On the way back from the Diada celebration in Barcelona, I heard that the protesters were making the same demographic summary: there were people over 50 and under 25. And the presence of young people is interpreted as a green shoot that dispels the idea that the end of the 2017 process created a cut that had no tail behind it.It helps that the failure of the 2017 process objective, plus the subsequent state repression and the division of the parties, apart from leaving the Government in the hands of the PSC, has shifted the center of political debate in Catalonia, so that problems such as the lack of housing, insecurity on the streets, the poor service of the suburban trains (Rodalies), strikes in Education, Healthcare or the farmers' protests, the use of the language... all this has ended up filling the voting intention polls for Aliança Catalana, which mimics the messages of the entire European far-right: there are groups impossible to incorporate into Catalan identity, who furthermore commit crimes and take the aid, with the approval of traditional parties, some corrupt and all clinging to their seats. And so, the lifelong debate, the Catalonia-Spain one, is replaced by the local version of a darker and more authoritarian global agenda. Yes, we have a debate about the regional financing system or the application of the amnesty, but the protest vote, of radical change, is shifting, polls say, towards Aliança Catalana, hand in hand with the identity vote in a radical sense (particularly Islamophobic, as we heard in the party's speeches at the Diada) and the punishment vote against the institutions.Where do these votes come from? Many of them come from the sovereignty movement, especially from Junts, and now Vox intends to attract the most Spanish-leaning disenchanted vote from the PSC, also taking advantage of the fact that it has now reached the middle of the legislative term with serious management problems in all the departments most important in terms of budget and impact on the lives of the majority. At the end of the week, Santiago Abascal will come to Catalonia to open the political season, taking advantage of the fact that Aliança Catalana has placed at the center the debate on the favorite topic they share, which is immigration. For Vox, the enemies are immigration and Sánchez, who does not defend Spain's borders. And for Aliança Catalana, the enemies are immigration and the rest of the parties, which do not defend security, public services; that is to say, Catalan identity and Western identity.

On the afternoon of September 11, TV3 dedicated a special to live coverage of the demonstrations for independence throughout Catalonia. After half an hour of preliminary news, they sent viewers who wished to remain connected to the Diada to 3CatInfo. TV3 prioritized the broadcast of the apocalyptic film El rastre del llop, a Catalan-produced dystopia that transported us to the end of the world. The vaccine from a fascist government had made the population sick amidst a desolate landscape destroyed by a terrible drought. It seemed like a way of telling us that there is always something worse. Meanwhile, just in case, a sign with huge letters kept scrolling across the bottom of the screen reminding the audience that coverage of the demonstrations was taking place on the news channel. At eight in the evening, TV3 recovered the spirit of the day with the live broadcast of the institutional act of the Diada from the National Theatre of Catalonia. It was a very elegant and poetic gala, well calculated, which paid tribute in a very pertinent way to the fifty years of the Sant Boi day of 1976. The ceremony even included this year's breakthrough artist, Naim Smaili, author of the Mambo d’en Patufet. The organization did not dare to commission any of his versions of the traditional songbook and he read us a poem by Josep Vallverdú.But either the people in charge of the institutional gala fell short or those at TV3 miscalculated the end time of the event. When it ended, there were still thirteen minutes left until the start of the Telenotícies vespre and the channel did not seem to have the continuity prepared. We viewers spent almost a quarter of an hour mesmerized by an endless festival of advertising. We swallowed up to fifteen promotions for the channel. We saw the long self-promotion ad for 3Cat twice in the same break. We also saw the promotion for the 30 minuts episode on Ceuta twice. They broadcasted the promotion for the Oscar-winning films of the summer Saturdays twice, which was already a bit out of season. And they advertised the broadcast of the play Dones de ràdio on Canal33 up to three times. It was as if the public television had become stuck in a kind of infinite self-referential loop. In thirteen minutes, only six commercial ads to cushion that strange impasse of self-promotions. The return of Raquel Sans to the Telenotícies after many months without the presenter had a disturbing prelude, in which the channel seemed to have lost control. These are circumstances that convey a certain neglect of the broadcast and little capacity for foresight. A television station that is not very precise in its live broadcasts and leaves a feeling of internal lack of coordination, where unforeseen events and blunders are increasingly common. Just like the country, TV3 has seen better Diades.

