This study analyses the Catalan independence movement in 2013, focusing on activists’ perspectives and their use of 'rituals of resistance', an annual demonstration on Catalonia's National Day (La Diada). In this way, the study tries to examine how ...
This study analyses the Catalan independence movement in 2013, focusing on activists’ perspectives and their use of 'rituals of resistance', an annual demonstration on Catalonia's National Day (La Diada). In this way, the study tries to examine how ritual experience unites activists from different backgrounds and ideologies, and how they make sense of that ritual experience in their daily lives to continue their resistance. Previous research tended to question the reasons for a movement's success or failure and its organisational structure, thereby neglecting participants' perceptions of this political process and considering them as an entity of unified opinion. Taking account of these limitations, this study looks at the Catalan independence movement from the activists' viewpoints, and particularly highlights their conflicts, to understand the political dynamics of the movement itself.
To understand the momentum for the movement’s expansion, the study examines Catalan nationalists' independentist sentiment up to 2010, before which the Catalan independence movement had not yet advanced on a large scale. Catalan people see themselves as a nation with their own language, culture, and a unique system of government, but this fact has not always led them to hope for independence from Spain. When Francisco Franco's 40-year-long dictatorship ended in 1978, the Spanish went through the 'transition-to-democracy' period, whereby the political system was gradually transformed into a democratic one. Following this change, the Catalan people concentrated their efforts on reinvigorating Catalan culture and identity. During this period, the primary concern for Catalan nationalists was to revive their language and secure their autonomy, not to establish an independent country.
Meanwhile, it seems that several changes in the political circumstances surrounding Spain during the late 2000s, influenced the characteristics of the Catalan independence movement. First, the Spanish Supreme Court rejected the modified version of the Catalan autonomous constitution in which recognition of Catalonia as a nation and its broader rights to self-rule were stipulated. Second, as the eurozone crisis started to have an effect on Spain, the central government's fiscal austerity measures squeezed Catalonia in particular. For the Catalans, these attempts were not considered the rational judgements of the Spanish state, but deliberate discrimination against them. For those who have always been a part of the Catalan independence movement, these two events were regarded as an opportunity to make public their will to be independent from Spain. At the same time, activists tried to broaden the type of participants by facilitating engagement with the movement. By employing slogans such as 'movement for everybody' and carrying out activities within neighbourhoods, long-time participants hoped to convince Catalan citizens from all walks of life to become involved in the independence movement, which had previously been led by highly educated middle-class people.
As the range of participants widened, conflicts between activists intensified. This study explores these conflicts at three levels: generation, nation, and place of origin. First, intergenerational discord stemmed from the way in which collective memory should be interpreted to create a resistance repertoire: for the older generation, who still remembered the resistance during Franco's dictatorship, the songs of the Catalan 60s’ singer-songwriters remained the icons of resistance and so were still very influential. In contrast, the younger generation cast doubt on the effectiveness of using past symbols to persuade young people who would want to hear more about the vision for the future. Consequently, younger activists attempted to introduce new symbols of resistance, only for them to be disregarded by the older activists.
Second, strife between different nations originated in the use of national symbols. Activists usually mocked and damaged Spanish symbols to express their antagonism towards the Spanish state. However, those activists of Spanish origin, who supported Catalan independence for practical reasons yet still considered themselves to be Spaniards, were often uncomfortable with these incidents. As a result, they felt alienated from the activists who claimed to be 'Catalan at heart'.
Third, conflicts between activists from different regions arose from the fact that modern nation-state borders do not reflect the territorial distribution of nations. Mallorca constitutes part the 'Catalan Countries' and people from this island strongly maintain their Catalan identity. As the Catalan independence movement expanded across the Autonomous Community of Catalonia, some Mallorcans joined the movement hoping to expand it to include the island. Fearing that Mallorcan activists could provoke a series of independence movements across Europe and harm the Catalan independence movement, the majority of participants were reluctant to establish an official relationship with Mallorca.
As can be seen, sometimes achieving solidarity between activists in the same social movement is more difficult than attaining the political goal of the movement itself. Despite having the same goal of independence for Catalonia, participants were often in conflict with one another, making their solidarity unstable; nevertheless, the movement continued. This study therefore tries to discover the reasons behind its continuance by analysing how activists experience their own rituals of resistance on Catalonia's National Day (La Diada) and ascribe meanings to their experience. Despite continuous disagreements between activists, their strong emotional experience ? namely the ‘collective effervescence’, as Durkheim called it ? in the middle of the ritual makes them temporarily forget their conflicts and feel a sense of community. The performative qualities of the ritual, achieved by means of songs, slogans, and various cultural activities, contributed to enhancing the emotional experiences of each participant and to regenerate the energy to continue with the movement.
Finally, this study examines the relationship between ritual experience and the activists' everyday life beyond the ritualistic time and space. Activists’ ritual experience influenced their daily lives and encouraged them to engage in ‘everyday activism’. After the celebrations, activists started to express their thoughts on Catalan independence with confidence, by recalling the moment of collective effervescence. They started to wear nationalist symbols in the form of clothing, accessories, and so on, on a regular basis, and to hang flags from their balconies; symbols that became the means by which ritual memory and the sense of solidarity could be recalled. These omnipresent symbols converted activists' private spaces into political spaces, and they experienced this change of social relationship either positively or negatively. As these examples demonstrate, strong emotional experiences during rituals influence non-ritual time and space. Forty years after the advent of democracy in Spain, the Catalans’ desire to become an independent country is now manifested in everyday life.