For the independence movement there is no other objective in the Diada than to claim independence. Without further ado. Bareback. “New Statute? Tururut!!!”, said a small banner in 2018 when the Government of Pedro Sánchez dared to insinuate it. But for a few years the contexts cover and soak up the demonstrations. Above all, those organized by the Catalan National Assembly (ANC). In 2018, for example, the first Onze de Setembre took place with part of its leaders in prison. The following year, the proximity of the Supreme Court ruling marked the day. Then came the covid years. This Monday, what will fly over is the investiture of President of the Government and the amnesty.
ERC and Junts are fully immersed in the investiture. They are pleasantly obliged to do so thanks to parliamentary arithmetic. They are essential for Sánchez. So the two parties have seen the perfect opportunity to tighten conditions. Amnesty is one of them.
The competition between Esquerra and JxCat to win medals for the negotiation is intense, but it will be the tug-of-war they maintain with the socialists and Sumar that will depend on whether the amnesty will be to start negotiating and then demand more, as now the right to self-determination –that is, if the amnesty is a starting point–, or if they will relax and end up making it easier for the leader of the PSOE not to have to move from the Moncloa Palace –it would be, not a full stop, but a full stop.
But no matter how much in the independence movement there are those who smile at the possibility of an amnesty, there are also those who frown. The ANC calls the demonstration under the slogan “Vía fuera!” to demand independence, for nothing more. And it is the mobilization that gathers the most protesters. Long.
In addition, the association led by Dolors Feliu is in favor of fighting for the annulment of the Supreme Court ruling, which resulted in convictions and disqualifications for nine pro-independence leaders. The amnesty is seen, to a certain extent, as a danger (and even more so if it is not accompanied by self-determination), because if granted, they reason in the Assembly, all the lawsuits presented before the European Court of Human Rights would fall. “For the Spanish State it would be the perfect way to save itself,” the organization points out.
The CUP does not see the amnesty as clear either. “An amnesty without self-determination will be little more than 2.0 pardons,” said Deputy Xavier Pellicer. “We have the feeling that Junts is getting into the same dead end that ERC got into,” he added, implying that the amnesty could be a joke.
Therefore, the Diada is once again a day in which the different pro-independence actors will coincide, especially in the streets of Barcelona. Even ERC will once again be present at the ANC mobilization, after being absent last year because it considered that the call was “hostile” to it. However, it is one thing to coincide and another to go hand in hand. The lack of unity, which reached its zenith in the Onze de Setembre last year, is palpable.
There are many other aspects that fly over in the Diada. Many first times. It is the first with Junts out of the Government, with Laura Borràs disqualified and replaced at the head of the Parliament, with the clarity agreement of Pere Aragonès simmering over low heat (very slowly), with the use of Catalan about to be a reality in the Cortes, with some budgets of the Generalitat agreed with the PSC in more than a decade.
But the ANC’s will also be the ideal demonstration to check whether Carles Puigdemont and Junts are taking a toll on entering the fold of dialogue and negotiation within the framework of the investiture. Or, on the contrary, to see if there are things that are allowed to Junts that are not allowed to ERC. In the mobilization of 2022, the cry of “botifler” (“traitor”) resounded everywhere along with that of “Puigdemont, the nostre president.”
In short, the Diada, like every year, will be the best way to take the pulse of the independence movement. Even more optimal than the two electoral contests of 2023: the municipal elections in May and the general elections in July. The drop in ERC votes was bloody – it lost more than 400,000 votes; that of Junts, considerable – 140,000 votes less – and that of the CUP, so accused as to leave it out of Congress. The three formations attributed this to the PSC’s useful vote to confront the right and the extreme right, but also to the abstentionism of potential independence voters.
In the background, however, is the lack of unity and, according to some pro-independence sectors, of will and firmness to move forward with independence. The mobilization is seen as a key factor for the independentistas to achieve their goals. It is an idea shared by both parties and entities. But it’s not enough. Both the ANC and Òmnium Cultural demand a greater boost in the institutional and political field. “Either independence or elections,” Feliu cried in the final act of the ANC demonstration last year.
Be that as it may, the day is long and the Assemblea demonstration will be the high point. There are four marches planned in Barcelona, ??which under the names of freedom, language, country and sovereignty, will converge in the Plaza de Espanya, renamed by the ANC as Plaza Primer d’Octubre. ERC and Junts have made sure not to coincide to arrive: the Republicans will be in the language column; the post-convergents, in that of sovereignty. And the CUP will be much further away, in the demonstration organized by the anti-capitalist and pro-independence left.
