Avoid violence, yes. Invent it, no

One of the greatest ongoing concerns of pro-sovereignty political leaders, but especially in the past few months, has been to stop any uncontrolled action that could end up leading to street violence. This is out of conviction, because the entire independence process has had non-violence and peaceful active protest as its backbone. But also due to fear, because someone could get hurt and all of the hopes and dreams of recent years could vanish if there was any violent outbreak within the pro-independence movement.

The truth is that, for now, the goal has been achieved. At least there has been no violence from the pro-independence side. The State has used its prerogative and, via its security forces, has exercised violence on various occasions to block what it considered illegal acts —voting on October 1st— or to contain street demonstrations, something that is not usual in other contexts. This has been true to the point that judge Llarena has had to twist the concept of violence to try and justify the charges of rebellion that are keeping activists and politicians in prison.

But following in the wake of Llarena's brief, the leaders of the parties that have supported Article 155 are now joining in this campaign, and are referring to street rallies and even graffiti as violence. Yesterday Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera defined the CDR (Committees for the Defense of the Republic) as "violent commandos", and Javier Maroto, Vice-Secretary of Social Policy for the PP, also compared them to the kale borroka (Basque urban guerrillas), and Pedro Sánchez, General Secretary of the PSOE, made a connection between the independence movement and violence when he called for forceful actions by the State against the "attacks of vandals" which, he said, many PSC offices have suffered. Soon after this call to action, the Prosecutor of Spain’s National Court noted that it is investigating the CDR because it believes that their actions could even constitute crimes of rebellion.

Perhaps everyone needs to step back and use common sense. The attacks of which the PSOE spoke are street graffiti --disagreeable and condemnable, but in and of itself not violent, as many members of the PSC are capable of understanding. And all you need to do is look at the images from the past few days, from the raising of barriers on highways to the crosses on some beaches, to know that the CDR are neither kale borroka nor "violent commandos”. Indeed, the presence in the streets of citizens organized into these committees has grown, and their actions are questionable or, in some cases, illegal. But they have not resorted to violence.

It is vitally important to be very careful to have no uncontrolled elements that might change the peaceful tendency, in effect, because in addition to being condemnable in themselves they could be used as retroactive justification for maximum penalties for those being held in prison, as an excuse to outlaw parties, or as the prosecutor's office has already warned, to initiate massive repression against the population at large. But this attempt by the Article 155 bloc to see violence where there is only protest is a falsehood that should embarrass anyone with a modicum of common sense.