The week of 14 October that began with the ruling against independence leaders, the Catalans have made hundreds of initiatives. It is impossible to list all of them: dozens of daily roadblocks, road sabotage, blockade of El Prat International Airport, mobilizations, sit-ins, attempt to block Barajas Airport in Madrid, Las Marchas de la Libertad in five columns by Catalonia, fighting with fascists, popular Olympics organized by the CoR, general strike, violent incidents..... Tens of thousands of people every day on the street.

The grass-roots struggle has also overwhelmed the protagonists themselves.

In the eyes, in the mood, in the attitudes, the recovery of the decision and the lost illusion of 2017 is perceived. But this time with less smiles and more anger.

Continuities and fractures

This week Catalan independence has maintained a series of features developed throughout the Procés: the massive occupation of the street, the imagination in the calls, humor, and the spectacular capacity for communication and organization, among others. The fire and the spectacular police assaults, swirled by the media, have been very cautious, but the base remains the same. More specifically, it is also the thread that links the return of the 2017 referendum with the current one: to normalize “legal violations” such as unreported mobilizations or roadblocks, the importance of blockades in the means of transport, initiatives that spontaneously multiply in towns and neighbourhoods, and non-violent disobedience, among others.

All of this on a massive scale. At times, demonstrators have exceeded the control and repression capacity of an entire state. This has happened in a territory as extensive as that of Catalonia, not only in Barcelona, but also in Catalonia. In this twenty-first century Europe, there is nothing to underestimate. But it's still far from enough.

But there are also transformations, interruptions, ruptures. In addition, of great depth and depth, they affect the structural characteristics of the Catalan process, which he has described as "precarious". Despite this week’s explosion, most have been eaten over the past two years.

Goodbye to the smiles revolution

In the October 2017 uprising, citizenship, popular movements, Catalan institutions and independence parties, in general and without forgetting moments of tension, went hand in hand. This week, institutions and political parties have shown bewilderment, detachment from the street and a lack of ability to get out of it. The independence parties have not been able to agree on a common response to the ruling in the Basque Parliament. At the extraordinary plenary session on 17 October, President Quim Torra suddenly committed himself to self-determination in this legislature and then ERC and the CUP dissociated themselves from the initiative. Everything looks improvised. The Generalitat continues to pretend a sovereign government; in the eyes of most citizens, however, politics is being made out of fear of repression. ANC President Elisenda Paluzie said on 18 October that they had a "self-science government". “Political leadership is empty,” we have heard on the street several times. The political class in general is experiencing a profound crisis of credibility.

“This is our Police,” most of the independentists shouted at the Mossos in the 2017 referendum, comparing them to the state’s security forces; “Don’t deserve the flag you bear” is the sweetest message they hear now. Josep Lluís Trapero said in the Supreme Court that the Mossos were willing to stop Carles Puigdemont and break him with illusion. These days the Mossos work together with the National Police and with them in the work of repression, feeding the hatred very harshly. Citizens have also rebelled against them. Meanwhile, the Interior Council of the Generalitat, Miquel Butch, has held meetings with the Interior Minister, Fernando Grande Marlaska in Madrid.

The “Smiles Revolution” was destroyed by the violence of the National Police in October 2017. Both in practice and in the popular imagination. This has caused disappointment for a long time, and also the search for new paths. On the one hand, the confrontation with the police, on the other, the attempt to deepen the path of disobedience. As for the disobedient path, the Tsunami Democràtic movement is the main exponent, but it has been on the lips of all the players for a long time. An example of this is the “strategic consumption” campaign launched by the ANC a few months ago to encourage the “disconnect” of the 35 IBEX companies, or the call for disobedience by the CoR. All of them, in addition to the Spanish Government, have put economic powers in the spotlight and have linked disobedience to social rights.

The axis of the independence process has moved clearly this week: to the left, to the bottom and to the street. Institutions and political parties have been left out of the game; citizenship and popular movements have gained clear leadership in constant mobilizations; disobedience and confrontations have been almost daily with police forces.

However, the gaps between political forces and citizens have widened, and they are forced to join each other.

Mass and youth incidents

“We are not attacking, but defending ourselves.” This week there have been serious incidents, not only in Barcelona, but in many places in the Catalan capital. “Only in this way will we be able to release the prisoners and hold a referendum.” For the first time, citizens have responded actively to the Police on a widespread basis. “As we have seen so far we are not going anywhere,” ARGIA has been told by those under 20 who are involved in the incidents.

