Berkley Center

Arriving in Barcelona expecting to practice Spanish, I was intimidated by “Tots.” Although I had a vague idea of the existence of Catalan, I did not appreciate the importance of the language until I arrived. In the minds of local Barcelonans, preserving Catalan is a way of remembering the civil war and asserting the cultural independence of Barcelona from the rest of Spain. From the youngest ages, local Barcelonans can recite the historical injustices brought about from the dominance of Madrid.

The history I learned in the United States is perceived as the one-sided story from Madrid’s perspective. The king I learned as Ferdinand II of Aragon (who married Isabella I), is actually Ferdinand II of Catalunya and Aragon. Catalan, which was banned from being taught or spoken by the dictator Francisco Franco is the voice through which Barcelonans choose to tell their side of the story.

As a person of Jewish descent, I am used to arguments over historic claims serving as a backdrop for debating current political and economic realities. In Barcelona’s case, historic grievances have merged with anger towards the devastating budget cuts demanded from the regional government by the central government based in Madrid to produce demands for independence.

My local friends had told me that there would be a protest on Catalan Independence Day (September 11), but what I was not prepared for was 1.5 million people protesting in the street for Catalan independence. I have never seen or attended a widely-attended political protest in the United States. It was not just the political activists at Occupy Wall Street, but kids, families, lawyers, government workers, and grandmas. The diversity in ages and backgrounds gave the protest a weight that I had never seen.

I felt a little bit ashamed that my friends and I had never participated in any political actions beyond voting. When asking people my age why they were protesting, they cited the joblessness rate among the youth (≈50 percent) and the fact that tuition at college had been nearly tripled from 1,200 euros a year to 1,400 euros a semester. I do not know how I or wider American society would respond to this kind of joblessness. In the Arab world, these problems have helped overthrow autocratic regimes. In Barcelona, the economic malaise has coalesced into a narrow majority of Catalonians supporting independence for the first time.

Although it has remained peaceful for now, I have concerns that when Spain requests a bailout, the austerity demands from Germany will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Unlike Greece whose people are fiercely devoted to the Greek state, I am concerned that the anger from the cuts combined with calls for independence could devolve into something more violent than the protests on Catalan Independence Day.

Despite this gloom, the Spanish people have remained extremely friendly (even to my friends from Germany), and there is cautious hope that the European Central Bank’s statement that it will buy Spanish and Italian bonds in unlimited quantities has given hope.