One of the lies, half true if you prefer, that made a fortune to explain the thrust of independence from 2012 was uncritically assuming that it was a citizen movement born and grown outside the parties. The street had said enough, and the political formations that resisted dancing to the tune of the ANC and Òmnium would be disintegrated by the hurricane of popular will. This axiom was as false as the opposite, consisting of attributing the strength of sovereignty to an effective team of propagandists who, from the Generalitat, managed to reprogram the brains of the Catalans with effective seduction techniques so that they would forget about the cuts by embracing the estelada. Reality is always more complex than the sum of the party's arguments.
And for the subject that concerns us, we must know, going to the beginning, that the manifestation of the Diada of 2012 and those that followed became what they were because, having a fertile ground that made possible the rapid growth of what was planted, many gardeners were determined to cultivate it. The government of Artur Mas, to put it bluntly, pushed (and at this point I should write, out of honesty for the reader, we pushed) the citizens into the streets, as did the parties, then still nationalists. The ANC pocketed the success of the calls, but without the enthusiastic sum of speeches and resources from parties and institutions another rooster would have sung. There were many of us who collaborated in getting the genie out of the lamp. Another thing is that once outside it was confirmed that the prophecies are always true and that there was no way to control it. But that is another story.
All of this prior comes to light of President Pere Aragonès's decision not to attend this year's big demonstration, which means that the ERC will also drop its arms and that the institutional framework that controls this party – we will see the role of the public media – vent the spirits of the citizenry with less enthusiasm during the preheating of the Diada. With these cards distributed, the demonstration of the Onze de Setembre acquires a solely internal objective, becoming a concentration against the Government of Pere Aragonès and its negotiation strategy with the PSOE, as the organizers wanted. That half the government is in that demonstration –the members of JxCat– only reiterates once again that in Catalonia it is possible to be at mass and ringing because the electorate's indulgence is bombproof and rational.
Aragonès's decision is politically risky –in purely partisan terms– to the extent that it opens the door for the reading to be solely to count how many citizens are against him. It is also a serious setback – one more, and tending to infinity – in the face of the stability of his government, since it is very difficult to explain why half the Executive is going to demonstrate happily against its president and against the other party in the coalition . Only, since at this point the puncture can already be guaranteed -not in absolute terms, but in comparison with the great dyads of the past-, its absence will place Aragonès and ERC in a position consistent with their strategy and will provide the former with a plus of leadership (I do what I must and want, not what they drag me to) that the presidential institution is in great need of.
It is also the best for Catalonia –in its entirety– and also for the independence movement. In both cases, for the same reason. The ANC has long been a shadow of its former self. His speech has not only become anti-political –although this gene has always been present in his speech– but now it is also seasoned with a hint of supremacism and rancid sectarianism that distances him from the pro-independence project that he managed to embrace from a calculated ambiguity to citizens of very diverse and nuanced sensibilities. That the presidency of the Generalitat does not endorse a project based on these wickers is excellent news for the Catalans. And paradoxically also for sovereignty that, in its vast majority, will be absent from a call that openly turns its back on the argumentative bases that made it grow. By the way, that and no other, now that it is so fashionable to discover moles in every corner, is the true betrayal of independence.
