The Eye

Barcelona, September 11, 2014 -. germà capdevila

Every year better than the last

A few years ago, when the Span­ish con­sti­tu­tional court ruled against the new Cata­lan statute of au­ton­omy that had been ap­proved by ref­er­en­dum, a mil­ion peo­ple walked down Barcelona's Pas­seig de Gràcia in protest against the rul­ing. In 2013, some 1,5 mil­lion peo­ple held hands across the coun­try, from north to south, in a mas­sive demon­stra­tion that would be hard to beat this year. And yet it hap­pened. This time, some 1.8 mil­lion peo­ple, ac­cord­ing to the local po­lice, formed a huge seven-mile long mo­saic in the shape of a gi­gan­tic let­ter V, be­tween the av­enues of Gran Via and Di­ag­o­nal. The V stood for the key words 'vote' and 'vic­tory'. Peo­ple in Cat­alo­nia want to de­cide their own fu­ture in a peace­ful de­mo­c­ra­tic: by cast­ing a vote in a bal­lot box. The Span­ish gov­ern­ment is not will­ing to allow that, but this mass demon­stra­tion in Barcelona made it clear that at the end of the day democ­racy will pre­vail.

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