There are two ways to analyze this year's Diada. The pessimistic one reminds us that the country faces internal problems, and the latent threat of an involution in Spain, which –historically– indicates that we will be the ones to suffer. But in this context, the Eleventh of September has brought some 50,000 people to the streets, with more young people than ever; it is a respectable figure in our listless present. But it has also reminded us that among “our own” there are people who exude hatred. A new poll predicts the meteoric rise of Aliança Catalana. Overall, Parliament would once again have an absolute pro-independence majority, which will not be operational because there is a political and moral abyss between those who could be involved. If it serves as any consolation, the “Spanish” bloc is equally useless (unless the PSC wants to commit suicide by making a pact with the PP and Vox). Who will fish in these troubled waters? Many of us warned that the baton blows against the ballot boxes on October 1st could create a generation of skeptics. But we were not thinking of Orriols when, after the imprisonment of the pro-independence leaders, we shouted “The smiles are over!” Andreu Nin also, in April 1931, wrote: “Ourrevolutionwill not be so cheerful”. Because independence, like any revolution, is a serious affair. But Orriols has nothing serious about her, beyond her ridiculous solemnity. Her discourse, besides being an ethical failure of Catalanism, is a distraction and a deception.

There are days that mark a before and an after in political and social terms. And the Eleventh of September 1901, 125 years ago now, was a turning point for a holiday that was navigating in irrelevance but that gained momentum due to the arrests following a floral offering at the monument to Rafael Casanova. "Without the events of 1901, there would be no modern independence movement," emphasizes Oriol Falguera, president of the Reeixida Foundation, in conversation with ARA. This organization, in fact, celebrated the anniversary of the first combative Diada last week at the Museum of History of Catalonia and this Thursday at an event in the Parliament with the president of the chamber, Josep Rull, which was attended by relatives of those arrested during that Diada. Furthermore, this Eleventh of September, at 11 p.m., Reeixida recreated the events with people dressed in period clothing and relatives of those arrested through the streets of Barcelona.

The afternoon begins dully with a heat that only seems tolerable because the permanent state of exception of the climate has forced us to lower our standards. It is a public holiday Friday and Catalan politics has accumulated so many years of apathy that I admit I arrive loaded with preventive pessimism at Plaça Universitat, and I sink into prejudice when I find the ANC stalls full of white hair. Then I cling to the lifeline of a group of teenagers with estelades who pass by me. They are shy, they explain to me that they have come down by train from Os de Balaguer and say they don't know much about politics. To shake them up a bit, I ask them to compare this Diada with the previous ones they have experienced, and they all agree on one point: "There are more young people than ever." As I get closer to the heart of the matter, I realize they are absolutely right: I haven't missed a single protest since 2012 and I had never seen so many young people. Although the rational part of my brain knows that the absolute number cannot be compared to that of the epic years, the impression of seeing a proportion of young people higher than that of older people completely changes the emotional color of the Diada.

The 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.

"We have won and we have ensured that Núcleo Nacional could not hold their event." In this way, one of the members of the Anti-fascist Coordinator of Barcelona celebrated that the far-right organization had not been able to hold the rally at Plaça Mossèn Jacint Verdaguer, which the ultra-rightists had renamed with the Spanish version of the poet's name in their calls. The eighty fascists who supported the call had to settle for holding their event at the corner of Carrer Mallorca and Roger de Flor, a hundred meters away from the square. They were prevented from doing so by the three thousand anti-fascists, the majority from the pro-independence left, who managed to occupy the square after dodging various police checkpoints.

