LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 41 – Saturday, 25th APRIL

It has been a long time since I considered the implications of a word like sarcasm.  It was usually enough to remember the notable exchanges between Whistler and Wilde, especially the exchange of Oscar hearing Whistler say something clever and his then saying, “I wish I had said that!” and Whistler quipping, “You will, Oscar, you will!”  Now that is sarcasm at a high level: clever, witty and true!

     Which brings us to the ignoble piece of narcissistic trash that is the current president of the United States of America.  Even for him he has plumbed a new low in trying to pretend that his “Let them drink Dettol!” was an example of sarcasm, used as a form of ‘sarcasm’ to taunt the members of the press.  I watched that particular piece of the press conference and the idiot said it with what passes for sincerity with such an empathy-lacking sociopath such as himself to a member of his scientific advisory panel.  Trump is a crap actor in the same way as he is crap at all aspects of a life.  For what I saw to be sarcasm, Trump would have to be a sophisticated, articulate, Machiavellian, consummate thespian with high comedic skills.  Trump, that is not!

     I refuse to believe that Trump has any conception of irony or sarcasm, even though his entire existence and his present position exemplify the concepts!

The British total of dead from Covid-19 has now gone over the 20,000 that the scientific advisors said would be a limit that would indicate that we had done well to contain the disease.  So, we have done badly, because not only are we over the total of 20k but also the figures that we have at the present give only an indication of what the true numbers are and will be.

     Yet again the testing put in place by the government has failed as the testing opportunities have crashed for the second day running, one wonders how the government is going to spin that disaster in the sequence of disasters that have marked their management of the crisis.

Tomorrow in Spain is the release of the Plague Kids into society.  No one seems entirely sure of the exact rules for the release of the kids, but it will be interesting to see how the general population interpret them – at least from our limited viewpoint defined by the house!

     I will watch the news with a great deal of interest to see how the rules apply generally.

Today has been one of those days that simply seem to slip by and one wonders what one has done to justify the gift of 24 hours.  To be fair to me, I have (I think) come to a final draft for the chapbook, The Coast of Memory.  Tomorrow a final print out and checking and then, as far as I am concerned, it is done!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 28 – Easter Sunday in Holy Week, 12th APRIL

1.              I am glad that the Prime Minister Boris Johnson is out of Intensive Care and is recuperating.

2.              The Prime Minister Boris Johnson should resign immediately for his dereliction of duty in wilfully ignoring his own government’s restrictions for social distancing and becoming infected.

Glad that I have got that out of my system.  Again.  I am still recovering from a few hagiographical pieces that described Johnson’s visit to hospital in existentially catastrophic terms, right down to the “indrawn gasp of horror” at the news.  Get real!  It tells you something about my low expectations from the bunch of deadbeats with which Johnson has stuffed the cabinet that I was actually relieved that the trashy Brexit fanatic Raab turned out to be the deputy for the incapacitated Johnson rather than somebody (sic) of the dubious quality of the Goblin Gove, the pernicious Patel or the unspeakable Rees-Mogg.  Just the bunch you need at a time of crisis!

Talking of worthless political chancers brings us to the situation here in Spain.  Our Prime Minister/President has sent mixed messages to the population that the lockdown should be extended to the 26^th of this month, but that non-essential workers should return to work on Tuesday!  Masks will be provided for those using public transport.  Apparently.

     The figures for deaths and infections are still horrifically high and the President thinks that it will be safe – not, that can’t be true.  He thinks that it will be economically beneficial to open up the economy again.  As usual, the poor bloody infantry of the ordinary citizens can be seen as collateral damage.

     OAPs have been told that they, nay, we will have to isolate ourselves for an unspecified number of months to be safe. 

     This cannot be the way to go.  Where is the testing that we have been told about?  Our ‘free’ facemasks are allegedly available from Tuesday.  If nothing is done, then Tuesday is going to be chaos with people doing whatever they feel like.  Any gains that the past period of lockdown have given us are likely to be swept away by a surge in fatalities.  The logic of the position of our government is lost on me.

