A Diada with a clear message
BarcelonaThe 2026 Diada leaves two elements on the table. The first is that, contrary to forecasts, there has been an upturn in participation in the independence movement's mobilizations, which is good news for a movement that has been living in a state of collective depression for years. The second is that all the actors of Catalanism, with a special mention for Òmnium and its current president, Xavier Antich, focused their messages in the same direction: the necessary fight against the far-right represented by Aliança Catalana.
Indeed, Antich was particularly poignant when, from the podium, he asked if "have we gone crazy or what?" in reference to the speeches that intend to expel from Catalan identity a part of the population that lives in Catalonia. "The Spanish state wants us divided as a movement and the far-right wants to fracture us as a society. Neither one nor the other will succeed," concluded Antich. The speech by Òmnium Cultural was much more explicit on this point than that of the ANC, in which Josep Vila preferred to avoid the issue and focus on the idea that next year's Diada must represent a "turning point." Those who do place themselves in Antich's wake are the Catalanist parties, from the PSC to the CUP, passing through ERC and Junts, which did underscore, with more or less emphasis, the need to counter the far-right's discourse just on a day when a poll places it as the second force in voting intention in the Parliament.
Precisely, one of the voices heard today was that of former president Pujol, 96 years old, who sent a message to Catalunya Ràdio in which he wanted to congratulate the Diada "to all Catalans, both those who have just arrived and those born in the 30s of the last century," in a dart aimed at the exclusionary and xenophobic discourse of Aliança Catalana. Pujol wanted to combat the prevailing pessimism and argued that "you have reasons for hope, and that faith and optimism can be contagious." "I am fading away, but most of you are vital people, with hope and a future," he stressed in a truly timely speech.
This must be precisely the message that should remain from this National Day: the return to transversality, to the construction of an inspiring and optimistic national project, that brings people together and does not drive them away, that is clear in its principles and red lines. And the main one is that entire groups cannot be stigmatized for reasons of religion or origin, and even less so declared enemies. Sílvia Orriols has declared that she did not feel addressed by the calls because she does not consider herself "far-right". It would be very interesting to know what Orriols considers "far-right" after her party congratulated the German AfD for its victory in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, a party that avoids criticizing Nazism and defends one of the basic pillars of this ideology, which is the existence of "biological Germans" who must be protected.