“The Terres de l’Ebre are not the periphery, but the gravitational center of a people's dignity. On this National Day, we make the cry “I am here, we are here” our own and raise our voices against the cynicism of those who want us pacified and submissive,” proclaimed Núria Pinyes Font, philologist and firefighter, in the final manifesto of the pro-independence mobilization in Amposta. After traveling through the city's main arteries in two columns that moved in parallel, the march ended at six in the evening by the Ebro River, in front of the Hanging Bridge of the capital of Montsià, the great symbolic point of the mobilization. There were 13,000 people according to the organizers and 1,600 according to the police.The capital of Montsià has been one of the three cities this year where the independence movement has called upon protesters (along with Barcelona and Girona), with an explicit commitment to decentralizing the mobilization. The event has brought together citizens, political parties, and civic and social entities from Montsià, Baix Ebre, Terra Alta and Ribera d'Ebre, Camp de Tarragona, the south of the Lleida province, and the north of the Valencian Country. And this has been felt in the streets: jotas and sardanas, gralles and dolçaines, band music and castellers have all mingled there. And precisely with this desire to appeal to the territory and its issues, the final speech of the event served to review some of the old and new projects (some still in an embryonic phase) that, in the opinion of the Catalan National Assembly, represent an aggression against the southern regions of Catalonia. “The wounds left open by the Ascó nuclear power plant and the proximity of the one in Vandellòs; the polluting industry of Ercros in Flix; the water transfer from the Ebro to the Camp de Tarragona; the failed Castor natural gas storage facility; the landfills of Tivissa and Riba-roja d’Ebre; the disastrous agrarian policies that have motivated the progressive abandonment of the countryside by farmers,” read Pinyes. And he further added: “The artificial intelligence gigafactory planned for Móra la Nova; the Plater, the territorial sector plan that organizes the implementation of renewable energies, are a coordinated set of measures that reduce the Terres de l’Ebre to the simple function of water and energy providers. And with economic control becoming increasingly distant.” Thus, the organizers wanted to take advantage of the mobilization to channel the discontent over very concrete issues of the Catalan political framework: “Independence as a response to the problems of the present and as a project for the future.”At the end of the event, the Valencian singer-songwriter Esther Querol performed two songs from her latest album Tot comença which served to also claim the unity of the Catalan language across all territories of the linguistic domain. The mobilization culminated with a drum circle and two human pillars raised by the casteller groups from Tortosa and the Ebre Delta. "It is difficult for us to narrow down the exact number of people who have mobilized, but we have far exceeded the number of protesters from last year's territorial demonstration in Tortosa," explained Jaume Graupera, a member of the Catalan National Assembly in the Ebre region and organizer of the mobilization.

For the third consecutive year, Girona has been the setting for one of the decentralized demonstrations of September 11th and, once again, the event has brought together thousands of people. 15,000, according to the Assembly, and 11,000, according to the municipal police. More or less the same as last year. The march began at 5:14 PM at Plaça Catalunya, packed to the rafters, and slowly headed towards the La Copa esplanade, where speeches and musical performances took place and a giant screen connected with Barcelona. The entire day unfolded in a festive atmosphere, with families, retirees, and also a great many young people who came from all over the region. An essentially citizen-led mobilization, from civil society, without partisan proclamations, symbols of political parties, or media figures hogging the spotlight.The spirit (although less crowded) recalled that of the first years of the Procés demonstrations, before the most tense and convulsive moments. Shouts of "independence", the singing of Els Segadors, proclamations of "the streets will be ours" and "we want, we want independence". Also human towers (castellers), brass bands and songs by Lluís Llach, Txarango and l’Elèctrica Dharma. A kind of happy déjà-vu and a feeling of national celebration. Neither reproaches to politicians nor tension.There has also been no trace of the tensions with the pro-independence far-right of Aliança Catalana, which did mark the Diada in the capital. There was only a brief moment of tension when a group of teenagers leading the demonstration, wearing football shirts, with estelada flags on their backs and painted cheeks, began to shout "Sílvia Orriols is the solution". They did so timidly and quickly gave up, but the chant caused a citizen passing by, outside the demonstration, to confront them and, then, an adult from the demonstration wanted to retaliate. The situation, however, did not escalate: they were separated and the rest of the young people there responded with anti-fascist slogans.Without the prominence of politicians or well-known faces

The festive and civic tone of the demonstration continued on the Copa stage. In fact, the speeches were delivered by anonymous people: two pro-independence activists, a veteran, and a young woman, in line with the "present and future" slogan of the rally. "Catalonia is experiencing a moment of unrest. Strained public services, healthcare with unacceptable waiting lists, education without resources, trains that leave us stranded, and impossible housing prices, neglected farmers, and precarious working conditions. These are not isolated problems; they are part of the same reality, a Catalonia that does not have all the resources or all the decision-making capacity to govern itself," they said.The day ended with the concert by Akoblats, a group performing lively covers of Catalan songs, a drinks bar, and food stalls. The younger audience stayed until the end and had a great time.

