Impressions of Barcelona, Part I: The Streets

Coming to Barcelona, I didn't know what to expect. I had wanted to go there for the past 15 years but didn't even have a clear idea why. I realize now that it was this scene from the movie Barcelona (1994):

 That was my subconscious reason. Consciously, I'd heard it was a great city, full of great art and architecture, and I wanted to see the town that had been a last anarchist holdout in the Spanish Civil War and the site of great collectivization and resistance against the fascism of Franco, or so I'd heard.

It was strange, then, to see anarchist, communist, socialist, feminist, Catalan nationalist/separatist (more on that later) slogans in red and black and wheatpaste strewn across the city in response to the financial crisis but to find little public commemoration of Barcelona's incredible history during the Spanish Civil War.

Anticapitalist demonstration

Enough with the bankers, politicians, corrupt robbers, enough!

"How much are you worth/How much do you cost?"

"Wildcat strike"

"Capitalism IS the crisis"

"Independence, Socialism, Feminism"

"Capitalism is a Pyramid Scheme"

"Freedom for Catalan Countries"

 It was only after taking an excellent tour led by Nick Lloyd of Iberianature and then reading Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell and other books on the war from the library that I realized why: while there may have been a good six months in which 70-80 percent of the businesses in Barcelona had collectivized and the feeling of liberation and possibility and the songs of revolution rang through the streets, there was also soon a brutal period when members of the left executed thousands of members of the clergy, destroyed churches and cathedrals, and desecrated religious icons and symbols (the Catholic church was aligned with the fascists and the right and was responsible for its own share of terrors, but still). It was a testament to this conflict that Nick told us that he'd had a dozen Barcelona locals tell him, "If you take people anywhere in Barcelona, take them to the Placa Sant Felip Neri. This is where they shot the priests." While in fact the damage to the church wall came from shrapnel from a fascists' bomb in 1938, the perception of what happened is as important as what actually happened, because it speaks to what lies underneath, in peoples' collective memories. Even if it didn't happen in this exact place, it did happen, and people did not forget.

"In memory of the victims of the bombing of Sant Felip Neri. Here died 42 people, most of the children, from the actions of a Francoist plane on the 30th of January, 1938"

The walls of the Plaza de Sant Felip Neri

As much as I'd seen images from revolutionary Spain in books of art and resistance, I'd never seen this or understood what it represented, even in its mythology, to the conservative side of Spain. Even now, I was genuinely shocked to see, on a church in the Poble Nou neighborhood, graffiti that said "Fuck the pope." But I'm not Catholic and so, as much as I have an abstract understanding of the archaic views of the Vatican vis a vis the rights of reproductive rights of women and the sanctity (or lack thereof) in being gay, I don't have the same visceral reaction to it that others do who have been steeped in its indoctrination throughout their lives.

 ***

What I did have a visceral reaction to was being in the midst of a nationalist demonstration on the 11th of September, National Catalonia Day, when hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of Barcelona to demand independence from Spain (and, most likely, to also protest the economic austerity measures proposed by the Spanish government in response to the ever-deepening economic crisis in Europe).

Poster for Catalonian Freedom March

Just like for gay pride in San Francisco, there were swarms of people draped flags and marching in what seemed like every direction. Only instead of rainbow flags they bore the red and yellow stripes of Catalonia.

National Catalonia Day, 11th of September, 2012, Barcelona

Bikes for Catalonia

Even when it is for a potentially righteous cause, there is something about a large group of people bearing a flag *of any kind* that scares me. Because the flip side of belonging to the group bearing that flag is not belonging and then wondering if you are welcome at all. And that is not to say that community boundaries are inherently bad; sometimes they are critical for survival of the group; people have a human right to dignity and self-determination. It's just that with borders, while you  might benefit from staying in, who's to say that you will be allowed to leave? (Think: East Germany.) And conversely, when you keep others out, how do you maintain your connections with the people on the other side? (Think: The Israeli West Bank Wall.)

When I asked Nick what the anarchists in Barcelona thought of Catalan independence, he said they were totally against it, but that overall half of his friends were against it and half of them were for it. (A split, see?) I don't know enough about Catalonia one way or another to have an educated opinion. It's just a feeling I get in my chest and one that I'm inclined to listen to. In a crowded movie theater, know where the exits are.

 ***

The day after the protest the newspapers showed emboldened Catalan leaders, promising reforms. 

"The president shows his intention to start constructing structures of statehood; the government intends to combat the image of Spain as the enemy of Catalonia."

"Everything is possible.