Let's strengthen the Council for the Republic: Let's prepare for victory!
Message from Catalan President Carles Puigdemont
✒ «The repression has become permanent.»
In a few weeks we will celebrate the fourth anniversary of the referendum and the declaration of independence of Catalonia on 1 and 27 October 2017. For four years the independence movement has struggled to ensure that the harsh repressive measures of the Spanish state do not blur or dilute the meaning of these milestones and the fundamental character of the Catalan Republic that they stand for. We had to fight constantly against the repression because it was constant; that is why we had to make a great effort so that this great collective work, which gives meaning to the struggles that Catalan society has been waging for years, remains what it is: a work of the whole country, not of one party; a resounding and intelligent victory of an organised and mobilised people over a violent state that remains attached to Franco's legacy; the beginning of a process that will culminate in the recognition of the Catalan Republic.
✒ «Together with the Council, we have decided that the struggle must continue.»
The Council for the Republic is the republican institution that takes up this legitimacy, preserves it, protects it and puts it at the service of all the actors of the independence movement to complete the task begun four years ago. We have decided that the struggle must continue and not stop; we have decided that we will make this victory the basis for preparing the next steps towards the full international recognition of the Catalan Republic. It is true that in these four years, whether because of the effects of the repressive measures, the party calculus or our mistakes, there are some who spread a view of 1 October and its political effects that is far from what it was and what we experienced together.
✒ «We know better than ever what the path to international recognition of the Catalan Republic is.»
We have embarked on a very difficult, but necessary path. It is not yet complete, that is clear. But it is undeniably recognisable, with a decisive potential for the future of our country. And thanks to all that we have done, thanks to all that we have been able to preserve despite the repression, we now know better than ever what the path to international recognition of the Catalan Republic looks like. We know, with the clarity that the history of past and recent relations between Catalonia and Spain offers us, that there is only one way to achieve this. And that there are no sweetened, soft, innocuous shortcuts on that path. We are dealing with Spain, not with Canada or the United Kingdom. And the Spain of today resembles the Spain of the past in its relations with Catalonia. Prohibition and penalisation; threat and punishment. We know that in this case, unfortunately, there is not the way democracies should always have for resolving political conflicts, and that independence is an achievement that must be maintained and defended for a long time. We must maintain and defend by all means our unwavering commitment to human rights and thus to peace, agreeing that we do not want nor need any «shortcut» that would compromise the democratic radicalism of the country we are trying to build.
✒ «Confrontation with the Spanish state is inevitable if we want Catalonia to be recognised as a nation.»
In the Council for the Republic, we have gathered the knowledge and analysis of the independence process that we started four years ago. In the synthesis that we have published in the document «Let's prepare ourselves», we show the path we must continue on in order to crown it with a victory. The independence movement must prepare for a phase in which the answer of the state is once again a «no» to everything and the repressive measures and threats against thousands of citizens of Catalonia are maintained. We cannot spend any more time discussing party political banalities: The confrontation with the state must not be shied away from, it is something inevitable that we must go through if Catalonia is to be recognised as a sovereign and independent nation. We cannot make the Catalan people believe that for some unknown reason the time will come when our nation will be recognised without having to fight for it in the streets and squares and in the institutions of the country. We think what we think and we vote what we vote because we know that things are the way they are. The four years behind us have taught us many things, some of which we suspected, some of which we did not know. Today we have the duty to bring all this knowledge to the organisation of the defence of Catalonia's independence by all possible democratic and non-violent means. It will not be given to us, and therefore we must build it ourselves. The Council is the fundamental cornerstone for building these means.
✒ «All republican citizens who make the Council possible know that no one makes it easy for us.»
All republican citizens who make the Council possible know that no one makes it easy for us. Neither those who beat us with extreme violence on the day of the referendum, nor those who, four years later, pretend to be disgusted by this victory. Perhaps that is why we have to fight against a certain narrative current that tries to deconstruct the enormous act of 1 October and extend a defeatist prejudice to a chapter on which history will pass a unanimous judgement: We voted, and we won, despite the war of oppression unleashed by the state. The memory of the hatred they showed us with the battle cry «At them!» and the pitiful speech of the Spanish king will never be erased from our collective memory.
✒ «Strengthening the Council means that there are no more excuses to prepare the way to victory.»
Becoming a member of the Council and strengthening the Council helps to preserve the dignity of 1 October in the face of all those who want to turn the tide. It helps to remind the Spanish state of its outrages against democracy and of the fact that it has a head of state that has criminalised and excluded millions of citizens. And it allows that there is no longer an excuse to prepare for how to win the next confrontation with the Spanish state. Because if we want independence, the Spanish state is doing everything it can to make confrontation inevitable.
President Carles Puigdemont
Waterloo, 6 September 2021