     And don’t get me started on the madness of Trump’s America where demagoguery is equated with scientific fact and logic.  We live in mad times with mad men dictating the interpretation of events!  Reality will eventually catch up – but what will be the eventual cost in terms of human lives before the lies are rejected?  If they ever are rejected.

What an Easter!  I can’t pretend that the ‘festival’ has ever been something that I have celebrated, apart from my earlier years of faith when I would go to church for communion.

     Here in Catalonia it is very easy to forget that this is a festival at all, let alone a Christian one.  Most of the people I know who might go to church, don’t.  If you see what I mean.  Catalonia is a Roman Catholic country, but the Catholics are generally of the non-church attending, anti-clerical sort that doesn’t go out of its way to show adherence to a particular theology.

     The only celebration was pounding music from neighbours on rooftops in a near street.  It was our version of the balcony concerts and musical episodes that other places had experienced.  It was not really convincing, but I found it quite uplifting it its way.

I think we are going to need many more uplifting moments in the coming weeks!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 14

The latest figures for the dead in Spain from Covid-19 in a twenty-four hour period are 832.  This is the highest figure of for a day’s deaths in Spain.  This is a catastrophe, and a catastrophe that people here are saying is partially of the government’s making.

   Last night the Prime Minister of Spain went on television and informed the country that there were going to be far more stringent restrictions from next Monday.  For a two-week period taking in Holy Week there will be a total ban on all non-essential travel and all non-essential premises will be shut down.

     It remains to be seen whether the renovators next door who have been (and are as I type) working normally and entering and leaving the workplace as if there was no crisis, will finally knuckle under and obey the restrictions.  These people are perhaps symptomatic of the problem, where some consider themselves outside the range of restrictions that are in place already. 

     The advice is simple: stay in your homes and wash your hands.  And it is frustrating when some people ignore it so openly.

Every evening at 8.00 pm there is the opportunity to show our appreciation for the Health Workers.  I open the kitchen window and clap into the darkness and hear others clapping too.  It is a moment of collective assertion of thanks and a poignant moment of community when we isolates are linked by a small but sincere gesture of thanks for the incredible job that our health workers are doing in circumstances that are less than ideal.

     I am still haunted by pictures of ill patients in Madrid hospitals laying on blankets in corridors; blankets! not even trolleys.  We have been told that many front-line health workers have not been tested; they do not have masks or the appropriate equipment to protect themselves from the virus; some are making their own protective clothing out of plastic bags; the hospitals in Madrid are overwhelmed; there are insufficient ventilators, and so on, and on.  Numbers of health workers have died and more will unless they are properly looked after.

     The government is accused of doing too little too late and is playing catch-up to the situation rather than managing it with any efficiency, and each mismanaged day brings new death, directly attributable to political mismanagement.

     I am not so naïf as to think that a crisis can be managed with anything approaching perfection, “events, dear boy, events” will always frustrate the most meticulous of plans, but some things are inexcusable.  The signalling of the future lockdown of Madrid, giving plenty of time for comfortably off Madrileños to decamp to their costal summer homes and spread the virus was unforgiveable.   And I hope that last word ‘unforgiveable’ becomes the major impetus when the inquiry into the crisis is started, when the virus has been finally vanquished.

Two weeks.  Just two weeks.

     It hardly seems credible that we have been locked in for only a fortnight.  The world where social distancing (a wonderfully evocative phrase) did not exist seems like another era of history, some exotic maelstrom of conviviality where people actually touched and kissed each other, some rumbustious Restoration frivolity, viewed with nostalgia from our Puritan isolationism!

     I suppose that I should be grateful that time, which seemed to be speeding up for me as birthday after birthday flashed by, has slowed down again.  I wonder how many weeks it will take, before this becomes the new normal and time regains its usual velocity!

The days are beginning to lose their character: weekdays are no different from weekends; what is the essential difference between a Tuesday and a Thursday when you are stuck at home? 

     If there seems a sort of stasis in one’s perception of the distinct individuality of the days of the week, there will be a ‘real’ difference in the individual hours, because today is the day when we change the clocks and get an extra hour in bed.  This, of course, is only possible if you are still indulging yourself by keeping to a mythical ‘working day’ timetable giving a façade of normality to the structure of your enclosed temporal existence.

