Remember, I am biased.

When I first came to live in Barcelona, a little more than a year ago now, I was shocked by the countless flags, yellow ribbons, banners, and slogans. To the uninformed Northern-European that I am, the overt nationalism of the Catalan people was something I had rarely seen before.

To say that the Catalans do not have an overt nationalism, would be wrong. Yet, it is not the same nationalism which I am used to, and which I have been thought to fear. In recent times, especially, I have found myself seeing this nationalism in an entirely new light.

Photo by Marc Sendra Martorell on Unsplash

To be clear, I am not one hundred percent certain whether independence is something desirable, or even feasible, although this, too, I have been critically reassessing recently.

What I want to talk about in this post is less about independence and more about justice.

It is clear to me, living in Barcelona, and in close contact with multiple people participating in the protests (and some who are not, of course) that a large part of the recent protests, which started after the sentencing of some of the leaders of the 2017 referendum for independence, is less about Catalonia’s independence, and more about Spain’s use of high, and to many unjust, prison sentences.

The argument for many is that the Catalan leaders who were sentenced, organized and/or partook in a peaceful and democratic referendum, and were met with violence and oppression. One example of this is an article written by the former president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont.

This violence and, for many, oppression, was not lessened with the recent clashes with police, where dozens of peaceful protesters have been imprisoned and hurt, with many people losing an eye. (Link is in Catalan).

Looking at this as an outsider (for no matter how much I try, I am still very much an outsider on this issue) one thing is clear to me. Whatever your opinion is on the independence of Catalonia, it is obvious that the response of the Spanish government is brutal and disproportionate.

Spain is part of a Union, the same Union that my own country is a part of, which is supposedly founded on the values of justice, democracy and peace. The same values which are supposed to underpin our entire international community, from the United Nations to the International Criminal Court, is built on.

Photo by Max Kobus on Unsplash

We can all agree, I hope, that the violent elements the Catalan protesters, who some claim are actually ‘infiltrators’, are damaging to the message of peace and justice which the protesters are doing their best to uphold.

But I also hope that we can agree that Spain’s reprisals, from the prison sentences, to the police brutality, to the disregard of privacy of its citizens, (Link is in Catalan), undermine the values of our Union and the entire international community.

These are the same values which we promised to uphold after war and terror had reigned in the world and nearly destroyed us all.

These are the same values which we claim to protect overseas whenever they are in danger.

These are the very values upon which our countries’ national stories are built and through whose erosion they will fall.

It is up to us, not only the Catalans, to protect these values. It is up to the representatives of our nations, our media, and our international institutions, to protect these people whose voices are being buried under the avalanche of Trump speeches and Brexit talks.

It is up to you and me to speak out against such injustice.

Justícia i pau!