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The independence movement wants to turn the page on years of pessimism and is looking for the spark to revive the movement. Both the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Òmnium Cultural agree that the moment could be the tenth anniversary of the referendum of October 1, 2017. With this date in mind, the president of the ANC, Josep Vila, has called on civil independence organizations in the coming weeks to a summit "open to everyone" – except for political parties – to begin preparing a large demonstration for the autumn of next year. "It must signify the trigger for a new, strong, and determined push for independence," the independence leader proclaimed before a packed Plaça Catalunya.

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"Either we convert to Islam and live as second-class citizens, paying taxes, or we wage war and, of course, as far as they are concerned, they are defeated". The Saint George's Day speech given by Ramón Cotarelo in Ripoll was marked by controversy due to the warmongering tone used by the political scientist hired by the city council led by Sílvia Orriols. Both Junts and ERC have criticized Cotarelo for holding an Aliança Catalana (AC) "rally" at the Ripoll monastery. His bellicose language has caused even the council itself to want to distance itself in a statement: "We regret that the content of the speech did not stick strictly to the celebration of the Diada". It was not until the day after the Diada that Orriols decided to say publicly on X that "it was not the appropriate context or place" for the speech given, that "it did not stick to the assignment", although she endorses "a good part of his intervention". In fact, Cotarelo accompanied Aliança to the September 11th demonstration in Barcelona.

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It is customary for Aliança Catalana to skip the traditional floral offering at the monument in honor of Rafael Casanova, the last chief councilor of Barcelona who fought in 1714, because the pro-independence far-right prefers to pay homage to General Josep Moragues, a hero of the War of the Spanish Succession whom Philip V decapitated to display his head for twelve years at the Portal del Mar, as a warning to the Catalans. But the absence of Sílvia Orriols in the center of Barcelona has not prevented her party from being the protagonist in the interventions of political groups, organizations, and unions.

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The 'senyera' is the flag that represents the entire Catalan people, beyond political sensitivities: it is used by both pro-independence parties and those that are not, and it flies equally on balconies during the Diada as it does on the institutional buildings of the Generalitat. Formed by four red bars on a yellow background, the symbol draws from the coat of arms of the Counts of Barcelona and, later, from the Crown of Aragon, documented at least since the 12th century. Popular legend, however, attributes it to Wilfred the Hairy, who supposedly dipped his fingers in his own blood to mark a golden shield.

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Although it was not seen on television, the estelades filled the stands of the Camp Nou in the match two weeks ago against Athletic Club. An image that had not been seen in the blue and garnet stadium for some time and that the independence movement has claimed as one of the green shoots of a new beginning that some of its ideologues are beginning to glimpse in the short term. The latest barometer from the Center for Opinion Studies (CEO), published in June, broke a worrying dynamic for the yes vote: it marked the best percentage (45%) since March 2019, six points more than a few months ago. And this same week, all the presidents of the ANC have put aside their disagreements to be photographed together, claiming a Diada of unity.

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In October 2017, thousands of young people who were then between 18 and 22 years old experienced their great vital and political baptism by defending the ballot boxes in the street. Today, the "1-O Generation", born between 1995 and 1999, is reaching their thirties, has left the shelter of student life and has begun to face the harshness of labor precariousness and the serious housing crisis. But, how has their perspective evolved in this decade?

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The architect Carmen Torres (Barcelona, 1986) –founder of the studio Sarquella Torres together with Pau Sarquella– does justice to the idea expressed by Josep Pla that in the ultra-local lies the universal. Specifically, Torres began with the international part: she started her studies at the Barcelona School of Architecture (Etsab), and continued her training at the ENSA-Paris Malaquais school. Thus, her professional career began in the French capital, as a collaborator in various studios on public equipment and housing projects. And from the French capital, Torres and Sarquella moved to Bangkok to work as professors in the International Program in Design and Architecture (INDA) at Chulalongkorn University.

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There are mathematical problems that persist for decades after being formulated and challenge generations of brilliant minds around the world. The Yano conjecture was one of them. Proposed in 1982, it suggested how to classify and compare singularities of curves, that is, points where a curve stops behaving in the usual way, as happens with black holes, places where the rules we know from physics stop working the way they do in the rest of space.

