Ara és l'hora

Spain is in a bad way. Its economic woes show no sign of abating, tales of corruption among politicians and the royals feature every day on the news and Madrid has lost its bid to host the Olympics again. So Catalunya's calls for independence from its rotten oppressor grow ever stronger.

La Diada - the Catalan national day on 11 September - traditionally features some sort of action calling for independence. Last year there was a demonstration of 1.5m people in Barcelona. But this year, as the relationship between the Catalans and the Spanish soured further, the Catalans really wanted to hit the headlines. The Assemblia Nacional Catalana (or here's a link to it in English) planned a 400km human chain, the 'Via Catalana', from the north to the south of the province. The idea was inspired by a similar movement by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1989 in a peaceful call to be freed from the Soviet Union (see VilaWeb for more detail).

There are many arguments that Catalan separatists put forward as reasons why they should be a separate state from Spain and one of them is that a Catalan government would be a sleek, cost-effective, corruption-less, well organised machine - in stark contrast to the current Spanish administration.

(There's a beautiful film by The Guardian about why one Catalan family believes in independence. See here.)

And, as if to prove this point, the Via Catalana was a triumph of planning and logistics. Dossiers of instructions were doled out to thoussands of volunteer organisers for weeks in advance. People sat for hours in bars discussing and plotting. Meetings were held. Practice-runs took place. Backup plans were made.

On 11 September, our little village was swamped with enthusiastic chain-formers. Coachloads came down from the mountains and out of the cities. The N340 was, for one glorious afternoon free of thundering lorries, while thousands upon thousands of people stood for several hours in the sun, wearing yellow t-shirts and waving the Estelada flags of the independence movement. The most organised brought fold-up chairs and coolboxes.

At 17:14 (to symbolise the year 1714 when Catalunya finally lost its independence) the church bells rang, everyone linked hands and cheered.

After that they stood around for a while having their photos taken, did some Mexican waves and sang the national anthem a few times. Then they all wandered back into the village for a drink.

Reports later that day said that somewhere between 400,000 and 1.5m people took part. The chain reached from the Pyrenees in the north right into Valencia beyond Catalunya's southern border. The organisers hailed it as a success.

In one of the packed village bars that evening the television was on. It showed an interview with Spain's deputy prime minister Soraya Saenza Santamaria. She said that a large 'silent majority' didn't come out to join the chain and that it was the government's obligation to listen to them too. She was drowned out by cries of "puta" from the drinkers.

"Madrid is trying to pretend this didn't happen," said the bar owner. "But it's been a great day. A really great day!"