They landed in our city six weeks ago, and in a matter of hours they will be taking off again, these three alien capsules in Plaça Sant Jaume, which look suspiciously like giant Christmas tree baubles. I am worried. Will we be able to cope without their presence? So much has changed politically while they have been here, camped in our political epicentre between the Generalitat and the Ajuntament, that you have to ask what part they played in it.
We did not at first give them a second glance. We were too busy thinking about our Catalan election, which was at that point just a few days away. It was late November and there was euphoria in the air. The election seemed certain to open the way to Catalan independence. We did not think twice about the fencing off of part of Plaça Sant Jaume, which happens every year while they prepare the Christmas pessebre - the nativity scene. Indeed, I took the photo below while the fence was up, but the fenced-off area is not even centred properly in the shot, because it is not what I was interested in.
What I was more interested in was the banner on the top left balcony, which I wanted to show in its context next to the Generalitat building on the right. Here's the banner, slightly more legible.
"Mas, tens un poble darrere teu" says the Catalan: "Mas, you have a people behind you". Words of support for the Catalan president Artur Mas who had called the election on the independence issue, promising a referendum if he won, which he would surely do.
The thing was, it never occurred to me or anyone else to say: "Mas, you have a giant alien bauble behind you. Watch out!"
Some sort of warning might have helped the poor man, because three days after the above photo was taken, we had our election, and it turned out Mas certainly did not have all the people behind him - his party CiU lost support. Even if there was still a clear majority, in fact clearer than before, in favour of the referendum when all parties supporting it were counted, and even though CiU itself was still far and away the largest party in parliament, suddenly it felt like a rude awakening: the required coalition government would be difficult to form, and the Catalan political panorama had become much more complicated, in a way which with hindsight should have been completely predictable.
But - as the presence of those giant baubles in the square indicated - nobody had been thinking about the obvious.
Until it became obvious. Which it did in those final days of November just after the election, as the winter cold finally started to bite, when there was this palpable feeling of emptiness for a short period - you could feel it on the streets, in the Catalan media, amongst friends and workmates - as though Catalunya had simply been drunk on the euphoria of its big chance, and was now left with nothing but the headache of negotiating a new crisis government - and a wind-swept Plaça Sant Jaume occupied by three tacky alien Christmas baubles.
And naturally, the banner on that top left balcony was taken down.
Well, the mood did change again after that - several times in fact over the next few weeks of our alien bauble visit, as has been more or less recounted in earlier posts of this blog: a new Catalan government was slowly but surely hobbled together amidst the tinsel and Christmas lights; the political noises from Madrid oscillated between on the one hand gentle calls for dialogue and unity and on the other, blunt attacks on some of the foundations of Catalan identity; and our great economic crisis lurched onwards even as we moved through the season of goodwill and rampant consumerism - with all the weirdness and inherent contradiction and tension which all of that entails. We even jokingly celebrated that the world didn't end, even though hundreds of thousands of people in the world - basically, the poor - have died unnecessarily over the last few weeks simply because our unjust planet did not give them access to the basic means of survival.
So now, as kids are about to go back to school and those of us who have work (25% unemployment in Spain, remember) are about to return to it, I can only say that the needle on my personal stress metre has fallen a little. Our friend who has the top-left balcony on Plaça Sant Jaume is obviously in better spirits too: while not treating us to another slogan, he has hung out an estelada.
As for the possible role played in any and all of this by the giant baubles, that is all very speculative and unclear. But maybe we are about it find out: they are due to disappear again on Monday. We will wave goodbye as the three shiny spheres depart from Plaça Sant Jaume for terra incognita, and then we will start to sense whether their absence has made any difference, as we continue our various and collective journeys to our own terrae incognitae.
Nice pictures Bob
ReplyDeletePeixé