Independence no longer occupies the centrality of the public debate, not even in Catalonia, but five years after the referendum on October 1, 2017, the political conflict is not resolved, not even remotely. The wound of the procés continues without healing in the collective subconscious of the Catalans. This is reflected in a survey promoted by the Institut Català Internacional per la Pau –the ICIP 2022 Survey. Coexistence and cohesion in Catalonia-, which places the independence process as the most polarizing debate topic in Catalonia, scored 7.1 out of 10. The language of habitual use follows as a factor for polarizing the debate, an indicator also related to the process and that goes from fifth to second place compared to the previous survey, in 2020, now scored with 6.1. For 61.6% of Catalans, six out of ten, the independence process is a topic of debate with a high or very high degree of polarization.
In the ICIP survey, carried out from October 17 to 24, 2022 and presented this Tuesday, all the indicators related to the ideological and emotional polarization in Catalonia rise – the debate on immigration obtains 5.9 compared to 5.5 for 2020-, but the greatest increase, of one point, is presented by language. Undoubtedly, this indicator has had an influence on the political debate in recent months around Catalan, and the prosecution of the model of immersion in school. But the fact that the procés indicator also rises means that the mark is still alive in Catalan society.
Related to the above, the survey also shows that, out of a list of nine emotions, respect is the one that predominates -with values ??that remain stable compared to previous editions- towards people who think differently (scored with a 5.5 ), but followed by impotence (4.6), sadness (4.4) and anger (3.8), and that is a piece of information, especially the records of impotence and sadness -which increase by a few tenths compared to those of 2020-, which must also be read in the emotional context of the outcome of the independence process.
“The independence process is the issue that most polarizes society because the conflict has not been resolved, it comes from afar and goes on for a long time, therefore it has different waves, but it is a reality,” the president of ICIP, Kristian Herbolzheimer, has assessed in the presentation of the survey, in which he was accompanied by the coordinator of the survey, Berta Barbet. “The political tension has decreased, there have been transversal agreements both in those proposed in Catalonia and at the Spanish level, all this has changed a lot, but the underlying issue is still there and needs to be dealt with,” added Herbolzheimer.
However, 68% of those surveyed agree or strongly agree that you have to make an effort to talk to everyone, even if you think differently, and only 6.1% quite or strongly disagree with this statement. .
The survey also analyzes the perceptions and attitudes of coexistence. In a section referring to respect for different groups, 58% of Catalans say they feel “rather comfortable” with their son marrying a refugee or asylum seeker. When asked about tolerance regarding “a child marrying a gay, lesbian or bisexual person”, 66% feel “rather comfortable”, but these tolerance figures drop when the child’s spouse is a transsexual person : 52% would be “rather comfortable”, and there is 20% who say they do not feel “at all comfortable” with this possibility. The ICIP survey builds a table in which these results for Catalonia are compared with those of 29 European countries, from the Report on Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The figures for Catalonia occupy the top positions, but it is noteworthy that, in all cases, the tolerance figures are somewhat higher in the case of Spain. The authors of the survey attribute this to the fact that the results of the EU survey are earlier, from 2020, when the issues asked about in this section were not as present in the public debate.
In this same comparison with European countries, we must highlight the graph referring to the perception that a violation of human rights occurs in the country itself. In the ICIP survey, 43.5% think that there are human rights violations in Catalonia, and only 21% think there are not. In this data, probably, is again the background of the process. In the presentation, the coordinator of the ICIP survey, Berta Barbet, has underlined the fact that it does not specify which human rights are being referred to. “There will be many people who at this time have political rights in mind, or who think about gender violence, the question is open,” she added. Herbolzheimer has pointed out that “the logical thing would be that 100% would think that there are human rights violations, because it is something that occurs.”
Among the indicators of coexistence in Catalonia, the survey by the Institut Català Internacional per la Pau places the average assessment of trust in the rest of the citizenry at 5.2 out of 10. The survey also reflects a considerable increase in the last four years in the perception that there are enough or many coexistence problems in the immediate environment (municipality or neighbourhood). The main annoyance is due to “incivility, dirt or noise”, cited by 74.2% of those surveyed (compared to 62.5% in 2020 and 45.8% in 2018), followed by “poor integration of newcomers” (46.8%), or insecurity (44.2%), among others.
Linked to the previous indicators, 64% of Catalans consider that living with people from different contexts enriches society, but 24% agree quite or strongly that “Catalonia has become a worse place to live because of of immigration”, and 28% think that “it is better for the country if everyone shares culture and traditions”.
The survey also includes a section in which the main risks and threats to society are identified, where economic or financial crises come first, with a score of 8.3 out of 10, followed by the malfunctioning of democracy (8 .1), climate change and misinformation (both 7.9), the increase in inequalities or the rise of the extreme right (both 7.8), among others.
The ICIP also asks about the predisposition to use violence in certain cases, which is a minority in all cases, except in the hypothesis of defending the family, which admits 64.1%. The figure is reduced to a minimum in the rest of the cases, but 16.8% would use violence “almost always or with complete certainty” when it comes to defending the environment, 15.4% the country, and 15. 3% own ideas.
At the end of the survey, in a section on current issues, Catalans show a favorable attitude towards welcoming and helping people from Ukraine (71.9%) and Syria (54.4%). The majority respond that they are fleeing the war, 90.3% think so in the case of the Ukrainians, and 76.4% with respect to the Syrians. However, a majority of the population (62%) believes that too much money is allocated to the military and defense spending budget, and there is 5% who consider that too little is being spent.