    

I have to say that I truly regret the indisposition of Johnson as it gives an opportunity for the Grotesque Goblin Gove to speak to the nation.  The man truly makes my flesh crawl as his mendacious sincerity constantly deflects questions into a fog of verbiage that comes nowhere close to a specific answer.  I loathe his master, too, of course, naturally, but the Blond Buffoon’s shaggy, unconstructed showiness when it comes to English expression is easier to dismiss.  There is something adhesively repulsive about Gove’s loquacity that is more difficult to brush away.  It needs to be flushed.  And then disinfected.  And then bleached.

Tomorrow a theoretical lie in, but I am sure that my ‘absolute’ body clock will get me up at the usual time, for Day 15 and the start of the third week of Lockdown.

All Brexit Eve

Loping towards the burning fires fuelled with the broken hopes of gullible voters, the knuckle dragging denizens of comfortable wealth look towards their warm future with undisguised relish as they realize that, once again, the people who could have made a difference have, once again, voted against their own interests and allowed the arrogant, the privileged, the entitled and the callous to do what they do best: gloat.

As with virtually all aspects of Brexit, the idea that today is the eve of something tangible is actually as diaphanous as the reality that the Liars’ Liar paraded during the election campaign.  There will be no real Brexit tomorrow.  Things will go on going on and little will actually be settled.  The only actualite will be the issuing of a “celebratory” 50p piece (without the Oxford comma) which at least gives we Remainers something concrete to spurn!

Meanwhile, whatever the tousled-haired tosser says, the interminably sad saga of Brexit goes on.  And on.  And on.  He might be able to ban the word itself from the discourse of government, but Brexit is yet to be achieved.

Amazingly (or not, if you have been following the tortuous and torturing progress of the Conservative Party throwing the country under the bus [the one with 350m quid on its side] to persevere its existence) we still do not actually know what has really been decided and we still have no confidence that we will depart with a comprehensive deal.

At least in Spain we Brits think that we have some sort of deal which allows us to sleep at night, with pension and healthcare taken care of – unless things fall apart, and we do eventually crash out finally and catastrophically.  For we people, Brits living in Europe (or rather The Rest of Europe as Britain has decided that it is not part of the continent on whose shelf it is perched) we have another eleven months of uncertainty as we see our futures in the hands of the third-rate chancers that now govern us, being used as bargaining chips in what will surely turn out to be a depressingly one sided negotiation.

I don’t want this to turn into yet another Moan from somebody who has still not come to terms with the result – though it is difficult (if not impossible) to get the sense of unreality out of one’s mind.  The British electorate have done what they have done, for whatever reasons and we have to accept that the system by which we are governed allows this travesty to happen.

It would be easy to roam around Cassandra-like bemoaning the horrible reality, but one has to try and fine something positive to take from the debacle.

I once asked my mother whether she had considered that Britain could have lost when she was living through World War Two and she replied that she never, for one moment, ever considered the prospect of defeat.  I pointed out that there were times when the situation of Britain looked dire and the German military machine looked unstoppable.  She accepted that there had been bad times, but, as she put it, “I always knew that we would muddle through!  Eventually.”

You could, of course look at that sort of attitude as one of self-delusion – but she was right.

I have often thought about my mother’s attitude during the bleaker times of the on-going process of Brexit and thought that the British do seem to have a sort of ability to “muddle through” and “make the best of it” no matter how negative things look.

I do not wish my country ill.  I want the country to prosper.  I want a decent NHS and education and transport.  I want full employment and so on.  I have absolutely no desire to see my country come to harm just so that I can point towards the architects of the chaos and say, “I told you so!”  That petty triumph will mean the defeat of so many who are less able to defend themselves than the comfortable hypocrites of the Conservative Party as they carefully move their wealth off-shore or to EU states so that they can buttress themselves against the storm that the self-inflicted harm of Brexit could bring.