Young people have raised barricades and fired fires. The attitude has been, above all, defensive, but they have also come to attack the police on several occasions. Very young people have stood out in the first lines of the disturbances. The appearance and attitude of young people has taken the whole independence sector by surprise: “Where have they come from?” we have also heard in militant environments, demonstrating that they do not have a direct connection with the usual networks of popular movements.

Disturbances have generated discussions within independence. In the barricades there have been some incidents between young people and the rest of the population in general. The tension yes, the dialogue on convenience also, but, at the moment, there has been no break within the movement or a fall in the mobilizing capacity. Following the night incidents, tens of thousands of people continued to go to the streets in the coming days. The implementation of the Freedom March has undoubtedly contributed to this.

Most Catalans, including non-Spanish Catalan media, have accused the police of responsibility for the violence. The young people have made a leap, the police have done no less. The repressive forces have spread panic throughout Catalonia, and thus rage.

The balance of the week is very crude: 600 citizens have been injured, 194 arrested, 28 more political prisoners, four people have lost their vision for one eye because of the Police's crackles and at the close of this report there is a demonstrator in critical condition.

Some see with good eyes what young people are doing, and among many who disagree, understanding is great. They've seen it as a reaction to the sterility of beatings, humiliations, incarcerations, criminalizations and nonviolent paths of these years. “These young people have been mobilizing with their parents from one side to the other listening to “Som gent de pau”, “everything is possible for good” and “the international community will not accept the attitude of Spain”, and yet, seeing that citizenship has been taken to jail, the young people have come to other conclusions. Although at first adults have shown greater opposition, as the day progressed, police violence has reported greater protection for them,” one citizen explains.

The rupture between the foundations of independence and politicians has also become apparent here. In the early days, Torra has called for "isolating the violent", Gabriel Rufián has described them as "savages", while Miquel Buch has pointed out that the "true Catalans" are the citizens who installed on Saturday between the "violent" and the police. On the contrary, the groups called, such as Bombers per the Republic, Opens Arms or Union of Manters, called “to defend the right to protest by our young people and to reduce tension”, thus regretting the appropriation that “some political leaders” have made with the initiative. Mares Per la República is an initiative created by the Mother of the Republic, the mother of young people recently detained, with the cry of “not touching our children”. ANC President Elisenda Paluzie considered it "urgent" to set up a "protection network" for detained young people and proposed using her Solidarity Fund to meet legal expenses. President of Òmnium Cultural, Marcel Mauri, has immediately acknowledged that what Paluzie said is “very important”.

This week’s riots are a new important element in a movement that has so far remained strictly between non-violent disobedience and pacifism. It's still early to know what you're going to do. Is this a form of struggle that has come to stay or will remain exceptional? In the response they will have to do with the effectiveness of proposals from other media and actors, such as the non-violent disobedient line of the Tsunami. In addition to the wishes of young people and those who support them, of course.

Tsunami Democràtic, surprise

Thousands of people have received the message “Everyone at the airport!” on their mobile phone. Some by train, others by subway, by bus, by car, by bike... El Prat International Airport, in Barcelona, will be blocked. In total, 155 flights have had to be cancelled, which has caused serious economic and personal damage to the airline Aena.

“I started working spontaneously at 16:00 and today I’ve reached 18:30, I’ve had to walk down the highway,” the worker told us that inside the airport terminal he sells cafes and snacks to passengers.

“When the sentence comes out, we leave what we are doing and call for immediate mobilization,” they announced from the mysterious Democratic Tsunami initiative. Nobody knew who was behind and what the plan was. The forces started to boost the channel of the Telegram mobile app, and from there came the wave. As a result, 360,000 people are registered in this political action group. There's no such thing all over the world. But who is behind the Democratic Tsunami? It is the supreme secret of independence.

“The domain of the Tsunami website has been registered since last July. The app you've prepared for mobiles isn't done in two days. They had been preparing it for months. Because of their sophisticated level of work and the technological solutions they propose, I can only conclude: Those planning on October 1, 2017 are behind the Democratic Tsunami. That is what we have planned.” Enric Luján is an expert in digital security, a member of Criptica and co-author of the book Resistencia Digital. In his opinion, the way in which the Tsunami works is very similar to the operation of distributing and storing 7,000 ballot boxes in front of the ends of the Spanish Police. “Technical solutions are vertically managed by a clandestine technical elite, they are highly qualified, they may not reside in Spain and then socialize among the others”.

Eldiario.es Internet journalist Arturo Puente can talk to Tsunami. In his article, Tsunami is an initiative of a group of citizens with an entrepreneurial trajectory in social movements and in leftist independentism, and works in absolute secrecy. At the beginning of the summer, half a dozen people came to work, considering that the response to the sentence should go beyond a demonstration.

