First scene: A Catalan political representative walks up to the rostrum at the Spanish Congress of Deputies and speaks the following words: "Our cards are on the table, face up, we have no hidden or marked cards, we have spoken in a clear, firm voice peacefully, democratically, respecting the law, now it is your turn to speak, and we invite you to do so with a true sense of state, and with no short-term politicking ". Does this sound familiar? This scene, starring Artur Mas, took place on November 2nd 2005, in the debate on the Statute of Catalan Autonomy. The solemnity of those words failed to resonate within the ranks of the Popular Party. Artur Mas even warned Mariano Rajoy directly of the risk of closing the door to Catalonia. That error resulted in the historical photo taken at the Palau de la Generalitat on Thursday of all the leaders of the country's pro-referendum parties.
Second scene: On the morning of October 15th 2007, a huge hole appeared at the Renfe railway station in Bellvitge, resulting from the work on the high speed train line, which left all but one track unusable. The chaos that ensued in Barcelona's local railway system revealed a hitherto unknown fact - the sorry state and the lack of investment in the Catalan railway network.
Third scene: On June 4th 2009 a plenary session of the council of Arenys de Munt, a town with 8,000 inhabitants in the Maresme, approved the decision to hold a referendum on independence on the 13th of September of that year. An attempt by the Falange to hold a demonstration on that day and the resulting legal battle put Arenys de Munt in the headlines of the country's newspapers and news programmes. That spark triggered a wave of local referendums throughout the country.
Fourth scene: One of Sun Tzu's most famous statements, ignored by Madrid, states, "Do not push your enemy into a corner. When wild beasts are cornered they fight more desperately". This is the message that José Montilla gave to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero on the eve of the Constitutional Court ruling on the Statute of Autonomy. His thesis was that if a politicized and discredited constitutional court denied the will of the Catalans as expressed in the referendum it would be interpreted as a collective humiliation. No one listened.
Fifth scene: In the summer of 2012 Artur Mas had to make a humiliating decision: to request a bailout from the central government in Madrid. After cutting back on social services by more than 5,000 million Euros, Mas found that self-government was a fiction if it was not financed by the tax revenue of the Catalans.
Sixth scene. It has been said that Hitler's biggest mistake was to underestimate the bravery of US soldiers. In the same way, until the celebration of the Via Catalana, a huge human chain covering the territory from north to south that mobilized over a million and a half people an orderly manner, Madrid did not know about the organizational capabilities of an organization made up of volunteers called the Assemblea Nacional Catalana. For a brief moment it seemed that Madrid would react to this show of force, but it was a fleeting mirage.
