It wasn't this... the Catalan "Estatut"

A quick report about the last events in my home country, Catalonia:


Companys, no es aixo...

No era aixo, companys, no era aixo
pel que varen morir tantes flors,
pel que varem plorar tnats anhels.
Potser cal ser valents altre cop
i dir no, amics meus, no es aixo.

No es aixo, companys, no es aixo,
ni paraules de pau amb garrots,
ni el comerc que es f amb els nostres drets,
drets que son, que no fan ni desfan
nous barrots sota forma de lleis.

No es aixo, companys, no es aixo;
ens diran que ara cal esperar.
I esperem, ben segur que esperem.
Es l'espera dels que no ens aturarem
fins que no calgui dir: no es aixo

Lluis Llach



That was Catalan. Here is an aproximate translation:



It wasn't this, my friends...

Not for this, my friends, not for this.
It wasn't for this that so many flowers died,
that we cried upon so many hopes.
Maybe it's time to be brave again
and to say no, my friends, it wasn't this.

It is not this, my friends, it is not this.
Nor the peace words imposed by sticks,
neither the trading of our rights,
theese rights that exist regardless of
the new cages they build with their laws.

It is not this, my friends, it is not this.
They will tell us that we have to wait now.
And we'll wait, for sure we'll do.
But ours is the wait of those who won't stop
until there's no more need to say "it is not this".

Lluis Llach



This is a song the political Catalan singer Lluis Llach wrote after the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. At that historic moment Catalonia saw how its aspirations for a broader self-determination and social change after Franco's repression were disregarded with a new conservative Spanish Constitution and a watered down Catalan "Estatut" (Constitution). Well, his words are actual again:

Yesterday Catalans voted in a referendum to approve a new "Estatut". It's been months of negotiations between the Catalan political parties and the Spanish government. Months of boicotts and hate-campaigns organized by the Spansih right wing on the media. Months of constantly hearing words such as "terrorist" or "civil war" linked to the words Catalan and Constitution...

Anyway, the point is that the the text the citizens voted on yesterday, was a completely watered down version of the first draft that the Catalan Parliament first presented... and that first draft was not that ambitious, well maybe it was on the self-determination issue, but definetely not in social justice issues. The result of the pathetic circus the polititians organized for months and the disregard, once again, of the claims for a broader self-determination and care for social justice was that less than 40% of the Catalans voted. The more progressive sectors of Catalan society had called for abstention as a way to invalidate the referendum and to oppose a constitution that ignores the right of self-determination as well as social justice in economic, social, gender and immigration issues. Many of us followed the call, but still we were not onough. So it looks like we will keep being a neoliberal, conservative, politically correct little colony for many years...

I tried to find some good links with information in English, but the articles on the European press are as conservative and depressive as we could expect.