Once they had the Tsunami mark prepared, they presented it to the other parties and sovereign agents. All of them were told that they would do a chain of nonviolent acts. They argue that action must be taken against companies that played an active role against independence and boycott the strategic points of the economy or communications. One of the people present at these meetings has told the journalist Puente that “the parties supported him because it was the only thing there was, because they were the only ones thinking about the response to the sentence.” Purpose of movement: Self-determination for Catalonia and the freedom of political prisoners. Carles Puigdemont, Oriol junqueras, Anna Gabriel, Jordi Sánchez and Jordi Cuixart, among others, gave him a push on social networks on September 2.

On 14 October, the day on which the sentence was passed, thousands of people blocked El Prat airport and brought Pep Guardiola to speak on the BBC in the name of the movement. Subsequently, at the end of the initiative, they made available to the public the application that had been proposed to avoid infiltrations, announcing that the next initiatives will be carried out through it. The application is activated through QR codes that are spreading through trust networks and is designed for entrepreneurs.

Enric Luján, an expert in digital security, believes that the design of the application is a masterpiece. “Road outages and infrastructure stoppages will only reach those who are there, thanks to geolocation data. There will be nothing for the other users.” Those responsible for implementation shall know clearly the number of persons in the area. It will be pointless for the Police to try to infiltrate by lowering the application, as they will only have access to a small part of the information.

Despite the fact that evening incidents in Barcelona have led to many more incidents, Spanish political leaders are trying to paralyse the Democratic Tsunami. Proof of this is that Interior Minister Marlaska has ordered the investigation of those behind the movement and that the courts block their websites. But the Internet cannot be censored, and replicas, such as URL0, have already been released.

“When thousands of people install the tsunami app, a small political and technological elite will have the operational capacity to paralyse the country, with decentralized calls in real time, from absolute opacity,” Lujan said.

Spain does not forgive

Despite the earthquake that caused the ruling against the calls for the referendum on 1 October, there are more trials on the horizon: at the end of November the Bureau of Parliament presided over by Carme Forcadell, accused of disobedience; as from January 2020 the former leaders of the Mossos d 'Trapero y Esquadra will also be judged by the organisation of the referendum in the Junqueres.

Spain has not forgiven the 2017 uprising nor will it forgive the one that began on 14 October in the North African country. In addition to hundreds of people who have already been beaten, detained and imprisoned, it is not possible to rule out in the short term raids, criminalisations of movements and illegalisations. Suspend Catalan autonomy with Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, without prejudice to the activation of Article 162 or the National Security Law. However, the Catalans are also forming in that: The tsunami does not have spectacular physical faces, and despite being on the street at all times, the CoR has long had no “face”.

Opposition to shared objectives

How long are citizens going to maintain this level of mobilisation? If it continues, how will it evolve in the forms? The independence parties and the Catalan institutions will maintain their positions so far? How far will the State delve into repression and what consequences will it have? These are short-term questions, the answers will condition the medium- and long-term scenarios.

It is essential for independence to address the medium and long term. The latest revolt has been triggered by the ruling against the main political and social leaders of the referendum, and in recent days demonstrations against repression have gained weight. But the need to move from opposition to the formulation of proposals, one of the options could be to agree on a programme that collects demands so that the rebellion does not recur as such ito.Gutxieneko. The Cup has presented three points in which it wants unity of action: the end of repression and total amnesty; the freedom to develop social and economic policies without the imposition of the State; and the right to self-determination. Mobilisation, permanent and massive, yes, but it will also be key for people to become sustainable in the long term. In the area of disobedience, the Tsunami notes that it is working with a vision of “months and years”. There is therefore a proposal.

Achieving shared long-term strategies and objectives seems even more difficult, but it will be necessary if you want to go beyond resistance. Independence has many knots to solve in this regard. Without forgetting that it has before it a Spanish state that carries in its veins national unity and authoritarianism, in Euskal Herria we have seen how far it can go. And let us not deceive ourselves: the state may be weak in the arguments, but it is strong in a very repressive capacity, and that is enough for it. It is impressive what Catalan independence has done in recent years, but it will have to do much more to gain its freedoms. And with the participation of more citizens. In the week that began on 14 October, the independentists have visibly strengthened, but surely they have not attracted many new people to the cause.

Catalans have opened a new cycle. It is early to predict what concrete features it will have, but many citizens have taken irreversible practical and emotional steps again. Catalonia is offering a memorable battle lesson in this second revolt. Anything can happen in the coming weeks, but seen may well be coming.