Festive season lights on Barcelona's Ajuntament and a square full of estelades being waved in front of it - this photo, taken at last night's pro-Catalan-language rally just down the alley from me in Plaça Sant Jaume, is as good a place as any to start this blog. The Catalan independence issue, this is obviously some of the stuff I wanted to comment on. Stuff that is happening all around me. Stuff a lot of people are getting worked up about. I am too.
I may well get worked up in these pages, if this blog gets going. Although it was inspired by a more reflective feeling: that as a 20 year Barcelona resident who came here from the other side of the world, I might have a few valid perspectives of my own to contribute. Let's see what happens (that may sound like a cop-out response, maybe it is; but it's also because I've never really blogged before).
However I must say, that although the arrival of Catalan sovereignty as a major political issue (in early September this year) was the precipitant for this blog, it was never intended to be the only focus for it.
There was one day back in that period of early autumn when I had lunch with an old friend I hadn't seen for a while. I had probably never discussed politics with her before, but it was not unsurprising that when the conversation flagged, she asked: "So what do you think about the crisis?"
And I, enjoying the lunch she had prepared, and about to get way behind on the eating of it, answered: "Well, in the first place, no es una crisis, es una estafa - it's not a crisis, it's a rip off. That is my firm belief, because the vast majority who live relatively modestly are suffering way disproportionately to prop up the unsustainable economic system which created the problem, thus allowing business as usual to continue undisturbed. So the system perpetuates itself without reforms, and the powerful stakeholders in the system, and a wealthy minority of the population, continue unabated with the same behaviour that caused the crisis, at least until the next one hits."
Actually my answer, between mouthfuls of chicken salad, was no way as clear and definitive as this one, but that is the beauty of post-editing. In any case I went on:
"And the other thing is that when the protests started here, the indignados and all that, in 2011, at a time when I was feeling reasonably safe in my job, my reaction was to say, hey it's great that people are reacting creatively, but we need to focus on the real crisis: the environmental crisis, which is the big one and is going to break over us all in the next 10 years or so."
"So the economic-financial crisis is already a distraction from the big one, the environmental crisis of resources-climate change-population-energy-food-ecosystems (etcetera). But now, with the issue of Catalan independence, we're getting embroiled in yet another level of detail, threatening to distract us from what is already a distraction."
Well, we then proceeded to be "distracted" ourselves, and had an animated argument about the merits and otherwise of the desire of many Catalans to secede from Spain. Talked for about two hours I think.
That was about 10 weeks ago. There has been an election since then, but that has not diminished the issue at all. Right now, I don't think anyone could fairly call the Catalan sovereignty issue a "distraction" - it is completely central to the political debate here in Barcelona.
To be continued.
