Xavier Bru de Sala
Tuesday, 10/08/2019 – 17:47
When the sentence is around the corner, not only is there no response appealing to all citizens against incarceration, but some of the main leaders of the independence movement make not very indirect calls to demobilization. The vice president of the Catalan Government speaks of a smile, the president of the Parliament de facto invalidates any reaction that does not involve 80% of society, Oriol Junqueras discredits the “smoke” and, in the height of subtlety, Artur Mas warns of the serious possibilities of illegalization of parties, extensible to social organizations. For its part and as an elegant way to pass the buck, the Cambra has committed to support the extensive forms of reaction knowing that they will not occur. The synthesis of all this is clear. In the face of uncertainties and dangers, it is better to stay at home and wait for the day when the response comes not only from the irreducible nor is it led by them but from the country, that is to say as unitary and plural as is the feeling of rejection of convictions.
These calls for calm, or if you want to internalize the outrage, question at least three-fourths of the pro-independence electorate. So the forecast of protests on public roads is tens, not hundreds of thousands of people. Those who prepare to go out on the street, or on the road, rely on the implicit and ambivalent motto, if not dangerous, of “the less we are, the more noise we will have to put in”. According to certain theories spread in social networks, with fifty thousand people well organized and determined it is enough to paralyze everything. True? It depends.
A distraction maneuver
The five simultaneous marches convened by the ANC-Òmnium tandem are no more, in the eyes of the supporters of the collapse, than a distraction maneuver, a way to disperse the energies and spread them across the territory. It is likely that those who assume that they will pass off the highways and the main roads are not mistaken. Three days of road in stages of 20 kilometers are not available to workers or a good number of retirees among those willing, if not for age, to participate. On the other hand, the announced presence of the CDRs is a challenge of the first magnitude for the organizers, since between the exalted and the infiltrators the undesirable scenes of confrontation with the forces of the order can take place. The incorporation of the CDRs is also demobilizing: if you don’t want dust don’t go to the threshing ground. The number of 70,000 registered in the marches for freedom is not only very low but can be reduced by effective last-minute defections.
Far from hurrying to find a majority formula of protest, those who carry the decisive voice are preparing to seize it in favor, not of independence as a whole but of that fraction of pro-independence preaching the immediate blockade as a formula to make the republic effective at short term. Thus, according to the ‘president’ Torra and the CUP, he who does not want independence is now against freedom. The president and those who refuse to approve the budgets agree on the conception of the protests as an opportunity, perhaps the last in a long time, to recover the initiative lost by the ‘president’ Puigdemont, on an unfortunate date and therefore not celebrated, two years ago. Futile illusions, we’ll see how counterproductive.
Let’s advance something in the possible scenarios of the day after the mobilizations. Scenario A: nothing has happened but a civilized, peaceful and not very massive protest of people who have returned home without causing disturbances. Discredit and decline for summoners. Scenario B: there have been few incidents, minimized at home and magnified by the Spanish media, in the face of the indifference of outsiders who take for granted the end of the insurrectionary climate that took them to Barcelona a couple of years ago but without returning no longer. Scenario C: Numerous and heated up confrontations, with multiple scenes of violence. Better not to imagine the result, no doubt ominous for the whole of pro-sovereignty side and for Catalonia.
The consequences on the electoral behavior of the 10-N voters are difficult to predict. Just point out that scenarios A and B would favor the transfer of Citizens’ votes to the PSC that has been accentuated with the failed vote of no confidence. In any of the cases, it is clear that Quim Torra campaigns in favor of the CUP, that is, against the government coalition he presides over and against JxCat.
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