It's a real tsunami against repression and for freedom. For the second day in a row, more than 200,000 young people have filled the streets of central Barcelona in the demonstration of the Sindicat d'Estudiants, and tens of thousands more have done so in Tarragona and other Catalan cities. Although the mass media continue the campaign of criminalization, the general strike of today's October 18 is a tremendous success and the youth is playing a fundamental role in it.
Once again we have overflowed the streets. The third day of student strike organized by the Sindicat d'Estudiants has completely emptied the universities and institutes throughout Catalonia. But if yesterday we already felt a force and a confidence difficult to match, the massive and peaceful demonstrations this morning have made it clear that we are going to win this battle.
Floods and floods of young people have taken the Plaça Universitat of Barcelona from the first hour, to punctually, at 12 o'clock in the morning, start a new march that has been presided over by two enormous banners signed by the Sindicat d'Estudiants and Esquerra Revolucionària with the following slogans: “For the Catalan republic of the people, the workers and the young. Stop the Francoist repression. General strike!”
Just like yesterday, the demonstration took place peacefully in an electric and exciting atmosphere, with tens and tens of thousands of voices chanting the slogans that have become popular in these historic days: "Llibertat presos polítics", "Els carrers seran sempre nostres", "Som república", “La nostra sentència, independència!”, “Li diuen democràcia i no ho és!", "Catalunya Antifeixista!", "Fora les forces d'ocupació", "Vaga general", "Aqueste judici és una farsa". [In English: “Freedom for political prisoners”, “The streets will always be ours”, “We are the Republic!”, “Our sentence is independence!”, “They call it democracy, but it isn’t!”, “Antifascist Catalonia!”, “Occupation forces, get out!”, “General strike!”, “The sentence is a farse!”]
The constant interventions of the SE comrades have been loudly applauded, as well as the final speech of Coral Latorre, secretary general of the SE, before a crowded Plaça of Sant Jaume. What immense strength and determination of the youth. Exactly the same as the one that will be seen again this afternoon in Barcelona and in dozens of localities, during the massive demonstrations that will fill the streets culminating today's General Strike 18.
Police repression and infiltration
We have to say things clearly. In the last few days we have witnessed an uprising of a dignified people, who fight not only against an infamous sentence of a court filled with Francoists, but also claim their legitimate right to decide and their commitment to a republic that overcomes the nightmare represented by the regime of 1978.
These days we have also witnessed a massive, civic and peaceful response against the savage repression of the Mossos and the national police, which, as numerous alternative media are demonstrating, includes the active participation of police infiltrators who provoke altercations and violence, while at the same time complying with the fascists who attack defenceless youth.
We are living a campaign of lies, calumnies and propaganda of Spanish nationalism, unworthy and nauseating. They consciously hide the enormous mobilizations of these days, to put the fixed photo in the burned containers, many of them by the action of the infiltrators, and thus be able to accuse with impunity the Catalan people and youth of "violence" and "terrorism". They can’t deceive us.
This is not the first time in history that this type of manoeuvre has taken place. The objective of the regime of 1978, of the Government of the PSOE surrendered to it, of Cs and the PP, is none other than to try to isolate the struggle of the people of Catalonia from the rest of the State, introducing maximum confusion. It has to do so in order to conceal the fact that they are the only ones who, making use of what they call "legitimate violence", prevent democracy with truncheons, imprison those who organise a referendum and condemning them to incredible penalties, and give wings to Spanish nationalism, the same that plunged this country into a dictatorship that our parents and grandparents endured for almost forty years.
But the people and the youth of Catalonia have taught everyone a lesson. To those who call for more police repression, or ask for a state of emergency. To the Catalanist right that installed in the Government fills its mouth with "disobedience" while at the same time sending the mossos to beat us to see if we abandon the streets, and maintains in his position a minister of Interior that should have been fulminantly dismissed.
But above all, we the movement of millions of workers, young people and ordinary people that today leading a general strike for democratic rights, point out to that Spanish parliamentary left that takes a step back, washes its hands like Pontius Pilate and gives us sermons so that we are submissive and accept the injustice of the system. On the next April 14, many of these leaders will walk around with the tricolor flag, but when it is time to support an entire people fighting for the republic, they cling to the skirts of monarchic legality and hide behind their seats.
It is more than evident that in the Catalan national liberation movement there is a growing clash between the hundreds of thousands of young people, workers and broad sectors of the population who want to carry to the end the struggle for a republic, and those delaying tactics of the Catalanist right that has a decisive weight in the Government.
This contradiction has become evident these days with the repression of the mossos and the demands for the resignation of the councillor of Interior, Buch, or in the opposition to the policies continued with the cuts and privatizations. That is why we must draw lessons from the experience of these years. It is necessary that all the political and trade union left, and all the social movements, raise a plan of action prolonged in time, with a clear calendar of general strikes that generates the massive support of the population.
Achieving a resistance movement of this magnitude requires making it clear that we are fighting for a socialist republic for the benefit of the exploited and the excluded, and not so that the usual economic oligarchy will continue in power, even if it is enveloped with the Estelada. A republic that nationalises the fundamental levers of the economy, the banks and the big monopolies, and that puts a definitive end to the nightmare of social cuts, to the lack of public and affordable housing, to precariousness and miserable wages, to patriarchal violence and the destruction of the environment. We will also convince the workers and youth of the rest of the State, and many others in Catalonia, that this republic and this cause is also theirs.
Nothing and no one will prevent us from conquering the right to decide and the Catalan republic of workers and youth.
Join the Sindicat d'Estudiants!
We need a revolution!
