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The birth of the Unilateral Republic of Catalonia

The State reacts as a cornered Leviathan, filled with intolerable violence in the face of the threat of its disintegration. But those who aspire to disintegrate it want a State for themselves. Español.

By Francesc Badia i Dalmases
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People protest as police try to control the area in their attempt to cast their vote in the referendum of October 1, 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. Juan Carlos Lucas/NurPhoto/Sipa USA. All rights reserved.When I left my apartment in Barcelona last Sunday to grasp what the atmosphere was like in the streets, in a momentous day for the history of this country, I went to the voting place where I usually vote in regular elections, and verified that the place was closed.

Later on, I saw shocking images on TV of a number of law enforcement officers removing the urns placed there by volunteers, who defended them protesting. This is the image, I thought, that both sides were looking for. On the one side, to send the world the message that the State acted coercively against "democracy"; on the other, to affirm that the State was enforcing the rule of law to protect the constitutional order that guarantees that all citizens have to abide with the law.

Then, I went to another polling station, this one run by the Catalan government. I saw that it was operating normally, and that there was a long line of people waiting to cast their vote. The police was nowhere to be seen. I noticed that people deposited ballots in opaque Chinese-made plastic urns with the Generalitat logo.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0