Catalansplaining
A friend asked me about Catalonia and I was trying to summarize the main things that are going on there right now.
Hoping that it will serve as a helpful-ish short introduction to someone, here it is:
It's hard to describe all the turmoil. The events keep unfolding, but so far this week seems more easy-going, though still tense. The very basics are that a left-wing independentist coalition in Catalonia forced the referendum with bad forms (the request is justified, as it has been claimed for ages by a vast majority of their population, but the way they did it is bad), the right-wing central government replied with even worse forms (huge mobilization of security forces and violent charges against common people just trying to vote), the referendum happened but without the proper infrastructure and gave (unsurprisingly) a big majority for independence, albeit with low participation, and the independentists argued they were going to do a one-sided declaration of independence based on that while at the same time the right-wing parties were basically pushing for a declaration of a state of exception. As of yesterday, they are at an impasse. Either of the next announced steps would be incredibly stupid, and they both probably realize. So, even when they had announced that they were going to do it yesterday, they didn't quite declare one or the other. Most people have been visibly demanding that they indeed stop and talk, that they open formally a negotiation. They might listen. There are many side ramifications, but that's at least the very basics, as perceived by me in any case :) I am in Madrid indeed, and I have been here for the last three weeks. My following of the case has been from here, from the demonstrations here (there have been many since this started), from talking to people here and to catalan friends too. A couple of catalan friends that live here have gone on purpose there for voting (and have quite colorful stories), and a couple more photojournalist friends have gone to cover the situation.
That's it for today!