Thursday 11 September 2014 was the Diada Nacional De Catalunya - or Catalonia's National Day. Yesterday was special in a number of ways, although of course every Diada is special to Catalans all over the world. For a start, it's 300 years since the end of the Siege of Barcelona, when Catalonia was defeated in the War Of The Spanish Succession. On that day, Catalonia lost its sovereignty and all its political and cultural rights and freedoms, the Catalan language was declared illegal, and Catalonia effectively ceased to exist as far as the central Spanish government was concerned. Centenaries are always given special treatment - as can be seen in the centenary comemmorations in the UK marking the beginning of World War I - and so is the case with Diada 2014.
Advocates for independence planned to form a giant 11 kilometer V shape along the Avenidas Diagonal and Gran Via, meeting in Glories Square. The aim was to form a mosaic of the Catalan flag, with participants turning up in red or yellow t-shirts. What's the symbolism of the V? Well, it stands for Vote, Victory and Will, all words beginning with V in the Catalan language. According to Barcelona police, 1.8 million people turned out for this peaceful demonstration, but figures released by the Spanish government suggest between 470,000 and 520,000 people were present. News reports seem divided, with some quoting police figures and others quoting the government estimates.
Now I'm not a Catalanist, but I am something of a pragmatist, and I tend to favour the police estimate for two reasons. Looking at the press of people in that 11 kilometer V, there looks to be a lot more than 500,000. And I would imagine that the police who know Barcelona so well would have a much more accurate idea of crowd numbers than sources from central government in Madrid. So I would have been happier if all the news reports had done as the Catalan News Agency and El Pais did and reported both figures, so readers can make up their own minds.
It's obviously in the government's interest to play down the numbers, since the Catalanists had called for big numbers to complete the V, but surely truth is more important? And the truth of the matter is that a very large number of people staged a peaceful, positive and tolerant demonstration to make a point that the Catalan people should be allowed to vote on whether Catalonia should become independent from Spain, just as Scotland will vote next week on whether the country should become independent from the United Kingdom. Whether you agree with the idea of Catalan or Scottish independence or not, surely the people themselves have the right to decide?
Another thing that really annoys me as a neutral reading these reports is the way almost all the press describes the Catalan advocates for independence as 'separatists' or 'nationalists.' Both these words have negative connotations, and neither of them can be accurately applied to the Catalanists. I like the word Catalanists, simply because it is an accurate description of a person who is for Catalan independence but not against Spain. And just because someone is pro independence, it doesn't mean they are against Spain. That's the point that a lot of the right wing reporting on the Catalan question seems to miss.
There are fervent Catalanists who will support Spain in the World Cup, for example, but would vote for independence, if the vote actually goes ahead. Catalans are certainly not nationalists in a negative sense, as described by George Orwell in his 1945 essay Notes on Nationalism.Orwell described nationalism as 'Inseperable from the desire for power, for the nation rather than the individual.' Orwell goes on to describe patriotism as 'Devotion to a place and a way of life which one believes is the best, but which one doesn't wish to force on others.'
Personally, I think it would be far more accurate - and certainly more positive - to describe the Catalanists as patriots, rather than separatists or nationalists. From what I know of the Catalan people, and from friends who have been absorbed into the Catalan way of life because of their interest in the language and the culture, and their support for Barcelona Football Club, I would say that patriot is a good word to use. These people are proud of their language - which was illegal for 300 years but survived nonetheless - and their culture.
You do not have to have been born in Catalonia to be accepted as a Catalan - in fact around 40% of the Catalans living in Barcelona were actually born elsewhere in Spain. So that kicks out the separatist description too. You could perhaps describe the Basques as separatists and nationalists - if you wanted to use such negative words, and I don't - because broadly speaking they want political unification for the Basque speaking provinces. However the friendly, welcoming, all-embracing, tolerant Catalanists should never be described in such negative terms and I, for one, find it totally unacceptable.