A crowd demonstrates in favour of Spanish-Catalan dialogue in Madrid, Spain, 7 October 2017 under the slogan 'Hablamos?' ('Let's speak?').Carola Frentzen/Press Association. All rights reserved.Something quite remarkable is happening in Spain. No, I don’t
mean the threat of a break up of Spain. Nor the mass mobilization
organized by DENAES, the Foundation for the Defence of the Spanish Nation which has filled Madrid’s Colon
Plaza with thousands of people waving Spanish flags (and a few with the
pre-democracy Franco-era flag), chanting “I am Spanish”, and who feel well
represented by the right-wing parties PP, Ciudadanos and even Vox. Nor the mass protests and the general strike
in Cataluña against state repression and for independence (but not always
both).
“We are a better nation”
I am talking about the grassroots organization of citizens
across the country who have refused to take sides and instead decided to
mobilize to let the parties involved know that “Spain is a better country than
those running it”. They have called for citizens to gather in front of their
respective town halls to talk, and in so doing, model what they want the
independentists in Cataluña and the leaders of the Spanish government to do:
enter into dialogue to resolve their differences.
In the face of escalating tensions and intransigence
following the government repression of the illegal referendum in Cataluña (in
which some 840 people required medical attention after police attacks that
included beating, kicking, throwing people down stairs and firing on them with
rubber bullets), many people in Spain have had enough of being forced to choose
sides in a conflict in which they identify with neither side.
Independent of their views on Catalan independence, many
were horrified by the police brutality
and the authoritarian stance taken by the Popular Party against peaceful people
who were expressing their right to express themselves through a vote. The
increase in repression against peaceful protest notably since the mass
mobilizations following 15-M is unfortunately not
restricted to the recent and most visible manifestation in Cataluña, but
has been a source of concern for human rights observers and activists
mobilizing against the recent passage of the Law for the Protection of Citizen
Security, more commonly known as the
Gag Law (or Ley Mordaza). As if that
weren’t bad enough, following the fiasco, neither side showed signs of sitting
down and opening dialogue, with Catalan Parliament Carles Puigdemont
threatening to carry out his original threat to unilaterally declare
independence (DUI) following a favourable outcome in the referendum, despite participation
of only 43% of the electoral census under conditions that do not guarantee the
validity of the results (contrast with the 75% who voted in the 2015 Catalan
elections) and the PP government threatening to invoke the never before used article
155 of the Spanish Constitution, which authorizes the state to dissolve the
powers of the autonomous community by force if necessary in the case of a
threat to the general interest of Spain.
The King further fuelled the fire in a hard-line
pro-government speech that did nothing to promote a rapprochement between
parties and made no mention of the documented police
brutality against his subjects in Catalonia. The scenario bodes ill for the safeguarding of peace and wellbeing of
citizens in Cataluña. If over 2 million people were willing to defy the ban on
the illegal referendum and express their will to vote on October 1, before they
had witnessed the police brutality their fellow citizens faced, how many more
would be willing to defend their parliament should it come to that? If in a recent
poll only 41.1% of Catalonians want independence (49.4% responded no in
that poll in June and July of 2017) before the repression against the
referendum, according to another poll conducted by Metroscopia for El País, some
82% want the right to vote in a legal
negotiated referendum and see
that as the best way forward. 82% also answered yes to the question of
whether Rajoy’s handling of the question had contributed to an increase in
support for Catalan independence?
As the vestiges of Franco era fascism reared its head with
small groups wrapping themselves in Spanish flags and singing the fascist
hymn “De Cara al Sol” and chanting “A por ellos” (Go get them! In reference
to beating up the independentists), many more Spaniards took to the streets of
the country last October 2 to express their repudiation of the police violence
and the infringement of democratic rights and freedoms manifested in the
attacks on peaceful citizens. Members of the intelligentsia and arts called for
dialogue, politicians like Ada Colau appealed
to Europe and the international community to condemn the violence, Podemos
called for dialogue that would lead to a real referendum with a guaranteed
outcome and negotiated questions.
When none of that shifted the scenario, a small group of university
researchers got together with another group of graphic designers, researchers,
publicists who had created a similar Facebook page in Madrid, decided it was
time for the people’s voice to be heard and launched a manifesto and a call for
dialogue under the banner of ¿Hablamos?
¿Parlem? which means “Shall we talk?”
in Spanish and Catalan respectively. Using Facebook
and Twitter and drawing on the extensive existing activist and social networks
that connect across Spain to get the ball rolling, the manifesto and call have
gathered 20,000 expressions of interest on the Facebook event page and have
spread across Twitter networks. In a process known in Spanish as “desborde” or
overflow, the call has generated an outpouring of messages and graphic artists’
contributions in much the same way as did the campaigns for Ada Colau and
Manuela Carmena (Mayors of Barcelona and Madrid respectively, and running on
platforms that emerged from the Indignados/15-M mobilizations) but in a much
shorter time frame.
Tweets with the hashtags #parlem and #hablamos are filled
with images and plays on words. One shows that the word for love “amor” is the
same in Google Translate for Spanish and Catalan, another turns the word hate
(odio) into ear/listening (oído), yet another shows a multi-colored heart with
the words in Catalan “My heart is broken, shall we talk?”. The upswelling of
citizen grassroots mobilization echoes not only the Barcelona and Madrid mayoral
campaigns in which the “Movement for Graphic Liberation” of Barcelona and
Madrid played crucial roles, but also invokes the original 15M protest of May 15, 2011 call
to action, whose banner was “Real Democracy Now!
