Founded in 2014 as a counterpoint to the thriving Catalan National Assembly (ANC), which every year organized a more colorful Day than the previous one to demand independence, Societat Civil Catalana (SCC) reached its zenith by organizing the demonstration that on October 8 In 2017 he toured Barcelona to defend the unity of Spain.
Six years after those turbulent days, circumstances have changed and the independence movement has visibly demobilized. But the emergence of an amnesty for the entire process as a condition for ERC and Junts to support the investiture of Pedro Sánchez has been welcomed by SCC as the opportunity to regain prominence in the constitutional field, whose unity has also been blurred over time .
All in all, the entity chaired today by Elda Mata is very far from being able to repeat the figures of that massive mobilization, hence the call for a demonstration under the motto “Not in my name” for next Sunday in Barcelona, ??no less than on Passeig de Gràcia, has been seen as a real audacity.
With a budget of about 350,000 euros per year, Mata boasts of the independence of SCC, which, unlike the associations that are on the “good list”, does not request subsidies and is financed with the contributions of its donors, among them that the Joan Boscà Foundation is fundamental.
The president of SCC also highlights the transversality of the entity, which does not depend on political parties, although it has a fluid dialogue with them. Even so, this time the PSC, committed to the reissue of the Sánchez Government and in a much more hegemonic position than in 2017, when Ciudadanos was in full electoral swing, has not joined the protest.
Thus, the expectations of the call are not extraordinary and Mata herself recognizes that the tension that existed in the street a six-year period ago, with the “concern” and “fear” of the Catalans who feel like Spaniards on the surface , it has disappeared. In any case, it is about, she explains, “doing pedagogy” and drawing attention to what an amnesty in 2023 represents, which she considers “a danger for a democratic State” and whose consequences can be “dire.”
Be that as it may, and regardless of socialist reluctance, there is no unanimity about the convenience of raising our voice at this time: “SCC has already done the work it had to do. Catalan society has already matured and it is time to leave the demonstrations and act politically,” says Josep Ramon Bosch, who presided over the association in difficult circumstances and later advocated from the Democratic League for pardons for the 1-O prisoners.
“It is a topic that is worn out: people have turned the page, it is clear when taking perspective,” explains a source who was in the SCC engine room and has abandoned activism.
On the other hand, Fernando Sánchez Costa, who preceded Mata in the presidency, considers that “in essence, the demonstration is a cry from the Catalan constitutionalist citizens, who have suffered so much in these years for their loyalty and demand to be heard by their Government.” .
