbye to their partners and children who will have changed by the time they leave prison. Purebred politicians because, in the end, what is the point of the public servant if not to fulfil the commitment which the majority of the people have voted for? Patriots, in the most noble sense of the word. Men and women who accepted, some of them, the charge of the victory in September 2015 and others who joined them just months ago. Obviously it causes rage that they've been treated like a group of criminals!
For sure, it's a good day to explain that none of them considers themselves to be a hero. And that they were all calmly responsible facing the procedural situation that they have taken on, some over the last few months, some over the last few weeks and one in the last few hours. And that they know perfectly what they are facing. And that there is no infinite repression. That the people will respond, as they have responded since 2010 to the aggression towards the Catalan institutions. And that on 21st December the independence movement will know how to offer the democratic response that the country needs at the ballot box.
The Spanish state has launched itself definitively on the path of institutional repression and, with this action, definitively shows its hand. We already know what the pact between PP (Popular Party), PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) and Ciudadanos (Citizens) consists of. First, the story of a fake coup d'état is created; second, the story justifies the bringing of charges and sentences for rebellion and sedition; third, the legitimate government of the Catalan people is arrested, to join the already imprisoned presidents of the ANC and Òmnium; fourth, they leave one-by-one all the institutions of Catalonia without leaders; fifth, they cut back fundamental rights, the rights of demonstration and information; sixth, the electoral lists of uncomfortable parties are banned if their manifestos are not constitutional; and seventh, elections will be held and, if they don't like the results, they keep article 155 active. And it starts again.
Since 1714, and Catalonia's defeat in the War of the Spanish Succession, it's very possible that the days in which the state's repression of Catalonia has been seen so clearly can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And yet, Catalonia always resists. This time too. Because its strength isn't based on violence. Its only strength is based on dignity. The dignity of a people who have dreamed of a future in freedom.