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Towards the Catalan Republic. Solidarity, an internationalist duty

Wednesday 4 October 2017

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A democratic revolution has begun in southwestern Europe. The day we lived through on 1 October in Catalonia was the biggest mobilization of non-violent civil and institutional disobedience experienced in Catalonia, the Spanish state or and Europe in modern history. Despite the extraordinary outbreak of repressive violence by the Spanish State police and civil guards [17 000 units, 844 civilians were wounded] 2,262,424 people managed to exercise their right to vote and expressed in an admirable and festive way their will to progress towards a Catalan Republic and the opening of a participatory constituent process. [1]

The Spanish state has definitively lost its legitimacy in Catalonia, while the exemplary response of more than 2 million people in polling stations, in the streets and squares of cities and towns in the face of police repression has undoubtedly won international legitimacy. A response revealing the very high degree of self-organization and popular empowerment that has been achieved and that will undoubtedly be extended to work places during the general and social strike called by the vast majority of trade unions and social organizations [CGT, CCOO, UGT, ANC, Omnium cultural, etc.] in Catalonia on 3 October in defence of freedoms, the right to decide and in favour of a Charter of social rights.

The reactions of the Spanish head of government and the corrupt Popular Party, Mariano Rajoy, and of the leader of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, continue to show a total lack of willingness to acknowledge the political defeat they suffered on 1 October. On the contrary, they cling to a fundamentalist defence of the 1978 Constitution and only call for obedience to an empty legality against the legitimacy conquered on 1 October. The PP in government has decided to ignore the Catalan people, in an electoral calculation that downplays rights and freedoms.

This is the time for mobilization and solidarity with the Catalan people in the face of threats of stepped-up repression and the suspension of Catalan autonomy by the Rajoy government. It is not only the future of the people of Catalonia at stake, but also of the peoples of Spain and Europe in the struggle for liberties, democracy and the sovereignty of all peoples. That is why we appeal to the internationalist solidarity of workers and peoples against that of big capital and the great powers with the 1978 .

In 1898, after the “disaster” after the loss by the Spanish Empire of Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico, a Catalan poet, Joan Maragall, wrote a poem that ended with “Adéu, Espanya”. Today, that goodbye is definitely coming from the majority of the Catalan people, not to the people of the Spanish State but to a government and an antidemocratic, pro-austerity regime.

We are convinced that the democratic rupture that has already begun in Catalonia will undoubtedly help to move towards a break with this regime and the opening of constituent processes based on the action of the peoples throughout the State. Because, as was heard in the demonstrations of these days when one of the songs one of the anthems of the anti-dictatorship movement, L’Estaca, by Lluís Llach, «Si estirem tots, ella caurá/ i molt de temps no pot durar,/segur que tomba, tomba, tomba/i ens podemos alliberar» [If we all pull it will fall,/It can’t last any longer/It will fall, fall, fall/It must already be rotten through./ If you pull hard here/And I pull hard there/It’s sure it will fall fall, fall/And we can free ourselves.] –

Barcelona, Madrid, Athens, Paris 2 October 2017

Spanish state

Sonia Farré –Anticapitalistas –Member of Spanish Parliament

Miguel Urbán – Anticapitalistas- Memeber of European Parliament

Jaime Pastor – Anticapitalistas

France

Olivier Besancenot – spokesperson NPA

Christine Poupin – spokesperson NPA

Philippe Poutou – spokesperson NPA

Greece

Antonis Ntavanellos – The Commune Foundation and spokesperson of DEA

Maria Bolari – former Syriza MP, member of DEA

New Signatures

Portugal

Joana Mortágua–Bloco de Esquerda–Member of Portuguese Parliament

Jorge Costa–Bloco de Esquerda¬Member of Portuguese Parliament

Italy

Franco Turgliatto–former senator, Sinistra Anticapitalista

Chiara Carratu–trade-unionist– Sinistra Anticapitalista

Switzerland

Pino Sergi–Movimento per il socialismo (MPS)

Charles-André Udry–MPS site alencontre.org

Geneviève de Rham–MPS–trade-unionist

Schmid Philipp–Bewegung für den Sozialismus (BFS)

P.S.

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Footnotes

[1The results were: 2 020 144 yes, 176 566 no, 40 585 blank, 20 159 spoilt; 400 polling stations closed by the police and 770 000 who were unable to vote.