The independence movement encounters another division due to the Diada march

The independence movement is specializing in getting everything that should go in its favor to be turned against it.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
02 September 2022 Friday 16:32
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The independence movement encounters another division due to the Diada march

The independence movement is specializing in getting everything that should go in its favor to be turned against it. It happened on Wednesday, with the UN resolution accusing Spain of violating the rights of four independence leaders. A triumph for sovereignty that provoked in parallel a dispute between Junts, on the one hand, and ERC and the CUP, on the other, by lowering it to the arena of the procedural situation of Laura Borràs.

Now, suddenly and from one day to the next, the independence movement has found a new reason to divide. Unexpectedly. In fact, it has stumbled, because few expected that the demonstration that the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) has been calling for ten years every Onze de Setembre, the one that has always been supposed to have a transversal aspect, could now be a source of dispute. The entity summons it under the premise that we must "leave the parties behind" and that "we have finished expecting something from the parties." In the manifesto, in addition, it is doubted that ERC, Junts and the CUP -all of them or some of them- are supporters of a Catalan State when in the text it can be read that "they are self-styled independence parties".

With all these ingredients, Pere Aragonès considered yesterday that "it would not be coherent" to participate, because the demonstration is "against the [Catalan] parties and institutions, and not against the Spanish State." Or in other words, the president of the Generalitat believes that “the ANC is asking the Government to attend a rally against the Government. It is a short circuit”, reasoned yesterday from the Catalan Executive.

He will be the first president who has not gone to the demonstration since 2016 – if 2020, the year of covid, is not taken into account. From 2012 to 2015 Artur Mas was not present either. He argued the need to maintain an institutional profile in accordance with all sensitivities. However, Aragonès will go to several Diada events, including the floral offering at the statue of Rafael Casanova, in Barcelona, ​​and the institutional event.

Aragonès received the answer from the Assemblea itself. His leader, Dolors Feliu, in an interview in La Vanguardia, already warned before the president's announcement that if the head of the Government did not attend, he would consider that he "is not involved with independence." This whiplash did not affect Aragonès. But the association intensified the reply later, when the president's decision was already known. Feliu, before the ACN microphones, trusted that the absence of Aragonès in the demonstration "spurred" the people.

However, the reply to Aragonès came from his own. "I and the ministers of Junts will go to the Diada demonstration," Vice President Puigneró wrote, reaffirming these presences with a yes. The rest of the members of JxCat in the Catalan Executive were also publicly confirming their presence yesterday.

In ERC they see contradictions in the call, but they assured yesterday that both their elected officials and members of the party leadership will attend the ANC demonstration in Barcelona for the Onze de Setembre, starting with Carme Forcadell. However, the Republicans introduced an adversary, in line with Aragonès's reasons: "We would like any entity that calls a demonstration to do so in favor of independence, and not against the independentists."

For its part, the CUP confirmed that it will attend the mobilization, but made it very clear that its priority is the demonstrations that the anti-capitalist pro-independence left calls that afternoon.