The Catalan independence movement has shown this Diada its incredibly high capacity for resilience. This is the great and indisputable headline of the National Day of Catalonia and the enormous protest in plaça d'Espanya and surroundings, over the self-interested numbers given by different parties. Another 11th September, hundreds of thousands of Catalans (600,000, according to Barcelona's Urban Guard, today under the control of Albert Batlle, formerly of PSC, who still appeared on the party's local electoral list under the umbrella of Units) have given a demonstration of civility and commitment, in conditions when the political course of the independence movement appears blurry. It obvious that bringing out into the streets almost 10% of the Catalan population (it would be the equivalent of 4.3 million Spaniards gathering in Madrid), or six Camp Nous, to use another measure that's easy to visualise, is not at all easy. In fact, nobody has ever done it, or come close to this figure.
Few civic movements internationally have reached a level of resilience like that achieved by the Catalan independence movement and, at the same time, shown the international community (Madrid is a world of the deaf, locked in its own labyrinth with the inexplicable inability to agree to invest a prime minister) an ability for public responses which is so powerful in such adverse circumstances, which go from the indiscriminate repression to a worrying regime of the regression of liberties. Also against this intangible, but ever more present, factor, which seeks to instill fear in the independence movement and especially in its leadership with the permanent resumption of apparently dormant legal cases. For the eighth year in a row, the image of the day is that of Barcelona with many hundreds of thousands of people calling for the independence of Catalonia. That the's image, regardless of how the official narrative tries to twist the truth.
In fact, the importance of the large-scale demonstration can be seen quickly by glancing over many of the main international news agencies, where the words repeated most often are "massive demonstration" and "independence". That's the case with Associated Press, which highlights in its headline: "Massive rally for Catalonia’s secession in Barcelona". Far from the battle over figures in the Spanish media, determined to create a story of lower attendance to lessen the mobilisation's impact, the international media is focussing on the fact that the large-scale demonstration has happened on the eve of the sentence from the Supreme Court against the pro-independence political prisoners and that the Catalan authorities are saying they won't accept a ruling that condemns the members of the Catalan government pushed out by article 155 and those in charge of the pro-sovereignty bodies.
Once highlighted that the independence movement always offers its best face in the streets and that there are no comparable responses which are so large to any political demand in Europe, nor should the debate on those independence supporters who didn't feel called on to attend this year be shunned. There has been, certainly, a fall in participation and the causes are many and varied. The large majority of them are to be found in the heart of the parties and also the ANC: there is not, on the other hand, a regression of the independence movement and much less a retreat towards the political positions from before the explosion of the movement in 2012. Eight years in a row of large mobilisations put paid to that theory.
Whoever wants to see it differently (and I predict there'll be many of them in the coming hours) is mistaken and unaware of the reality in Catalonia. You've only got to look around you and it's easier to find independence supporters who didn't attend the demonstration thanks to displeasure with the interminable debates between their leaders, the absence of a clear political line and the lack of strategical unity than because they've decided to abandon the ideology and make the jump to calmer bandwagons. The irritation of 2012 remains intact, the public which time and again has given absolute majorities in the Catalan Parliament is too, as are those who resisted the state's repression on 1st October 2017.