Barcelona launched a referendum to asses Catalonia\u2019s separation, which is in violation of the Spanish constitution. The Madrid police\u2019s sensational operations have been overly violent and excessive: wounded hundreds of civilians, mirroring the dark times of the Franco\u2019s era. Barcelona declares its independence using a democratic voting system that’s not quite up to standards. In fact, the majority of Catalonia abstained from voting. (Perhaps) Madrid will send the military. Barcelona asks for help from the Holy Church. Madrid forbids the parliament’s gatherings.<\/p>\n
The situation is deteriorating rapidly, tension is rising, and the future is becoming more and more uncertain. Both parties seem to be playing the \u201cworse is better\u201d card, which fosters tensions, but brings a larger numbers of voters to the ballot for both the conservative Mariano Rajoy\u2019s People\u2019s Party an anti-democracy tendencies party, that also do not support local self-government- and the centrist Convergence and Union party which recently joined the independence ideology, mostly to deflect the narrative from its corruption charges.<\/p>\n
Nationalism without homophobia<\/strong><\/p>\n What is the political position of the LGBTQIA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Queer, Intersex, Asexual) in all of this? It is necessary to preface the answer with a clarification: the Catalan nationalism, compared to many other places, is not based on a uniformed ideology that wants its citizens adapting to one ethnicity, one religion or one gender.<\/p>\n The \u201chistorical\u201d nationalism -promoted by the bourgeois elite- have supported sexual minorities for years through progressive policies, a path embarked to distinguished itself from the backwards view of the centrist Spanish party. The conservative far-left have also bloomed, during these years of economic crisis. It aims to launch a new revolutionary project which is even heavily supported by the LGBTQIA.<\/p>\n A split movement <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n The independence support within the movement is far from consistent, only a few groups have taken part openly. One of the most prominent is the Col\u00b7lectiu Gai de Barcelona (Gay Cooperative of Barcelona) which campaigned to vote pro-independence, and which is celebrating the referendum as a great accomplishment. L\u2019Associaci\u00f3 Cristiana de Gais i Lesbianes de Catalunya (The Christian Gay and Lesbians of Catalonia Association) have also expressed similar intentions, while the Front d\u2019Alliberament Gai de Catalunya (the Gay of Catalonia Liberation Front) – the oldest regional association- have also supported the referendum with a broader view.<\/p>\n The statement: \u201cThe unjustified abuse of the violent oppression exercised by the Spanish \u2018government’ state against the fundamental rights of Catalan citizenship\u201d from the Plataforma LGTBIcat (the LGTBI Platform for Catalonia), and the Observatori Contra l\u2019Homof\u00f2bia (Observatory Against Homophobia) pushed many neutral LGBTQIA groups to join the October 3rd strike. For instance, the non-profit Casal Lambda, the sport club Les Panteres Grogues (The Yellow Panthers), the Enlla\u00e7 foundation -which focuses on elderly LGBTQIA members-, and the Associaci\u00f3 Catalana per la Integraci\u00f3 d\u2019Homosexuals, Bisexuals i Transsexuals Immigrants (Catalan Association for the Integration of Homosexuals, bisexuals and Transexulas Immigrants) have closed their doors.<\/p>\n A few groups like l\u2019Associaci\u00f3 de Pares i Mares de Gais i Lesbianes (the Association for Gay and Lesbian Moms and Dads), the group Enruta\u2019t -who focus on educating \u00a0teachers about LGBTQIA issues-, and police organization Gaylespol, have not expressed their opinion, and nearly no one completely lined up against the referendum, perhaps due to the uprising political climate.<\/p>\n The tipping point<\/strong><\/p>\n A transexual Catalan activist -who we will call N\u00faria to protect her identity- opened up to the Grande Colibr\u00ec: \u201cYou are fooling yourself, if you think no violence will take place. Both parties did use physical and mental violence; we are at the tipping point\u201d.<\/p>\n N\u00faria\u2019s opinion of the Barcelona political parties is quite unflattering: \u201cThe People\u2019s Party is made of incompetent people, and will never accomplish anything new. Independent parties like the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (The Lefty Republicans of Catalonia), Candidatura d\u2019Unitat Popular (the Popular Unity Candidacy), and Convergence and Union swim in lies, and hide themselves behind their fortress of belief. Not to mention the ambiguity of Unidos Podemos (United We Can) that will never develop a clear thing\u201d.<\/p>\n After much pondering, the transexual activist hase voted for the centre-right Ciudadanos (Citizens): “At least, they have a clear idea of what a state should be. They prefer peace, to a civil war or similar. I choose them even if it means compromise, even if I don’t agree on everything. We can always rally against those unacceptable points, but exceptional decisions need to be taken during exceptional times.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pier\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Letizia<\/strong> Barcelona launched a referendum to asses Catalonia\u2019s separation, which is in violation of the Spanish constitution. The Madrid police\u2019s sensational operations have been overly violent and excessive: wounded hundreds of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":16203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[566,567,551],"tags":[2192,2193,2182,1766,2183,1268,770],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16299"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16300,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16299\/revisions\/16300"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ntranslation by Barbara Burgio<\/strong>
\n\u00a92017 Il Grande Colibr\u00ec<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"