Catalan National Day

Catalan's have their own September 11th. It dates back to September 11, 1714 - 299 years ago when they were officially conquered by the Spanish king and their social, political and legal systems were abolished. Since then they have fought to maintain their language, identity and culture - against all odds, as it has been systematically repressed for most of that time.

Last year, they commemorated this day in Barcelona where 1.5 million people demonstrated their desire for a voice, which now means wishing to become the next independent state of the European Union. Due to the success of that demonstration, which was peaceful, without incident and resulted in early elections, some associations organized another large event for this year's September 11th.

Known here as the Via Catalana (The Catalan Way), the idea was to create a human chain that would run from north Catalonia to south Catalonia - from the border with France to Valencia. They needed around 400,000 adults (children not included) to sign up to complete this task and that number was exceeded much prior to the day (some papers reported over one million people turned out). The people were told to wear yellow so that in aerial photos, the line could be easily seen. One of the goals was to gain worldwide recognition of the support that exists within Catalonia for a referendum, for Catalans to be able to vote and decide for themselves if they should become an independent political state, separate from Spain.

Due to its political nature, Kilian and I did not participate. We did, however, take a walk through town that day to witness the historic event since the chain traveled through our town. We saw many people wearing the Catalan flag as a cape around their necks, typical Catalan peasant hats and Catalan folkloric giants. There were families, moms wearing their babies and old folks. There was a spirit of joy and excitement - these people are witnessing a sense of unity and solidarity, progress and momentum that they have not experienced in their lives. It is especially sentimental for the older folks, as I have seen in interviews on the television.

After our walk through town, we went home to watch it on TV. It was pretty impressive to see all the people in different parts of Catalonia. There were such large numbers and in many places, rather than looking like one line, it was just crowds of people. Some images from Catalan media can be found here. Many international news sites picked up the story the next day as well such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The BBC, The Washington Post, and many more.

Later that evening, people danced the traditional Catalan circle dance, sardanes, on the Rambla.