"At one in the morning my phone rang": four stories of the 1-O through the eyes of 2026
Nine years later, they remember the adrenaline and the pride but also the political disaffection and the generational change
Barcelona"It was one in the morning when my phone rang. One without internet that I bought just for that." This is how Salvador Cardona from Sabadell recalls the moment he accepted being one of the clandestine gears that made the October 1st referendum possible. In the darkness of the night, he spent more than an hour and a half sorting messy electoral envelopes next to his barbecue. On the eve of the referendum, they still didn't have ballots. "We had everything ready for Sunday, but the ballots still weren't there. We had a facsimile in PDF that had been sent to us and a couple of paper cutters located and some photocopiers prepared outside the town hall," he explains to ARA nine years later, still with the adrenaline intact.
Marc Vila is from Barcelona. He was summoned to an industrial estate to be assigned the job. The first security measure was "to leave mobile phones in a box inside a car," to finally take away ballot boxes and ballots that ended up "hidden in the basement next to a diesel canister." A game of cat and mouse played by anonymous citizens, four of whom, all over fifty and from diverse backgrounds, dissect the present of the independence movement for ARA with the perspective that almost a decade of reflection provides.
From illusion to disillusionment
"That day arrived and we were all convinced that it would work," recalls Enric Farran, a resident of Les Borges Blanques, describing a civic mobilization that promised firm state structures and the backing of Europe. In Les Borges they had "ballots to spare," but at four in the morning on Sunday, October 1st, they were warned that they were missing some in another town in the region. It would not be the only unforeseen event of the day, because upon opening the polling stations, people who were supposed to be at the tables failed to show up, and they had to ask for the help of volunteers right there.
With the perspective that these nine years provide, Vila adds a self-critical nuance about that overflowing energy. According to him, the lack of real preparation for the logistical and economic onslaught from Madrid showed that, at the moment of truth, "enthusiasm and desire took precedence over rationality."
This clash with reality was profound, especially due to the reaction of the Spanish institutions and the harsh police charges during the morning. Anna Serra hid a ballot box in her home garage in Barcelona. For her, the great mistake of the independence movement was naivety: "We underestimated Spain." She believes that the harshness of the repression was not calculated well, mistakenly trusting that the international community would stop the violence against the citizens. Faced with this scenario of helplessness, Vila is very critical of the leaders of that time, as he opines that "those who were supposed to defend this, I consider, did not live up to the task" when it came to assuming the consequences of the referendum.
Today this lack of foresight has left a trail of fatigue and political exhaustion that exudes from all four. Vila regrets that it is "a pity that the effort and the risks that so many people assumed could not be capitalized on," while Serra is even more blunt about the current impact of the whole Process, and declares: "I think it has been something that has gone against us Catalans. In other words, we are now worse off than we were before all this," and all of it has generated "a very significant disaffection." A feeling of a closed circle and frustration that Farran summarizes with resignation: "Now we are back at the same point. We are back to square one, and even further back."Was it worth it?
Despite the political hangover, the personal balance remains marked by pride. Cardona is clear about it: "I am very happy with how it turned out, with the unity that existed, with all the youth who got involved". He believes that the Process stalled because "the biggest mistake was not having been able to get the countries of the European Union to raise their voices", but he firmly states: "I would do it again". Farran joins him, claiming that "it was very much worth it because it was shown that we were a mature society and that we did not enter into violence".
This memory drives Farran to defend the leaders of the 1-O. Keeping in mind the fear and anguish of the anonymous families who hid the ballot boxes, he laments the current criticisms of the politicians: "None of us could have gone through what they have gone through, and yet, now we are paying them back by mistreating them and accusing them of being traitors."
However, in the face of current fragmentation, the custodians of that referendum diverge on the future. While Farran does not see any possible alternative within the State and believes that "there is no other solution than to push forward," Serra bets on closing the chapter: "Our generation has burned out; we must step aside and make way for the new ones." A reflection that demands a complete changing of the guard: "We are very disappointed; what we must do is step aside and make way for the future. Both the politicians and us."