Nine days have gone by since I took the above photo in our living room: a live TV news cross from Plaça Sant Jaume, featuring a teenage boy I know quite well who rushed out there to try and get himself on the telly- and succeeded. Indeed, if events had unfolded slightly differently he might have also managed to colar-se - to have snuck in, you could say, to a small place in Catalan history, because the reporters were at that moment waiting for Artur Mas and Oriol Junqueras, leaders of the two largest parties after the recent Catalan elections, to step out of the Palau de la Generalitat and declare that they had concluded their “Stability Pact” to allow a new Catalan government to be formed – the government which the two parties intend to open the path to Catalan independence. As it happened the pact had to wait until this week, when our teenage Zelig was back at school, but agreement was in the end reached: the promise is now that they will hold a consulta on independence by the end of 2014 – a consulta or consultation being a way of avoiding the use of the dreaded R-word since a straight-out Referendum would be illegal, unconstitutional, and, according to the Spanish government, just... extremely naughty and thus deserving of the punishment which they fully promise to administer, indeed on a preventative basis.
So a difficult path. But given that Mas and Junqueras are poles apart in
terms of their economic philosophies, and we are in deep crap economically, the
arguably bigger part of the challenge for these new leaders will just be to
stop their house of cards from falling, in terms of the functioning of
government in Catalunya, paying wages and bills and most of all interest - and
in terms of we the people who are feeling poor, to put it mildly. Right now we
are moving into the most depressed festive season I personally have ever
experienced, anywhere. Christmas, what Christmas? Still, my Catalan family will
have our dinners and gatherings and, without breaking the bank, enjoy them, and
in this we are luckier than many people around here and a great multitude in some
other parts of the world.
As new Catalan MP for the “alternative left” CUP party David Fernàndez said
opening his address to parliament on Friday: “80,000 people in the world will die
of hunger today - and the same tomorrow.” Ironically David gave his speech on
December 21st, the day that in our media and social networks we were
entertaining ourselves with the fact that the world hadn’t ended. Too bad that for
many thousands of our fellow humans, the world did end.