We might have made things more difficult for ourselves, but those are the obstacles that we have to surmount.  And I am sure that we will.  We will find a way to play our part in the continent of which we are, self-evidently, a crucial part.  But, just like Universal Credit, a reasonable idea badly administered will have casualties.  People will die, as they have done as a result of IDS’s botched fiasco.  But the casualties need to be limited.

I feel resentment and anger about what is going to be done in my name.  But resentment and anger are negative and the division that has and will rip the country apart must, somehow be overcome if we all are to prosper.

I will be nauseated by any celebration of the dark day that Brexit signifies, but more important than my disgust is my willingness to work to mitigate the effects of the policy and to remember that a country is composed of more than Guardian readers. And listeners to Radio 4. 

And that is something that I will have to accept.  All societies are plural and diverse.  Let us hope that the obvious talent and enterprise of our country can show a way to bring us together.

I wait to be convinced.

And another one bites the dust?

Having struggled through years of incomprehensible lessons in the Spanish language and failed to learn it with the requisite fluency that my stay in Spain would seem to demand, I have taken it upon myself to fail to learn Catalan too.

Let it be said at once that I do have two qualifications (of sorts) in Spanish and that, in spite of my signal inability to come to terms with even the most straightforward of verbs in the language, I do find that I can flannel my way through conversations (or monologues) in most everyday situations and, although my partners in this unequal linguistic exchange come away paler and older than when they first encountered me and my ‘way with the foreign words’, they also (generally) seem to understand what I have been on about.

I take this admittedly low bar of foreign communication as an achievement, and am prepared to give it my best in Catalan.

I have had my first three lessons, in the same school that has been valiantly trying to teach me Spanish.  For the princely sum of 10 (ten) Euros I am now enrolled for 150 hours (one and a half hours twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays) for the next year.

Unlike my Spanish courses, where because of my specious confidence in attempting to speak the language I started in media res, so to speak, in Catalan I start at the very lowest entry level. 

And that has to be a good thing, as from the lowest of the low, the only way is, of course, up.  At least that is the theory to which I am adhering and in which I fondly believe.

By way of preparation for the first class I learned the days of the week in Catalan (though not how to spell them – little by little does it!) and how to give my name and nationality.

My nationality (a moveable feast at the best of times) is firmly placed in Wales when asked about it in foreign lands.  Catalonia’s National Day (11^th September, the Diada) marks a disaster in the history of the country when the final outcome of the War of the Spanish Succession was finally decided in favour of the Bourbons and not the Hapsburgs.  England had been firmly on the side of the Hapsburgs, as had the Catalans, and the Catalans were assured that England would stick by them whatever the outcome.  That commendable solidarity lasted right up to the defeat when the English hightailed it out of the conflict leaving their erstwhile Catalan allies to take the consequences. 

And severe consequences they were including the loss of Catalan territories in France on the other side of the Pyrenees; the destruction of the walls of Barcelona; the imposition of a Madrid appointed governor (just like the actions of the systemically corrupt PP government of recent memory); the suppression of the Catalan language (a go-to stance for all Spanish, Fascist, Right-Wing, nasty people), and various other humiliations.  This is what the National Day celebrates. 

It is hardly surprising that it is also a focus of nationality when more than a million people (or a few thousand if you read the Spanish press) take to the streets.  So, you can see why I distance myself from the perfidious Albion in this part of the world and emphasise the Welsh upbringing that I had – Wales having provided a higher ‘volunteers per 100,000 of the population’ to fight in the International Brigade against Franco and the Fascists than other parts of the United Kingdom.  And there is a monument to the fighters of the International Brigade in Cathays Park in Cardiff.

Actually I wouldn’t bet my life on that statistic, but I believe it to be true – and in the ‘World According to Trump’ that is all I need!

The only drawback to my Welshness in Catalonia, specifically in my language school, is that I am called on to provide words and phrases in my assumed national language to be written on posters on the walls to emphasise the multi-cultural background of the institution and to parade its diversity.  Unfortunately my suggestions of “Towards the light” (school motto);

“Bereft is he of craft without inborn gift” (college motto);

“Truth, Unity and Concord” (my other university);”

Awake, it is day” and “The red dragon leads the way” (city mottoes) were not acceptable as I knew them (or at least knew how to spell them) only in English.  My Catalan teachers wanted actual Welsh and I am ashamed to admit that I had to look up the Welsh before I submitted them to be written up!

