Everyone agrees on the fact that the electoral experience of Sunday December 13th 2009 was a great mass demonstration, because of the involvement of 15.000 volunteers and the 200.000 that went to the polls. It even attracted the attention of European and international press. A newspaper as Le Monde, in an Editorial, spoke about the chance of nation gaining its independence through pacific means in the European context, today. This kind of statements would have just been unthinkable some time ago. What have the referenda achieved? We’ve had lots of debates about them; the repercussions, in fact, much more than expected at first. This is precisely why they have been considered a “democratic storm”. Pointed out as an example of democratic participation as well as “sefldemocracy”, the fact is that it has been a non-precedental mass politization experience. This, the politization, should be analyzed in depth. It has been a mass demonstration because it is obvious that the data we are dealing with show us that the support to independence in our society would reach more than one million people at the moment. Independentism, in consequence, has greater political strength than many thought about, and in fact could now have remarkable consequences if in the future we’re able to deal precisely with all the political grip involved in the referendums. From an international point of view, we have been able to break trough the media isolation often promoted by Madrid. A new image has been offered from Catalonia, moving some foreign media to talk about our national struggle to independence in a positive way. The referenda are not an isolated event that come out from nowhere: Political independentism has worked hardly during a long period expanding political consciousness. Great demonstrations should be part of the explanation of the current successful situation: for instance the one that demanded Autodetermination and a democractic rupture [1]. It should be explained as well because of specific mobilizations like the one in Brussels on March 7th 2009. It has been, in fact, an outburst that was someway hidden because many sectors in society thought of independence as impossible, albeit it has lately been reconsidered by an important amount of Catalans, not just as desirable but as well as possible. It is also worth saying that this mass mobilization, which is conscious, is the result of a process of maturation. This specific experience will represent a qualitative progress in the independentist consciousness of a large social stratum. As is it has been said, the current situation will encourage making some first steps towards the hegemony of independentism in Catalan society. An analysis of the referenda on December 23th should lead us to ascertain that independentism, from being an emerging sociopolitical force, is gaining a central space. The mobilization of the referenda has shown enough capacity to start placing itself in an hegemonic position within social and political values. Facing this phenomenon, reactions from autonomist and pro Spanish positions have been, to the moment, politically non significant: a single manifesto, for instance, of some mayors of the PSOE that achieved very little prominence. Or the commentaries made from pro Spanish positions through media, have shown, as well, weakness in their arguments. The scornfulness of these pro-Spanish commentators towards the referenda, qualified as “shows” or “simple propaganda”, has bearded witness of their own political weakness. Even the regular boycott has been useless. From now on, pro Spanish positions will likely have to conceal their obvious retreat in society. We only need our movement to keep on going. Reasons to the duality It isn’t very easy to explain why this clash has taken place, because personal disputes combine here with political quarrels, in addition to the fact that political statements have not been clearly made by these two different bodies. It would seem that the debate lies on the question that different independentist platforms have been arguing about since 2008: how should the current political parties work with the broader self-determination national movement that is currently expanding itself ? On the other edge you’d find those people (and groups) that consider that these two parties are essential to the movement and, as well, this same movement should maintain itself in a position that won’t harm the parties’ aims and interests. We could say that the position of Alfons López Tena would be somehow closer to this last postulate [2], while the positions of some groups that right now are inside the Coordinadora Nacional would rather be close to the first one. In this field we would specially find those that want the movement to mutate itself in an electoral independentist alternative, albeit ideologically wide. We should be aware, although, that nor the Coordinadora d’Osona nor the Coordinadora Nacional completely assume neither these extreme positions, because the general assumed position is rooted in two different considerations: - First: The movement is supposed to be autonomous from the parties (and specifically from these two parliamentary parties, ERC and CiU), and therefore it shouldn’t depend on their own interests. Nor it shouldn’t be subordinated to them. In consequence, it is assumed that we should not rule out the chance that the movements own dynamics could sometime harm (electorally, for instance) those parties that will sustain reluctant positions to the referenda. - Second: We need to attract most people from these parties to the activities organized by the movement. We know, forehand, that these people mostly agree with the aims and the principles assumed by everyone (and sometimes with greater commitment to these collective interests than to the leaders of their own parties). The most politized groups within the movement know of the importance to keep up with this equilibrium (between the autonomy of the movement and it’s own capacity to gain wide-range thoughts and sensibilities). To the moment, they’ve been able to gain enough complicities in able to find a wide and coherent action line. These dynamics will