On October 1, 2017, we carried out the most significant act of collective civil disobedience of our lives; it will remain etched in our retinas and our minds forever. The reality we lived cannot be erased: the occupation of polling places to ensure they opened, the tension over whether the ballot boxes and papers would arrive, and those who stood guard to warn if the occupying forces approached. Nor can the indignation we felt be erased, as we witnessed the true face of the Spanish State — violent, destructive and imperialist — a far cry from the democratic standards we believed our society had attained.
On October 1st, we did not just vote: we exercised the right to self-determination as a people, showing the world our democratic maturity, while Spain showed, frankly, that it remains anchored in the past. What made that historic day possible was not back-offices or political parties, but the self-organised people’s power, the collective strength of the people. That is the most valuable lesson of 1-O: when a people becomes an active subject and organises itself, it is unstoppable.
The current government of the Generalitat of Catalonia seeks to impose a false narrative of normality, while the judicial coup continues. We have many recent examples: the peaceful Catalan activists accused of terrorism in the so-called Operation Judas, for whom amnesty is still being refused, and those who have lived in exile for eight years. The ruling by Spain’s Superior Court of Justice in Catalonia that imposes 25% Spanish in schools is yet another attempt to undermine our language across the Catalan Countries.
Democratic regeneration will not come from political parties shackled by the Spanish political and mental framework, but from the building of structures of people power — direct, assembly-based, transformative — tools of a struggle fed by Assemblea and by the self-organisation of the people.
It is necessary to find the tools for political parties that still call themselves independentist to be compelled to bring independence back to the centre of their action. For this reason, Assemblea’s strategy is clear and cannot be delayed: to serve as an organised , persistent, and disrupting counter-power, capable of dragging institutions in line with the will of the people. In this sense, the Catalan National Assembly commits to pressuring them from the organised civil movement, and we count on each of you to make it happen.
From the Catalan National Assembly we invite you to continue moving forward, to make your voice heard and not to trifle away that goal. We are convinced that, as a people, we have the strength to do it.
We are the masters of our own destiny and we will not forego it. Our determination and our resistance, evidenced over more than three hundred years, are proof, and at the same time the key.
In the face of the might of a state anchored in the past, we will continue responding with the force of reason and with collective disobedience, as often as necessary, just as we did eight years ago. We have more reasons than ever.
Only Independence will make us free.
Long live the Catalan Republic within the Catalan Countries!