The differences between Catalan and Spanish are not anything like so great as those between English and Welsh.  This is hardly surprising as Catalan has strong links to the group of languages derived from Latin; the links with Spanish and French are especially strong and some words differ more in their spelling in these languages than their pronunciation.  But Catalan is a distinct language and, like all minority languages comes filled with political and social overtones when you attempt to learn it.

In the part of Catalonia in which I live, in the city of Castelldefels, just outside Barcelona, I do not think that Catalan is the majority language.  This area has seen a vast influx of workers from other parts of Spain who have gravitated to Catalonia to take advantage of the job opportunities that such a highly industrialized part of Spain offers.  Catalonia is a rich part of Spain – and a potentially richer part, independentistas argue if it finally separates itself from the other regions and attains nationhood.

In the present febrile atmosphere, where the repercussions of the vicious attempted suppression of the referendum vote for Catalan independence by the Spanish State still reverberate: Catalan and Catalonia are flashpoints and discussion is divisive and at times bitter.

Among those who count themselves as Catalans, there is probably an overwhelming majority who would vote for independence; but there is a sizeable proportion of the population in Catalonia who see themselves as Spanish speaking Spaniards before they consider themselves Catalan – and that particular segment of the population is adamantly opposed to independence.

In the last election the population of Catalonia elected a majority of representatives who were (in theory) pro-independence.  Admittedly, the largest single party comprised C’s a repulsive party composed of political sluts who have achieved nothing and have exerted all their energies to trying to scrape their way to power with whoever and whatever will serve their purposes.  They are, however, a minority, and however they try and spin it, a majority in parliament in Barcelona seeks greater power for the region.  I say region there, because some of the groupings opposed to the unutterable shower of C’s have back peddled on moving towards independence and are engaged in muddying the waters to try and find ‘another’ way to resolve the situation, stopping well short of cutting themselves adrift from the encumbrance of Spain.

There are no easy answers to the political situation in Catalonia, and the gratuitous police violence that we saw against the peaceful demonstrations on Saturday marking the anniversary of the police brutality when they attempted to stop the referendum taking place on the question of independence, merely hardens attitudes on both sides.

Brexit, Trump and Catalonia are all ‘situations’ that require bi-partisan politics to produce satisfactory solutions.  There seems little chance of that in the ‘winner takes all’ approach that seems to govern politics nowadays.

Politics should be the art of the possible, not the fist of the powerful.

Meanwhile, I will cultivate my garden with writing and the learning of a new language.   

Every little helps!

The Lesson For The Day

-->

There is nothing like being in a gathering where you are the only person who does not have fluency in the language being used in fast, idiomatic exchanges to encourage you to focus on “unconsidered trifles” (and yes, I did look it up, and I thought it was from another play than the one I first thought of, shame on me!) and then to play around with the levels of irony that you can find in and around your place setting at the dinner table.

One such “trifle” was a bottle top (so to speak), from a bottle of Cava given to me because I was British because we obviously know everything there is to know about alcohol from its manufacture, through bottle opening, to astonishing consumption.  

All the Catalans that I know are, generally speaking, moderate in their drinking habits to the point of squeamishness.  Therefore, my ability to consume more than a single glass of Cava is regarded with something approaching pitying awe - though those last two words sound like an example of oxymoron, but let it pass.  The point is that I am deferred to on matters alcoholic, especially in matters Cava-ic, so I always open the bottles.

I have to admit that I am something of an expert now and pride myself on the efficient removal of all but the most recalcitrant of corks with the minimum of sound.  There are no ‘pops’ when I uncork a bottle of Cava, merely the merest of susurrations - if that!

As I am sure that any ful kno (and I am not prepared to give the source of that deathless quotation based on the Satchmo Principle) under the foil covering the cork is a round metal disc that stops the wire holding the cork in place cutting into the cork itself.  Usually these discs have some sort of design on them and have actually become collectors’ pieces!  Sad buggers, says the grown man who still collects British Commemorative First Day Covers!  You can buy specially designed folders with special pouched plastic sheets to display your treasures!  Says the man who has tens of filled folders with pouched plastic sheets to display his FDCs.

