Observations of Catalan Independence: A Foreigner's Perspective

11 September 2014, the National Day of Catalonia, was quite a unique experience for me. I had only been in the country about six weeks. A friend told me a few days earlier that there would be a large ‘manifestación’, or demonstration, on the day. For some reason I had it in my head that this meant there would be a parade, and I thought it was an annual event commemorating the public holiday. So you can imagine my surprise when I learned what the manifestación really meant: approximately 1.8 million Catalans taking to the streets in support of independence from Spain. All day the city was awash in a sea of red and yellow t-shirts with the slogan ‘Ara És L'Hora’: Now is the time. Excitement and jubilation were in the air. I went for a bike ride and detoured at the Arc de Trionf, where I wandered through several dozen stalls representing various Catalan community, sport, cultural and nationalist organisations. There were men dressed in the uniforms of 1714, commemorating 300 years since that fateful 11 September when Catalonia lost its autonomy at the end of the War of Spanish Succession. I watched as the men fired old muskets.