sometime require taking decisions that will make appear some frictions, especially with the extreme positions that we’ve quoted. That is why it is urgent to build a wide and democratic structure that could permit to take decisions avoiding the polarization of conflicts within the movement. We’ve given a name to it: “organizing the unity of the movement”, because we believe the unity can’t be let loose and spontaneously disperse. We need to foresee those resources that will be useful to us in order to advance towards this structure. The problem isn’t -as we’ve said sometimes talking about these types of conflicts – that some groups or people do not get along; but the real problem is the absence of wide and democratic, non-discussed, benchmarks, that would permit us to trace the path and keep on with the authority that confers a well-rooted representativity. We’ll come back to this point at the end of the article, in the discussion about future challenges. Collateral debates From our point of view (the Left Independentism), the referenda have also been important because they have promoted a number of central debates that were kept in lethargy, often postponed by the routine propaganda and agitative activities, that do not usually oblige us to think about the political changes that have lately taken place. The referenda have promoted the appearance of new actors and different issues, bringing up some debates, the most important of which we quote here:
It has been debated at two different levels, albeit related one to another. A very concrete level is the specific question asked by the polls in the referenda. The other level of this debate is referred to the way we should articulate our whole national area in the conquest of independence. The resolution of these two questions is complex, but we will try to bring up some generic solutions. We’ll start of with this wider question, the territorial issue in the struggle for independence. From the political independentism, unlike the pro-autonomy forces, we defend that the process should extend itself, from the first to the last instant, to the whole territory and should be aware of two fundamental premises: in first place, any territory with any presence of Catalan Nation (the Catalan Countries [3]) should be an actor of the right of self-determination. In second place, the popular organization that fights for pur national rights should have, at all times, a nation-wide presence [4]. This is why, from our independentist point of view, we’ll have to try to extend these structures to the whole nation. The existence of some initiatives that are already working, like the Town and Regional Councilor Assembly for Self-determination, created this past December in Mallorca, will help in this sense. We’ll have to be aware of the importance of this moment, where we are struggling for democratic participation; the building of the “political nation”. This territorial premise, inclusive, should be applied systematically and rigorously. But speaking from a tactical point of view, things get a bit trickier, because tactically speaking; we should always have in mind the political consciousness really existing in society. In this sense, we know that this assembly in the Islands (Balearic) may have some difficulties in finding thesis that keep them close to the ones used in Catalonia, specially because of the their state of political consciousness [5]. From these general considerations, we go into the level of subjective assessments. Which is better “Catalan Nation” or “Catalan Countries”? Our choice should depend on the interpretation of the state of consciousness in each place and, therefore, the political effectiveness of each formula. In this sense, the referenda have brought, for the whole Left Independentism, news debates about tactics, in this issue as well as in others. They have forced us to think about the political consciousness of the Catalan people in each specific place and in every precise moment. But this is a political mental exercise that seems a bit difficult for some of the groups in the Left Independentism. In this challenge, the differences between political consciousness and narrow-minded activists will show up. The debate is on. Each activist and every organization will have to take sides.
We’ve seen the word independence been used with different meanings, depending on which political or social groups uses it. The capitalists-liberal sectors, that mainly come from CDC, like Alfons López Tena –indispensable reference at this point- propose a utopia; they would like an independent State but with no economic and social changes (nor political, regarding the existing political dominant parties). Everything should remain the same: the same structures, with no questioning of the despotic Catalan authorities of the current regime; no fighting against the abuses of the administrative structures – municipal and regional- that came out from Francoism, and that we know that are the breeding grown for all sorts of patronages and corruption. We qualify this conception as utopian because, as it has been said in Catalan, “no omelet can be done without breaking the eggs”, meaning that the rupture that will place the political collective rights as a national benchmark will necessarily imply a profound modification of power relationships. Except, obviously, that a pact of “semi-independence” would be made, under the Borbonic monarchy, that would in fact represent a sort of re-edition of the autonomic system we are suffering at the moment. But this will unlikely happen if the Left Independentism gets involved in this struggle for Self-determination, from its first steps. This is exactly why it is significant to the Left Independentism to be engaged with the current initiatives, extending the popular movement all around and preventing the destruction of the organizative structures that have appeared during the struggle [6]. The conception of independence we are fighting for implies a social and economic process of change, in favor of the Catalan popular classes. We have to work in the extension of the importance of gaining an Independent Republic of the Catalan Countries [7].
