Ciudadanos emerged with a single flag, anti-Catalanism; it grew against the independence movement, dressed up in a false liberalism which was nothing more than a populism close to the far right, and has become an alternative for government with civil war-like rhetoric, which uses Catalonia as a laboratory and which the rampant neo-Falangism1 of the party is already transferring to the streets in actions against pro-independence symbols. Last week's debate in the Parliament, with Ciudadanos' spokesperson, Carlos Carrizosa, removing a yellow loop from the government's benches, had the objective of supporting the actions in the streets. If we've been able to do it in the Parliament, why wouldn't the public in the streets be able to, was the message. Forgetting the true aim of the yellow loops, which is to call for the release of the political prisoners in Spanish prisons and to remember them. A act of freedom of expression which it's hard to see as an act of aggression, when a healthy democracy needs all freedoms free to be enjoyed.
The result was as expected: various far-right organisations have caused incidents in Barcelona's plaça de Sant Jaume and have been responsible for various attacks on the Catalan coast. The event in the centre of Barcelona ended up with the yellow loop on the front of the city hall being removed by an agent of the Urban Guard, under the pretext that the violence and aggressiveness of the pro-union demonstration would reduce with such a gesture. One of their agents ended up attacked on the floor and a BTV journalist was hit with a flagpole. It's to be expected that the city council will in the coming hours expand on this information which, at least initially, was very limited taking into account that the action could have ended in an assault on the city hall. On the Maresme coast there were also incidents featuring unionists and an El Nacional journalist was attacked.
We've been condemning it for months: there's a dangerous upsurge of the far right in the streets of Catalonia. When they are sworn in, the interior minister is going to have a enormous task to remove these parafascist groups from the streets, groups which article 155 has given a certificate of normalcy to and which act with their faces at times covered and at others uncovered, but always with apparent impunity. What exists is a far-right violence like hasn't been seen in Catalonia since the 70s and which has found, with the suspension of Catalan autonomy and the firing of the government, an ease in taking to the streets with violence and intimidation.
It's now been a year since Raimon's2 last concert at Barcelona's Palau de la Música. The singer from Xàtiva (Valencia) has just released the album of his farewell performance, which ends with the song I nosaltres amb ells (And us with them), which has a highly topical perspective in one of its verses: "Intenten amb moltes lleis/ i si cal amb violència/ esborrar diversitats/ i negar la diferència./ Intenten amb moltes lleis/ i si cal amb violència." (They're trying with many laws and, if necessary, with violence, to erase diversity and to deny the difference. They're trying with many laws and, if necessary, with violence.)
Translator's notes:
1. Falangism is the ideology of the Falange, the party of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.
2. Raimon, now retired, is one of the most well-known Catalan-language singer-songwriters, with a decades-long career that started during Franco's dictatorship.