" We are not merchandise in the hands of politicians and
bankers”. Then, as now, the manifesto makes a clear call for non-partisan
participation. The “rules” are no flags, no political parties, and wear white,
the color of peace. The manifesto also echoes the language of the 15-M slogans
in its expression of the gap between a government that refuses to listen and a
people that demand to be heard, and in the famous cry of 15-M “They don’t
represent us!”:
“The time has come to
say that Spain is a greater country than her rulers.
They have spread
hatred, they pit us against each other and divide us. If we don’t intervene as a society they are
going to turn this country into a difficult place in which to live. That’s why
it’s time for citizens to take a step forward and take to the streets next
Saturday, with white clothes or ribbons and white banners and signs to show them
that we don’t want them to use us, to divide us, to lie to us, and that we are
many more [than they] and this is not something to be resolved by them, but by the
people, by dialogue and coexistence.
In the past few days
we have felt rage, and above all, great sadness. We have witnessed things that
we have never wanted to see and that hurt us deeply and which are happening as
a result of the actions of irresponsible leaders who neither listen nor speak.
As citizens we refuse to be forced into a dead end street. Not in our name.
We know that
coexistence is possible. Spain is better
than her leaders and has demonstrated this on many occasions. It’s time to come
together, to show them that they have been incapable and irresponsible, and
that there are other ways to do things. Without blocks and without blockages.
We need to opt for dialogue, respect and understanding. We are many, we are
diverse, we are respectful, and above all we want a better country and not one
infinitely worse.
Coexistence is created
through dialogue, and laws should serve that dialogue. Laws cannot be used as
an obstacle, and much less as a means to generate a civil conflict. We need to
say enough is enough to this spiral, we need to stop, sit down, and think about
our country. It is through democracy, listening , and dialogue that we will
reach solid and lasting social agreements (pacts/contracts).
Those of us who want a
country based on respect, on fraternal dialogue, and democratic coexistence in
the face of violence should hang white sheets on our balconies. Instead of
building walls, we need a clean sheet to construct a country in which all of us
fit.
Spain is a better country
than her leaders. Shall we talk?
Day: Saturday 7th of
October at 12
Place: In front of the
city hall of your city
#Shall we talk?
———–
Already Twitter is full of allegations of #Hablemos being a ‘Podemos
in the shadows’ initiative, just as the mass protests against the PP in 2004
after the Madrid bombings were
accused of being orchestrated by the PSOE. One conspiracy theory puts
together the hashtags #Parlem and #Hablemos to make “Pablemos”, a nickname for
Podemos that actually originated in the 15-M movement sectors that did not
support the electoral initiative, implying criticism for its leader-driven as
opposed to horizontalist politics, but which is now being mobilized by
pro-unity Spanish ultra nationalists.
Such are the vagaries of the Twitter-sphere. Although Podemos
and Barcelona en Común as well as other political parties have supported the
initiative, and are actively tweeting the event (for better or for worse), they
have not orchestrated it. Others ask “Talk about what?” or “What is there to
talk about?”, suggesting that there is naiveté or misguided equidistance
between the sides. Twitter isn’t a straightforward reflection of the world by
any means, but it does give some insight into a certain already politicized and
often polarized sector of the population. More revealing are the photographs of
the squares across Spain where people are gathered.
Today Madrid and Barcelona are filled with white, and not
just red and yellow. Whether one sees this as a naïve popular mobilization that
ignores the real politik surrounding
the Catalán question or an expression of creative political imagination that
refuses to be forced to take sides in a zero sum game, this initiative demonstrates
the power of Spain’s grassroots networks that can mobilize at short notice in
the face of specific political crises.
Indeed, these networks were responsible for organizing an
illegal referendum in very
difficult circumstances. That effort was supported by many activists who do
not necessarily take sides in the Catalan question but who do actively defend democratic
rights and fight against State control of the internet for political purposes,
such as Xnet. These networks, both digital and
offline, have been built up over time and through many campaigns over the past
several decades, but most notably since the 15-M movement.
They too express a feeling that extends beyond Spain’s
borders or particular situation. As so many other mass protests that have swept
Spain and Europe since the global financial crisis, they illustrate the great
paradox of contemporary democracy: never before have people been so disaffected
with really existing democracy and never before have they voiced en masse and
with such passion their desire for “Real
Democracy Now!”. People want democracy and coexistence and peace, they just
don’t want this democracy, with
leaders who don’t listen and don’t act in the interests of their citizens.
Madrid’s Plaza de Colon is filled with citizens waving
Spanish flags and calling for the unity of Spain, perhaps at any
price. But we have seen all that before, on one side of the Catalan question or
the other. What is remarkable is that Spanish media today are contrasting the
image of Colon for Spanish unity not with an image of a counter protest in
Cataluña, but with the image of the thousands who refuse to take sides and instead call
for dialogue, and who are showing up in front of their city halls across Spain today
wearing white, not red and yellow. What a crazy idea! Shall we talk?
Split screen image of protests from El País.