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Oct 2, 17

Report from Front Lines of Catalunya as General Strike Looms

What follows are two dispatches from an anarchist in Catalunya about the unfolding situation on the ground. In the wake of massive police violence against voters who largely supported independence, the situation seem poised to possibly take on a much deeper and more radical character. Tomorrow, anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist groups have called for a general strike. More more background information, check out this interview on the Final Straw, here. 

It’s Monday morning.

Yesterday the Spanish state limited itself to police action, but at an extreme level and all across Catalunya.

Basically, all the voting centers were occupied before Sunday. The mossos (Catalan police) announced they would have to be closed or evicted by 6am Sunday morning. This would turn out to be one of the many ways that the mossos and the two major parties (CiU and ERC, united in coalition as Junts pel Sí) collaborated to encourage people to turn out to protect the voting centers. Although it was also true that the Guardia Civil and riot police of the Policia Nacional (Spanish) began evicting voting centers early in the morning.

There are 844 documented injuries across Catalunya, plus a lot of people who didn’t seek medical attention (probably most of the people hit by rubber bullets or by police batons – many got their injuries photographed but then didn’t seek treatment). Over a hundred people hospitalized, some in serious condition.

https://twitter.com/P_Strickland_/status/914596987856719872

Some of the more extreme cases: someone shot in the eye by a rubber bullet. An old man who had a heart attack after a police charge, and then police attacked again as folks were trying to revive him. A young woman in a voting center who was thrown down a staircase, had her fingers broken one by by one, and then the police partially pulled off her clothes and touched her breasts while laughing. Also plenty of old people with their heads split open, bleeding everywhere.

Also, folks who were staffing voting tables got IDed and might get charged with sedition.

The Catalan president is indicating he’s going ahead with the unilateral declaration of independence, while other politicians are being coy, so it might be a negotiating measure. Essentially they sent civil society into the streets against an intransigent and armed opponent, under a strictly nonviolent discipline, ensuring a bloodbath. The widely publicized police violence, in turn, has provoked a political crisis which they are trying to use to get European governments to pressure both parties to the negotiating table.

It would be unfair not to mention the other main side of this, since people aren’t just sheep but also make their own plans. Millions of folks here feel that yesterday was something that they won, that they organized themselves and there’s a lot of truth in that. People here outmaneuvered the full police force of the Spanish state. Counted voter turn-out was 42%, on par with a normal election, and this despite police seizing an unknown number of ballot boxes and violently closing hundreds of voting centers. Obviously the “yes” option won with about 90%.

The crisis of legitimacy at this point is practically irreconcilable. The Spanish state will be lucky to get out of this with just a constitutional reform granting Catalunya more autonomy. On the other hand, they can still exercise more repression to prevent a unilateral declaration of independence, suspending the Catalan government, but the Spanish stock market already took a tumble and the rest of the EU, though declaring the referendum invalid, are also heavily criticizing Spanish repression.

The most dangerous thing at the moment, in the mind of many anarchists, is how effectively the Catalan police have fixed their image and converted themselves into national heroes, simply by doing nothing (it seems their orders were to only close voting centers if there were fewer than 25 people defending them).

Tomorrow there’s a general strike planned. This is terrain we know, and it will be easier for us to talk about events in an anticapitalist light, although we have very little time to prepare. And if the Catalan government starts to negotiate, they’ll lose the support of the far left (which is currently key to the pro-independence majority in the Catalan parliament) and those people will start to radicalize.

1am Sunday 1st of October.

Starting Friday and especially Saturday, tens of thousands of people occupied the schools and civic centers where the voting is scheduled to take place, frustrating police plans to keep those places closed – now they’ll have to evict them. They’ve organized a day’s worth of activities, sort of temporary social centers, to keep the places running.

Currently, no real count but I’d say hundreds of thousands mobilized throughout Catalunya. There have also been decent-sized mobilizations in much of the rest of the Spanish state in solidarity with the referendum, given the heavy-handed repression. However, it seems like no one is taking advantage of the fact that all the riot police (literally, major cities like Madrid currently don’t have any on hand) are in Catalunya, except the fascists. Big fascist demonstrations in Zaragoza, València, Mallorca, Barcelona, waving Spanish flags and chanting “Franco! Franco!” or “Mas to the gas chambers!” (Mas, former president of Catalunya). Tonight there’s been at least one fascist attack against someone participating in a voting center occupation.

A big farmers’ demonstration on Friday, and now farmers have blocked off the entrances to many villages with tractors, so the military or cops can’t get in.

Regular people have been postering and spraypainting in broad daylight.

It’s really weird when a whole society starts using tactics that usually only we use, and fucking disconcerting when it’s in favor of a vote. Some anarchists, sadly, have been using the justification, “We’ve already said that if voting changed anything, it would be illegal, and this time, it’s illegal.” I think a more effective strategy is along the lines of: “self-determination every day, and in every aspect of life,” because at this point, if you’re not meeting people on the level of euphoria and “everything is possible,” they’re not going to hear you. Also, a lot of what’s going on reflects the role self-organization has in Catalan popular culture, which is a tradition anarchists here have always had a reciprocal relationship with.

Other stuff: Spanish state has threatened to punish parents and schools if children go to protests, getting Child Services involved. Made Catalan airspace off-limits to prevent aerial photography of the mobilizations. Seized an electronics center of the Generalitat in order to block electronic voting and vote-counting. Have made preparations for turning off the internet in Catalunya. EU is finally mobilizing to pressure Catalan and Spanish presidents to negotiating table on Monday. Increasingly large groups of Guardia Civil have started deploying from the port. A huge crowd blocked a group of riot cops from getting to a voting center, cops didn’t take out their clubs. Started blocking Telegram accounts. More reports of fascists going to voting centers in the last ten minutes. Taking advantage of the shortage of police, 86 people overcame the guards and fled an immigrant detention center in Madrid tonight, 47 managed to avoid immediate recapture and are still on the run!

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