Anyway, a colleague in The School on the Hill in Barcelona once told me that her sister-in-law collected such things and that she would be grateful if I could keep my eye open when a bottle was un-corked and, if I remained sober enough, remember to keep the illustrated disc.  I dutifully collected the discs that I drank through, as it were, and in spite of the fact that my colleague’s husband now owns a restaurant and therefore is an unending supply of little discs, I still look and almost automatically put the discs into my pocket.  And then months later throw them away.  It’s a sort of domestic rite of passage.

The one illustrated above, however, caught my interest because of its innate preachiness.

I always maintain that I was virtually unique in the teaching profession by actually listening to each and every school assembly to which I went.  I mean really listening.  Elsewhere I have noted the extraordinary “quality” of what I heard.  The content ranged from the recited (from a printed book of assembly suggestions), through out-and-out gibberish, to one exceptional Christian assembly in which the basic tenets of religion were comprehensively rejected!   

No matter what was said, there was little to no reaction because people did not listen.  Never mind the kids who adopted the defensive ‘closed ears’ syndrome in an assembly situation, but also the adult teachers who I noted were able to look with empty eyes at the speaker on the stage while at the same time giving a vague impression of being emotionally engaged in what was being said.  One of the tricks to maintain sanity!

There were good assemblies in which well-chosen examples were linked to the kids' lives that, if only they had been listening, would have edified them.  But they were in the minority.

My favourite assembly speaker was, I have to admit, one of the worst.  He was a great aficionado of the “While listening to the radio this morning . . .” and the “On my way to school today I noticed” school of assembly giving.  Whatever he talked about in his free-flowing stream of consciousness, the delivery of the punch line of his words was always the same.  The content may have been conflict in Africa, or charity in India, or the perils of drug taking, or the need to plan your studies, but the punch-line, the denouement, the didactic thrust was always, “Don’t drop litter!”   

His greatest moment came when his topic appeared to be (nothing was ever clear cut) something to do with female hygiene!  Just the way to start the day!  After ten or so minutes of acute embarrassment wondering what the hell the point was that he was trying to make in his indelicate meanderings, we finally to to the  clear, concise and gloriously out of place summary: “Don’t drop litter!”

I couldn’t help thinking of him as I looked at the disc, while speedy Catalan flowed around me: “Sin ALCOHOL”, and I wondered just what he would have produced from such a ready-made stimulus for a student audience!  Perhaps he would have remarked the sinuous, sensuous, swash capital ‘S’ taking up so much of the space, spreading itself on the pristine white as though owning it, literally crowning the bottle!  And then the prosaic sans serif of ALCOHOL in small capitals: the capitals representing the importance of the substance, but the size a reference to the insidious nature of the product: no frills, just threat; there, yet at the same time almost inconspicuous beneath the flamboyance of Sin!  And so on, until the peroration and the exhortation to be tidy!

The real irony, of course is that interpretation only works in English, not in Spanish!

In Spanish the word for ‘sin’ is ‘pecado’ - which we retain in English in the word ‘peccadillo’ meaning a little sin.  Interestingly, though probably only to me, the word ‘peccable’ meaning open to sin, also exists, but this word is more commonly used as its negative as in ‘impeccable’ and therefore forms a part of the select group of words which include ‘gruntled’, 'whelm', ‘kempt’, ‘couth’, ‘ruly’, ‘corrigible’ and ‘wieldy’.

Anyway, in English the Spanish word ‘sin’ means 'without’, so the bottle top disc was actually from a bottle of semi-sec (ugh!) Cava-like liquid, without alcohol!  It tasted, I couldn’t resist it, as disgusting as you might imagine.

I suppose, if you were feeling in the right mood of mischievousness, you could work out a whole ‘assembly’ in which the revolting taste of the drink without alcohol, linked to the free forming and sheer exuberance of the word ‘sin’ and the solid reassurance of the black capitals of the word ALCOHOL are a direct encouragement to sybaritic excess.

