The saying warns us not to count our chickens before they're hatched. No doubt it seems sensible advice. Therefore, writing an article with such a title today, a few days before Sunday, may come across as a joke, a bit of bravado or even a provocation. I assure you that it's none of those three things. I am certain that today, Wednesday 5 November 2014, we have already won, no matter what happens on November 9. That's precisely what I will try to prove in this article.
I would like to start by clarifying that by "we" I mean all the Catalan people: those who will vote yes-yes, yes-no, no-no and the ones that won't vote at all. We have won because our society has not split into two antagonistic, irreconcilable halves. Those who criticise today's society for lacking ideology should compare the fate of Europe's hyper-ideological societies of the 1930s with how post-modern societies live together in the 21st century. In other circumstances, Catalan society would have crashed. If this has not happened, it is because --among other things that I will mention later-- we have managed to keep a very ironic post-modern distance from our own convictions, as well as those of others. Obviously, there are exceptions. Everywhere there are nasty types who get off on jabbing and poking, on turning resentment into a profitable form of blackmail, on lying and threatening, on acting the annoying marquise: decrepit and old but whose nimble footwork eventually gets her a handout.
However, most people have not acted this way and that is what allows us to state that we have already won, no matter what happens next Sunday.
For the past four years, since the memorable demonstration of 10 July 2010 against the ruling by Spain's Constitutional Court that struck down the 2006 Catalan Charter, the bulk of Catalonia's middle classes have realised that they are in a cul-de-sac. They thought long-term, that is, in terms of the lifespan of their children and grandchildren. This is unusual, as trying to solve our own problems is hard enough. A new pro-independence movement emerged and partnered with the old, fringe, politically unstructured one. They had --and still have-- very little in common with one another. The backdrop was an unprecedentedly deep recession that hit the very same middle classes. It was an explosive mix and the chances of the whole thing ending up in massive collective unrest that couldn't be harnessed politically were very high.
However, it was not so: the character of Catalan civil society and, in particular, of the ANC and Òmnium, together with the strong sense of responsibility of nearly all the political parties, meant that it's all turned out well, in a festive mood and an exemplary manner. No all societies can say so. I mean that, with far less ambient pressure, certain solid-looking countries have wobbled because their social cohesion is much weaker. A recent example close to us is the unexpected, angry social split that the law on gay marriage caused in France. Like a few years earlier with the fires in the "banlieu", France failed the test whereas Catalonia passed it with flying colours. This victory is hugely important, especially for the future.
Finally, there is the matter of collective intelligence. To put it in simple terms, we have not let them pull the wool over our eyes. The documents forged to smear politicians, the subtle and not-so-subtle threats about Catalonia being expelled form the Milky Way and the pathetic charades like we had the other day in Parliament have all been to no avail. Perhaps in a nation of functionally illiterate people we might have associated a whole collective political process with the alleged wrongdoings of just one family, albeit a very prominent one. However, last summer we learned that people here could tell those two things apart without hesitating.
We have won a fight that was uneven and exceedingly difficult. Not only have we won, but we have also had a good laugh watching certain characters and their underlings show off, sometimes as they were being sordidly recorded with hidden microphones. We have won the fight against the ancient rhetoric of Spanish media and partisan putrefaction, against the unabashed careerists and shamefulness. Indeed we have won and, regardless of what happens on Sunday, nobody can take this victory away from us.
