WHITHER INDEPENDENCE?

Cat­alo­nia is not an in­de­pen­dent coun­try. The un­of­fi­cial ref­er­en­dum on self-de­ter­mi­na­tion took place on Oc­to­ber 1, 2017, with the ma­jor­ity of those who cast a bal­lot vot­ing for the propo­si­tion that Cat­alo­nia should be an in­de­pen­dent state (90% of the 2.2 mil­lion who voted). Yet over seven years later, Cat­alo­nia re­mains just a re­gion of Spain.

What’s more, the un­prece­dented par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­ity gained by the pro-in­de­pen­dence po­lit­i­cal par­ties that gave the ref­er­en­dum de­mo­c­ra­tic le­git­i­macy and lent cred­i­bil­ity to the push for Cata­lan sov­er­eignty was lost in last year’s elec­tion.

A lit­tle over a decade ago, al­most two mil­lion peo­ple took to the streets to de­mand their right to de­cide Cat­alo­nia’s fu­ture at the bal­lot box. In the years that fol­lowed, hun­dreds of thou­sands of in­de­pen­dence sup­port­ers con­tin­ued to show up on Cat­alo­nia’s Na­tional Day, al­though that num­ber had dwin­dled to 60,000 in the Diada demon­stra­tion last Sep­tem­ber 11.

So, what hap­pened? In a mat­ter of a few years, did those many thou­sands of peo­ple wake up one day, slap their fore­heads and, duh, fi­nally see that they never re­ally wanted their coun­try to be in­de­pen­dent at all. It seems un­likely some­how.

This month we have an in­ter­view with Lluís Llach, the head of the Cata­lan Na­tional As­sem­bly (ANC), the main civic pro-in­de­pen­dence or­gan­i­sa­tion and a major mover in Cat­alo­nia’s push for state­hood. Llach in­sists that in­de­pen­dence is still a re­al­is­tic goal, al­though not one that is likely to be achieved any time soon, and he says that it will re­quire re-mo­bil­is­ing the pro-in­de­pen­dence pub­lic. The ques­tion is how to do that?

It’s a co­nun­drum I too have thought about since Sep­tem­ber, when, with that slightly per­verse knack I have of miss­ing the mo­ment, I went to my first Diada demo, the least well-at­tended since the start of the sov­er­eignty move­ment.

Stand­ing on Pas­seig Lluís Com­pany sur­rounded by hard-bit­ten in­de­pen­dence sup­port­ers with plenty of protests under their belts, I got a foot­ball fan vibe. I started going to watch my team, Ever­ton, as a teenager in the early 1980s. Lit­tle did I know that in a cou­ple of sea­sons the un­der­per­form­ing team I booed every other Sat­ur­day would be­come one of the best sides in the coun­try and would win a string of tro­phies. How­ever, in 1982, the ter­races at Good­i­son Park were half-empty and I was sur­rounded by a co­terie of diehard cyn­ics who seemed to rel­ish crit­i­cis­ing the club, the team and the man­ager, but who never missed a match and who even had Ever­ton tat­toos be­fore tat­toos were trendy. These fans made it clear that I had no choice in the mat­ter: I’d been picked and through thick and thin my duty – my des­tiny – was to sup­port this club, and if I didn’t like, well tough sh*t.

Is this what it’s like to be one of these in­de­pen­dence sup­port­ers? Stay­ing at home is not an op­tion for them; they have to turn up every year, no mat­ter what.

As men­tioned above, I was lucky enough to see my club rise to the top of Eng­lish foot­ball, and who’s to say that those in­de­pen­dence sup­port­ers also won’t live to see their dream come true. But I will add one ob­ser­va­tion: since those glory days, Ever­ton foot­ball club has sunk into rel­a­tive ob­scu­rity and the tro­phy drought will soon reach 30 years. Achiev­ing your goals is one thing, hold­ing on to your vic­tory is an­other. The ANC and the other pro-in­de­pen­dence or­gan­i­sa­tions – and Ever­ton – have their work cut out, but I’m also sure that the diehard sup­port­ers will be with them every step of the way.

Opin­ion