But, please to remember, Don’t Drop Litter, and dispose of the metal disc in a container for recycling!

Now, go and learn! 

-->

If you have enjoyed reading this post, please feel free to click the 'Follow' button on the top right of this page.
If you would like to read drafts of my recent poems please go to:                                            smrnewpoems.blogspot.com

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

The Republic of Catalonia?

The rain is falling straight in the breezeless air.  The blue terrace tiles gleam with damp reflected depth.  I can hear the gentle wash of the sea and the occasional car.  The sky, as always, seems to have that particular bright dullness that I have come to expect on rainy days in Catalonia, always offering the promise of a glimpse of the sun some time later in the day.

It may just be me and my over romanticised sensitivity to the ‘significance’ of today, but the rain and the broken silence seem like examples of the pathetic fallacy as the depressing weather reflects the division and tension in what is a day of possible futures in Catalonia today.

Today is the referendum on Catalan Independence, where we have been asked to make a simple choice between the status quo and the proclamation of an Independent Catalan Republic.

The right wing minority government of PP with their leader Mariano Rajoy have been spectacularly inept in their handing of Catalonia, and today has provided yet another vibrant example of their idiocy.

When the President of Spain was forced to come to court a couple of months ago and give evidence in a wide ranging corruption trial he defended himself by saying that he was responsible for the ‘political’ direction of the party and not the financial side of the organization.  Leaving aside the unlikeliness of such a position for a moment, let’s concentrate on what he said he was responsible for: politics.

The one thing lacking throughout the lead up to the calls for a referendum and its implementation was political imagination.  PPs response to anything Catalan is always ‘No!’ 

You could take the dissatisfaction with Catalonia’s position in relation to the nation of Spain all the way back to 1714 and the Treaty of Utrecht when Catalonia supported (with British encouragement) the ‘wrong’ side in the War of the Spanish Succession when the preferred Catalan and British choice of the Hapsburg claimant was defeated by the Bourbon.  The defeat of the Catalan’s choice of monarch led to loss of status, land and independence. 

But the Catalans are a resourceful people and the loss of grain growing lands on the other side of the Pyrenees forced them to reconsider their mercantile basis and they developed the cloth trade, remnants of which you can still see in the corrugated roofs of obsolete factories in cities like Terrassa.

The Civil War in the 1930s changed everything and, while Catalonia fought hard and long for Republican ideals it was eventually defeated by Franco’s fascist forces aided and abetted by the axis powers of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

To the eternal shame of the Allied Powers, at the end of the Second World War Franco was allowed to stay in power as a perceived buttress against Communism and he lived on until the 1970s when he finally died and handed over the state to his preferred heir, the restored king.

Democracy and a new Constitution followed and the country started the transition from Fascism to Democracy.

We have now had some 40 years of democracy and the faults in the Constitution are beginning to show. 

Justice in Spain is political.  The separation between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial is, to put it mildly, hazy.  Too many judges are political appointees and those institutions that should be independent such as Constitutional and Supreme Courts are seen merely as an extension of the ruling party’s demesne rather than defenders of individual citizens rights.

Catalonia’s attempts to gain a more favourable arrangement with the central government centres on the Statute of Autonomy that was reformed in 2006, endorsed by the Catalans in a referendum and then rejected as ‘unconstitutional’.  This rejection has exacerbated Catalonia’s feelings of injustice and increased support for independence.  Massive demonstrations in Barcelona have left the central minority government of PP unmoved and they have contented themselves with a steady rejection of anything meaningful that the Catalan government has offered as a basis for negotiation.

For PP and their lackeys in the right-wing Cs party, any discussion about a referendum leading to independence was a no-go area.

In spite of clear indications that the movement towards a separate republic of Catalonia was growing, the central government showed itself to be flat-footed, unimaginative, arrogant and profoundly un-political.

PPs solution to the calling of the referendum was to declare that it would be illegal.  They prompted their friends in the other branches of government to pronounce on the illegality and unconstitutionality and then they sat back and proclaimed that the referendum would not take place.

