Over a million protesters demand Catalonian independence (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

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Published time: September 12, 2012 02:59
Edited time: September 12, 2012 06:59

Marchers wave Catalonian nationalist flags as they demonstrate during Catalan National Day in Barcelona (Reuters/Albert Gea)

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Anniversary, Crisis, Europe, Politics, Protest

A million and a half people took to the streets of Barcelona, according to police estimates, to demand independence for the autonomous Spanish region of Catalonia as the country as a whole faces crippling debt.

At least one train and more than 1,000 coaches were chartered to bring supporters from all over the region to the march. The mob filled the streets with red and yellow Catalan flags, rallying under the slogan "Catalonia, a new European state," chanting “what do the crowds want? A new European state! What do the people want? An independent Catalonia!"

A swelling unemployment rate combined with financial instability have fueled the secessionist spirit. Polls published on Tuesday show that 46.4% support the independence bid – twice as many as in 2008, when the financial crisis began, writes The Guardian.

The autonomous Spanish community, whose economy is bigger than the entirety of neighboring Portugal's, accounts for a fifth of Spanish output.

But it is burdened by the austerity cuts put forth by the Spanish and European governments in response to the global economic crisis that has left one in four Spaniards jobless.

AFP Photo/Josep Lago

AFP Photo/Lluis Gene

AFP Photo/Josep Lago

AFP Photo/Lluis Gene

Reuters/Gustau Nacarino

AFP Photo/Josep Lago

AFP Photo/Lluis Gene

Comments (21)

Nelle (unregistered) 14.12.2012 12:30

Thughot it wouldn't to give it a shot. I was right.

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walser (unregistered) 26.09.2012 23:01

Let people do whatever !! that's democracy

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Paulo Campiche (unregistered) 25.09.2012 16:32

The idea of secession is perhaps a dangerous one. My family immigrated to the US during the Spanish Civil War. I recall my grandfather who fought in the war telling me about it. He was from the suberbs of Barcelona, just outside in a small town. During the war our town, Begues, became a syndacalist enclave, a system of self governence even within the newly former republic.
The town had horrid living conditions and education before the War, however during independence these faults were for the most part remedied. Many problems of economic and social inequality were finally mended, a population of peasants got for the first time a chance to make their own way.
Before the war the peasant population was bound by a form of incomienda, a economic system of enslavement used by the Spanish excessivly in Latin America. The peasants were not legally bound to the land but as they had no means or hope of purchasing land themselves they were in a fashion bound to the land as slave wage laborers.
Now this is where the danger comes in. The Franco regime did not enjoy the freedoms being granted nor their lack of control over the republic so they invaded, a reconquista of sorts. My grandfather fled with many. The regime murdered all of his family, six in all in the streets. The reason given was that my grandfathers brother was a associate and proformers of Pablo Garcia Lorca.
The fasists did not leave Spain. I returned to Begues, no longer so small. They are still there. However so are the discendants of those who stood up in the revolution.
I dont really have a politcal agenda, just wanted to share a story. For those in Spain, hear a famous quote by Thomas Jefferson "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
The question becomes is the blood that of a family of peasants bound to the land in wage slavery. Or that of the tyrants.

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