Is there anyone in Europe who demonstrates more than the Catalans?

BarcelonaOne of the few times the city of Barcelona has come out of the mouth of a US president was in February 2003, with George W. Bush in the White House, in the midst of the Iraq War. "The security policy of the United States cannot depend on whether many or few people take to the streets of Barcelona," stated the former US president, in allusion to the capital of Catalonia flooded with people, symbols of peace, and "No to war" signs. That image of an overflowing city that captured the attention of the whole world was neither a mirage nor an isolated event, but rather the reflection of a mobilizing DNA rooted in our home that has, in every September Eleventh, one of its benchmarks.

The explanation for this mobilizing inertia must be sought in the history and social structure itself. Salvador Martí, professor of political science at Pompeu Fabra University, points out that there is a "quite significant relationship between what we could call social capital, that is, interpersonal networks and associative density, and mobilization." In this sense, Catalonia has historically been a territory with "a remarkable associative density, through many movements, from the parochial sphere, the traditionally anarchist, the libertarian, and also, subsequently, the labor movement," affirms Martí.

This industrial base was totally decisive. According to Jordi Mir, a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), "places that tend to have an industrial base or industrialization also tend to have significant mobilization related to working and living conditions". Activism, in fact, feeds itself: "The culture of mobilization generates mobilizations", states Mir, who highlights that the fact of having a powerful labor and national movement favors by inertia the appearance of new struggles in the future.

The path towards pacifism and the middle classes

After the Transition, the energy of the Catalan streets was channeled towards new horizons. Martí highlights that in the eighties, fundamental movements emerged, such as the pacifist, anti-NATO, environmentalist, feminist, and gay liberation movements. However, the purely civic and peaceful image of today's demonstrations has not always been this way. Mir recalls that "pacifism has not historically been a cause that has had the capacity to mobilize." Historically, from libertarian traditions, it was thought that "in certain scenarios, armed violence can have a function in transforming society," the expert states, especially when citizens did not have guaranteed political rights. It is not until the marches against the Iraq War in 2003 that anti-militarism became a truly hegemonic phenomenon.

This civic character distances us enormously from the European context, especially from the neighboring country. Martí underscores that "France has a very robust and, above all, very confrontational political culture of protest." The expert asserts that "things that happen in France would be unthinkable to happen in the Spanish state," since there, mobilization days can end "with 50 burned cars" and with much harsher levels of violence against urban furniture.

All this social density culminated, during the last decade, in the independence process, in which the mobilization "has been very robust, very high, and over a period with great capacity and a lot of muscle." For Martí, the differential factor of this movement with respect to previous labor waves is that "possibly another sector entered it that historically did not mobilize as much, which were the middle classes."

But how is this attraction towards citizens unaccustomed to street protest explained? Mir points to the power of socialization: "Political ideas also become fashionable." According to the UAB professor, "at a certain moment, what was viewed in one way starts to be viewed in another," facilitating large masses of the population to modify their perception, find new arguments, and join fully into a mobilizing current.

The submerged whale

The current stage, in which the sovereignty cycle is experiencing a marked ebb, does not equate to the end of activism. Mir illustrates this with an image: "Mobilizations are like a whale. There are moments when the whale emerges and they are very spectacular. And then it disappears and it is as if the whale were submerging". The people are still there, but the energy shifts towards other urgencies, such as the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), the Tenants' Union, or the recent educational mobilizations.

Finally, the exceptionality of Catalonia nowadays must be nuanced. As Martí warns, "today Catalonia, in terms of mobilization, is not that different from other places in the State". Phenomena such as the 15-M outburst or the defense of education have shown that "the Madrilenian mobilizes from time to time, especially for issues of public policy". Be that as it may, this Friday's Diada shows us that protest is our oldest heartbeat. The street continues to be that great whale that never stops swimming from the deep.