La Diada

"For national and social rights. Independence, Catalan countries."

Most people will remember September 11th as the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, especially this year, considering that it was a decade ago. For the people of Catalunya, however, it was a day to remember well before these terrible events. For the Catalans, September 11th was the day that Barcelona fell to the Spaniards in the 1714 War of Succession.

I'm not going to talk about the history of another country about which I don't know very well, but one of the recent traditions is to hold protests in the Plaça de Catalunya in Girona. Recently, Catalunya has been under attack from a wave of controversy concerning the language and whether classes in schools and universities should be taught in Castillian Spanish so that students from all over Spain can enjoy the right to go to whichever institution they please and understand the language. I wonder what the central government would say if a few thousand Catalans demanded the same thing of Madrid....

The Catalan language is a symbol of extreme national importance - in fact, Artur Mas (President of Catalunya) has described it as the 'DNA' of Catalan identity. It's in the blood of these people; it would not surprise me in the least to discover that some of these people actually bleed red and yellow stripes: so is it that unusual to want to defend the right to maintain it as the national language? Singing the stirring national anthem, Els segadors, reminds the people to continue the fight to keep their identity. At midday today the choir to which I belong sang our repertoire of songs that includes the national anthem. I'm sure it went marvellously. I wasn't there because unfortunately, I awoke this morning only to look in the mirror and find Quasimodo looking back at me, complete with a swollen right eye barely capable of opening. I thought it best not to try to represent Catalunya looking like this. I suppose I could have climbed up the bell tower to watch though.