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The Diada arrives at a time dominated by international uncertainty and a layer of pessimism that permeates everything and gives wings to populism. In the case of Catalonia, a discourse about a supposed decline has long been installed, to the point that it has ended up affecting the country's self-esteem. Obviously, there are reasons for concern, as has been seen recently with the results of the PISA tests, but we also cannot ignore that these catastrophic discourses are not harmless and intend to impose a frame specific: that there is a glorious past to return to. And if there is one thing that has not yet been invented, it is a time machine.

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We offer you a live graphic follow-up of the National Day of Catalonia, which graphically complements the important live coverage by ARAARA's live coverage. The day starts early in the morning with the traditional floral offerings at the Rafael Casanova monument and commemorations throughout the country. Throughout the day, this gallery will collect the most outstanding moments from the afternoon mobilizations called by pro-independence entities, the institutional acts, and the cultural and musical events that will close the National Day. A living photographic look that will be updated minute by minute from the field by ARA's photographers.

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An analysis like this fundamentally has one purpose, which is to help us all understand what kind of country we live in, or what kind of world we live in, and there is news today that helps a lot with that.For example: early this morning Donald Trump promised that if the Republican Party maintains the majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate in the November 3rd elections, he will pay “every adult American a dividend” of 5,000 dollars. Donald Trump: “If the Republicans win the United States House of Representatives and the Senate, both of them, thanks to our enormous strength and our economic success, I will pay a dividend of 5,000 dollars to every adult citizen of the United States of America”.He is so worried about the results that he already wants to buy the vote. And he wraps it up in the usual triumphalist rhetoric, assuring that we are doing so well, and speaking like a businessman who manages a company and not a country, and promising a dividend. It is so low that it is not worth dwelling on. And it is a good thing he is promising money and not threatening deportations if they do not vote for him, but it will all come. It is not that they have no shame, it is that they have a plan: to perpetuate themselves in power, make money and prevent being prosecuted, if necessary, by ending democracyAnother one: Sánchez has kept his promise to make public all the reports he received regarding the massive entry into Ceuta, with the intention of demonstrating that nobody saw it coming. Well, the warnings portray the Spanish government, since the CNI warned of calls for an assault on the fence and by sea, but without anticipating the magnitude. If the papers portray Sánchez, why publish them? Because they cling to a part of the truth: they did not receive any report. They received WhatsApps and calls. But there were indeed warnings. No matter how you look at it, the Spanish government's foresight was zero, and the management was slow, and therefore bad. And what does Sánchez offer? Catchy phrases for the enjoyment of TikTok, Instagram or X. Like this one:Pedro Sánchez: “Regarding the insults, my lord, you have called me an autocrat, a dictator, they even call me a dog. They call me a dog, yes, yes, they call me a dog. Look, I will tell you one thing, Mr. Abascal: unlike you, I may be a dog, but I have no master”.It has no owner, but dialectical creativity is not enough when there is a crisis like the one Morocco has created for Ceuta. All of this is a theater that does not hold up.Salvador Illa should take note of this. Yesterday Josep Lluís Trapero resigned, his great signing for the general direction of the Police, for the reasons we explained: Trapero is very much Trapero and he did not get along with Minister Parlon. And yesterday it became clear that the straw that broke the camel's back was the appointment of Sílvia Catà as the new head of the Mossos, to the point that Trapero resigned on the day the new head of the force was to be presented, historic news because she is the first woman who will lead the police. Anyway, these things happen in politics, but it has been another dent (and quite a visible one) in the bodywork of the Illa government. He has had to replace five officials in one month. It has just been two years since he arrived at the presidency, he is halfway through his term, he has a budget for next year, but he has problems in Education, Health, the Interior, with mobility, and the discourse that a Government was coming that would actually know how to manage (unlike the “chaos” with the pro-independence Governments) no longer holds up. This Government shows signs today of difficulty in solving problems, and the president should think that they do not go away with more or less fortunate phrases. And so we arrive at a new Diada, at a new National Day. Tomorrow will mark 50 years since the first one after the Francoist dictatorship. The one in 1976 was a tolerated Diada, because the civil governor of the time prohibited the celebration in Barcelona. It was a brave Diada, in which it was possible to use the term “National Day” without fear, and, above all, it brought everyone together. That unity is the message today. Today there is less courage, more calculation, more wounds from the Procés and an extreme right with an exclusionary vision of Catalan identity. What has happened to the Diada is what has happened to the world: too much fear and too little hope.Good morning.

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