Repression and Democracy Amidst the Eventful 1-O Referendum
The Catalan 1-O referendum can be read as a massive contentious performance, a key turning point within the independentist cycle of mobilization which contributed to shape secessionist milieus. While large civil society organizations took the lead of mobi
- PDF / 274,427 Bytes
- 24 Pages / 419.528 x 595.276 pts Page_size
- 30 Downloads / 159 Views
Repression and Democracy Amidst the Eventful 1-O Referendum Donatella della Porta, Hans Jonas Gunzelmann, and Martín Portos
Amid high expectations on the side of supporters for independence, the 130th President of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont stepped in front of the Catalan parliament on October 10, 2017. Thousands of people in the street followed the Catalan president’s speech. When Puigdemont declared independence, waves of joy hit the streets. Less than a minute later, however, he proposed to suspend the immediate effects of independence, essentially nullifying his previous declaration. In the streets, tears of joy turned into tears of disbelief, sadness and anger. Although the Catalan parliament did pass the bill on the unilateral declaration of independence on October 27, it did so in response to the Spanish government proceeding with article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, suspending
D. Porta · H. J. Gunzelmann Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence, Italy M. Portos (B) Department of Social Sciences, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected]
© The Author(s) 2021 Ó. G. Agustín (ed.), Catalan Independence and the Crisis of Sovereignty, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54867-4_6
127
128
D. PORTA ET AL.
Catalan autonomy and calling for a snap election in the region. The next day, Puigdemont and other members of the Govern, the Catalan government, flew to Brussels to escape potential juridical consequences of their declaration of independence, even if more as a symbolic statement than as a consequential act. The Catalan bid for immediate independence had failed, but the polarization on the issue, in Catalonia and in Spain, continued. One could rush to conclude that the referendum on October 1 (socalled ‘1-O’), which had mobilized over two million Catalans to cast their vote on independence, did not fulfil its aspiration. However, even if secession was not a result of the referendum (at least in the short term), it still had a profound, far-reaching effect on Catalan politics. The symbolic affirmation of sovereignty and self-determination in the face of repression gives the 1-O an ‘eventful’ character (Della Porta 2008), transforming several features of the Independence Movement. In this chapter, we argue that the 1-O’s peculiar combination of voting, mass mobilization, and the resistance against police repression (Letamendia 2018) can be read as a massive contentious performance (Tilly 2008). As Charles Tilly pointed out: 17th -century French villagers did not strike, picket, or strip themselves naked in public protest. Nor did their 20th-century successors engage in suicide bombing, coups d’état, or ecstatic religious rituals. … participants in uprisings and local struggles followed available scripts, adapted those scripts, but only changed them bit by bit. A metaphor came readily to mind: like troupes of street musicians, those French people drew their claim-making performances from standardized, limited repertoires. (2008, p. xiii
Data Loading...
