Catalonia Dreaming. The Rise of Catalan Mass Secessionism, 2010-2015

Abstract

What is happening in Catalonia? This is a commonly asked question, abroad and in Spain. Even Catalans are often bewildered by the fast tide of events surrounding the pro-independence movement and its contradictions. Local answers not only tend to be partial, and loaded with special-pleading, but present a complexity of intricate detail that is hard to follow for anyone not in living in Catalonia and very attentive to the flow of politics in the media. Spanish observers, as a rule threatened by ongoing events and therefore hostile, simplify to an extreme that can be obtuse. The author, not a native Catalan, is an historian specialized in the study of Catalan nationalism. He has taught in Barcelona universities for more than forty years, usually in the Catalan language. Contrarian by nature, he has tried hard to remain outside the partisan trenches, to avoid both the pressure of the often heavy-handed nationalist lobby and the counter-pressure that marks the discourse of persecution of the most outraged Spanish opposition. In his contribution here, Enric Ucelay-Da Cal presents a narrative in terms of party politics and the social trends that political organizations try to channel and represent.