Their complacency, arrogance and unreality merely provided fuel for the movement to free Catalonia from Spain.

I still maintain that this could have been prevented.  A few elections ago, the parliamentary majority of PP was wiped out.  PSOE (the rough equivalent of The Labour Party) and Podemos (a new left wing party) could have formed a government.  Neither of these parties was in favour of a break up of Spain, though Podemos conceded that allowing Catalonia a referendum was reasonable.

In a ‘what if’ situation, the two parties (with a little help from odds and ends of the left in parliament) could have granted a referendum some years in the future and then worked to make the Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia more like that for the Basque Country.  It could then have been put to the Catalan people. 

It has been estimated that around 48% of the voters in Catalonia support independence with 50% against.  Almost 80% of Catalans wanted a binding vote on independence.  I maintain that, given the number of ‘Spanish’ people living and working in Catalonia, together with the large ex-patriot community, it probably would have been possible to present a re-worked relationship to the electorate and manage to get a convincing majority to stay with Spain.

That agreement between the parties did not happen.  The statistics refer to the past.  The actions of PP and the contempt that they have shown to Catalonia mean that the situation now is very different.

The right wing parties of PP and Cs, together with the ‘Labour’ party of PSOE all urged their followers to take no part in the referendum.  They all proclaimed the referendum as illegal and undemocratic.  All the opposition has played into the hands of the independence movement.  I myself (though I have no vote in this national election) have moved from being supportive of a united Spain to moving to a clear preference for the formation of the Independent Republic of Catalonia.

In the lead up to today and the referendum, the government of Rajoy and PP has gone to extraordinary lengths to stop the vote.

They have arrested members of the Catalan government.  They have drafted in thousands of Spanish National Police to Catalonia.  They have raided print works and confiscated ballot papers.  They have searched factories to discover the production points for ballot boxes.  They have closed down web sites.  They have threatened mayors who have indicated that they will hold the referendum.  They have locked schools where voting booths were to be set up.  They have waged a war of disinformation.  They have taken ballot boxes.  They have threatened and blustered and lied. 

And they have failed.

Today I drove Toni to our local heath centre and there he voted and I am proud to say that I drew the cross in the box indicating that we are in favour of the founding of the new country of Catalonia, independent of Spain and a Republic.

We first went to vote at lunchtime, but the scenes outside the centre were crowded and chaotic.  There were police there, but they were doing no more than observing and, as in any election, available to sort out any trouble.  There was no intimidation.

We returned later in the afternoon.  Crowds of people were there and they filled all the floors of the medical centre.  We had to wait a little while for the hidden ballot boxes (they had been moved to prevent their being taken by the police) reappeared and voting was able to go ahead.

That was not the situation throughout Spain and any glance at the news will show you the sometimes horrific scenes that illustrate what appears to be the gratuitous violence of the Spanish National Police against unarmed people queuing to vote.  OAP baton whipped, punched, kicked.  Voters thrown downstairs.  Rubber bullets (illegal in Catalonia) used against voters.  And the government in Spain has said that the actions of the Spanish National Police have been ‘proportionate’.

The silence from the EU has been deafening about what appear to be attacks orchestrated by a government against its own people who are trying to vote.  I fully support those people and organizations who have started proceedings in the European Parlimant against the apparent violence of the Spanish National Police and the actions of the Spanish State.

As I type, the polling stations have been closed fro two hours.  Results from the smaller settlements in Catalonia are beginning to come in.  People appear to have voted by the million.  If that is the case, then the referendum has produced a result that can be taken further.  Given everything that has been done by the central government to block, hinder and stop this vote any total above a couple of million is a triumph.

Given the apparent violence of the National Police; the failure of the government to stop what they called an illegal referendum taking place; the complete inability of the President to lead his party and the government; the numbers of people who voted in Catalonia - the consequent actions should be:

1              Rajoy must resign.

2              A General Election must be called

3              Catalonia must proclaim its independence

These are very interesting times to be living in Spain and especially in Catalonia.  It is now time to see whether our political masters have the wits and intelligence to live up to a new set of exciting possibilities and remake a broken country.