An other important question that has arisen from the referenda has been the regional autonomous elections, because most people engaged in this process trust basically only one political praxis, which is the electoral struggle. In this sense, we should precise that a parliamentary majority in the chamber of the Catalan Parliament would permit us to obtain a democratic endorsement that could be placed in our side. But our evaluation is that this eventuality should be seen rather more as a result of an evolution than as a prerequisite. They are in fact misleaded those that place all their efforts and hopes in a simple parliamentary procedure, because we know the conquest of independence is a much more complex process. The key to it is a social conscious mass, organized and prepared for a foreseeable period of confrontation at different levels. For some, the only option at the moment seems to be the conformation of a new electoral candidature that would sum up all the strata of independentism and that then would gamble all its political strengths and profits in the next elections. We, in the MDT, consider that this proposal is way to rushed and hurried, and in many ways, out of focus. Taking part in these elections is clearly licit, but we consider that this is not the main priority at the moment. A generic independentist candidature could surely collect a number of votes, but by itself it will not help to make steps forward nor will permit us to gather forces. If we pay attention to the background movements that have been developing in these lasts months, a movement that has shown itself plural and dynamic, we’ll surely find that the most adequate instrument to accumulate forces is to build up an assembleary movement, that – as we’ve constantly said these past months – will be capable of gathering different groups and forces, that because of their diversity within can even stand in the elections in separate candidatures, but will sum up in this strategic project. What is most important right now, in the struggle for Self-determination, is unity in action and mobilization, and this will not reduce itself to a simple electoral choice, that will stand only as a small sector, even though it will present itself as unifying. We have to organize and stabilize the Catalan Nation apart from the juncture of these specific elections. The independentist parties (the existing ones and the ones that will appear from now on) should sum up their forces and form an Assembly for the Independence, ranging all the Catalan Countries and that would permit us to accumulate our energies above the different electoral options. This is a complicated task but recent experiences show us the way to go: unity from the base, in every town and “comarca” (county). This is what we think about the electoral alternatives that have been proposed since now. But from a point of view of the Popular Unity (as it has been said, this concept should gather those political and social sectors that are favorable to national and social liberation), we should state an other consideration. In the present moment, when the political basis for the right of self-determination and independence is being spread, it would be advisable to the Left Independentism and the Popular Unit to have an institutional expression. Apart from being or not internally prepared, if we do not rely on a political mass representation, our presence in the whole of independentism will really appear as insignificant. An electoral ticket with Joan Laporta or Joan Carretero with some strength in the next elections will imply serious difficulties to the CUP in many towns. We have explained this urgence, but sectarism and laziness have postponed the solution. All these debates that we have named “collateral” (maybe not wanted for some) have made the Left Independentism and the whole independentism shake because of this unstoppable political process. From now on, no one will be able to work in politics without considering carefully these questions and many other that will appear in the future. The golden and innocent childnnes of independentism, that allowed us some inconsistent exercises, is gone. With an effort that I think has been excessive, most of the Left Independentism is now realizing that the right and the electoral reformism right now capitalize the independentist hegemony in the streets. Finally, the Left Independentism is in touch with the real movement. Now we’ll have to work a great deal, and adequately. It has been a great lesson. But we’ll have to learn it thoroughly. We find ourselves in a moment of construction of the political structures that should lead us towards independence. It’s not about placing ourselves in the middle of theses structures to defend leading positions for us (following the usual practice of the institutional parties), but it is about practicing real politics. We’ll have to be up to scratch. We’ll have to build up the Popular Unity and the assembleary and Unitarian organitzation for Self-determination and Independence. Future challenges The main challenge at the moment, at the level of the democratic struggle for Self-determination and Independence, is to spread the organitzation. This is why a solid organization becomes essential: One that permits a social implementation of the experience that was born in Arenys de Munt in September 13th 2009 and continued that Saturday December 13th 2009 in 166 other towns. It is urgent to organize this growing multitude of independentists in wide structures, like the Democratic Unitarian Assemblies for Selfdetermination – with this same name or another – that have been appearing and may will continue on growing aside from the referenda. As it has been said, one of the causes of the current conflicts within independentism is that we do not have a wide organic structure that would enable us to solve our debates. Unfortunately, none of the platforms and parliamentary parties can right now exhibit social deep-roots in the struggle of Catalan people; and without a democratic benchmark, conflicts do not get solved rapidly. We will gain independence if we are able to mobilize in the struggle to self-determination two core themes: the territorial axis (democratic assemblies) and the institutional axis (town and regional councilors assemblies). Beyond thinking in terms of an electoral option inside already worn-out parliaments and chambers, we’ll have to organize the strength of the local assemblies and the assemblies of local representatives. It is this political organization the one that will let us keep on going forward, beyond the current political regime. It is due to dynamize a participative process, that going over the current organitzations (platforms and parties), will permit the settlement of active political activists in assembleary structures (following, perhaps, the scheme of the Assemblea de Catalunya). All people that feel unhappy with the current political scheme and that await for real democracy for the Catalan people, should be identified with it. The Left Independentism has a complementary duty: to conceptualize the Catalan Countries we are seeking to, attending to the interests of the popular classes. That is why we should extend within the Self-determination and Independence Movement the need to fight for an Independent Republic of the Catalan Countries, pointing out the advantages of this alternative if compared to the liberal and conservative projects. Carles Castellanos Notes [1] This anaylisis has been formulated by the MDT in the document Ara és el moment de la Ruptura Democràtica per la independència, that was issued on December 2004. [2] López Tena, in Osona Decideix, has forced some dynamics that were against popular organization. Therefore, the experience of those days has not turned into a permanent organization. Only the preexistent political parties remain. [3] The debate about the “Catalan zones” is not over, because there are Spanish-speaking or Occitan-speaking zones (like the Plana d’Utiel and the Fenolleda) with changing political links with the Catalan nation. In any case, these zones do also have the right to exercise their own Self-determination. [4] The organization of Alfons López Tena was, expressly, limited to the four provinces of the Principality of Catalonia. [5] The most used formulae in the Coordinadora has been “Catalan Nation”. In Berga they have used the form “Catalan Countries”. [6] That is why we should consider a great error the destruction of the local structures that have organized the referenda, like some sectors of the Left Independentism have intended, more interested in acting as landlords of independentism than to make easier the organization of the people. [7] The MDT has exposed, since November 2007, this question in the document called: “Cap a la República dels Països Catalans”.
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