The independence left was one of the few forces that clearly and directly defended the independence of Catalonia 6-7 years ago. The CUP, and the independence schemas in general, instead of resorting to short-term institutional formulas, began to create a “people’s power” neighborhood by neighborhood, that is, through political training and practical pedagogy based on transformative values, they have been empowering people. They are currently picking up the harvest of hard work, also in the institutions. When the Vinaròs process began in 2000, many saw “the four indelible cats of always”, and in a few years they have become 336,000 votes to the surprise of many others. And what's more surprising, keeping the same political message and the same militant logic. The Cup’s disunanimous discourse and practice has served them to unite the new sectors and continue to grow, overcoming the moderation that accompanies the conversion of the institutions into part of the spiral, without fear of confrontation. The unity of all the territories that make up the Catalan country, anti-capitalism, socialism, feminism, independence outside the European Union... It is an exception that is clearly and correctly expressed in these times when we are surrounded by “politically fair” in the name of the struggle for hegemony. A lot of eyes will look carefully at those in the Cup, many of them Catalans and so many outside of it.

Top Left Block Challenges

The Cup must withstand the offensive of the regimes of the Spanish State and Catalonia, which they have already announced. The pot is tested by putting it on fire. Having the key cannot fail to increase the pressure and the body of the independence left, formed for many years in secret, will now have the opportunity to look at it. It is complex to adapt the assembly organization to the speed of institutional policy, it is about to see how it maintains the wager.

First negotiation between the independentists: President Mas? As Antonio Baños has pointed out, everyone has room in the process. So, so do Mas. But “without imposing anyone, because no one is irreplaceable.” As it is a decision of great responsibility, there has been a debate of the same magnitude. The offensive of unionism is not being small and the independentists will have to act with unity, or at least imagine unity. So, the question is: The best option is for those who have been the head of cutbacks, privatisations and corruption to re-govern independence to attract new sectors? The calculation, the reality, is stubborn. The Mas list has not achieved the majority needed to challenge the president, needs the Cup and the Cup has said on a thousand occasions that they will not surrender power. Therefore, in view of what is at stake, it is not appropriate for JxSi to consider the designation of Mas as an insurmountable condition. In this regard, the latest political-judicial negligence of the Spanish Government is not useful: The processing of Mas by the organization of popular consultation. As history has shown, these kinds of processes have to have multiple edges and faces, and the fact that the foci are placed on a single person will only make it worse.

They will have to cope with the rise of Ciutadans, which almost tripled their representation, doing great pedagogical work on independence to stop the rise of right-wing unionism in the neighborhoods. The victory of the Albert Rivera party in Badalona and, in general, in the red belt of Barcelona, in Hospitalet, the second most populous city in Catalonia, is very worrying. For example, in many of these localities, leftist candidates such as Barcelona in Comú had a very good result. The independentists will have to guess how to assimilate these spaces, formed primarily by the workers, and above all the behavior of the sectors on the left will be key to this task. The group of Catalunya Yes Que Es Pot will have to be drawn to the block of the yes. Those who have strapped the distance from the east, without a firm attitude, will find themselves in a very difficult situation as the process catches up with speed. If we have the first “victim” of trying to locate it in another space: He united. When the process begins to define state structures, will they resort to abstention? Or what position will you take in the face of a hypothetical referendum on ratification of a defined Constitution? What if the Spanish Government were to ban it again? In response to this type of attack, it will hardly be understood that “Spain needs a president who recognizes Catalonia as a nation”, as Pablo Iglesias recently pointed out. The only answer cannot be to vote for Pablo Iglesias so that the Catalans feel comfortable in that “new” Spain. That's fiction politics. Listening to the ultra-nationalist Spanish messages from Ciutadans and the PSOE, the citizens will demand a direct response to the tax and anti-democratic attitude of the current Spanish Government, and what is coming soon will not be very different, in this aggressive context, from 15 laws approved by the Catalan Parliament and repealed by Spanish in recent years. That the answer has to be democratic? Of course. But the question is: Is there a more democratic attitude than that of not cooperating and disobeying in the face of the closure, to whom the will of the people is subjected in the name of unfair laws?

Looking from Euskal Herria

The ability to articulate a citizen force to change the determined positions of the parties, the effective new style communication campaigns, the success of activating sectors that often seemed to hijack the comforts in Western societies … there are not few “teachings” that have come to us from Catalonia. To the Basques that we have felt the navel of the world in our smallness, like the Galos of Asterix, a good dose of humility has come. And even more satisfying is that it has come from the hand of a people that has greatly influenced the policy of the Basque Country, which has suffered vaschitis.

As for the leftist space, they have demonstrated that the myth of the patriotic front is none other than the mandate of the unity of the Abertzales. That there is no single demand for independence, that the way of understanding independence is not monolithic is the nice lesson of Catalonia. The members of the Cup insist that the independence of some is a dependency on the indigenous and German bourgeoisie without starting to stutter. Or, at least, you have to talk about this (also), without prejudice. Unscrupulous to impair collaboration.

The accumulation of forces begins among those who oppose the economic and political system that leads to loss to the world, to Europe, to Catalonia and to Euskal Herria. They have shown that it is possible to join forces in tactical milestones without being framed in easy math exercises based on partisan sums, without avoiding clashes of class. Putting values in the front line of the political message, they wanted to give the institutions functions as an instrument and a speaker for pedagogy.

The parliamentarian of the Anna Gabriel Sabaté Cup referred to this in an interview with La Haine: “If you stop talking clearly about anti-capitalism, using dialectical tricks and stop doing things to get more votes… it’s infinite that you can delay. What's more, that would change the way people see; as if they didn't have the ability to react, as if they weren't able to have political awareness. And it's not. The fact that the working class in this country has lost a lot of consciousness does not mean that it is a lost struggle, so we do not have to go in a simpler and more welcoming language. Awareness has always been achieved by calling things by their name.”