A crowd demonstrates in favour of Spanish-Catalan dialogue in Madrid, Spain, 7 October 2017 under the slogan 'Hablamos?' ('Let's speak?').Carola Frentzen/Press Association. All rights reserved.Something quite remarkable is happening in Spain. No, I don’t mean the threat of a break up of Spain. Nor the mass mobilization organized by DENAES, the Foundation for the Defence of the Spanish Nation which has filled Madrid’s Colon Plaza with thousands of people waving Spanish flags (and a few with the pre-democracy Franco-era flag), chanting “I am Spanish”, and who feel well represented by the right-wing parties PP, Ciudadanos and even Vox. Nor the mass protests and the general strike in Cataluña against state repression and for independence (but not always both).
“We are a better nation”
I am talking about the grassroots organization of citizens across the country who have refused to take sides and instead decided to mobilize to let the parties involved know that “Spain is a better country than those running it”. They have called for citizens to gather in front of their respective town halls to talk, and in so doing, model what they want the independentists in Cataluña and the leaders of the Spanish government to do: enter into dialogue to resolve their differences.
In the face of escalating tensions and intransigence following the government repression of the illegal referendum in Cataluña (in which some 840 people required medical attention after police attacks that included beating, kicking, throwing people down stairs and firing on them with rubber bullets), many people in Spain have had enough of being forced to choose sides in a conflict in which they identify with neither side.
