Castellers (Catalan tradition) raising the Palestinian flag during this year's march for Catalonia's National Day in the city of Tarragona, Catalonia.
Video posted by Comunitat Palestina Catalunya.
Catalonia commemorates its national day on the 11th of September to remember the resistance in the War of the Spanish Succession, which ended in Catalonia with the end of the Siege of Barcelona on the 11th of September of 1714.
In this war, Castilla (Spain) invaded the Catalan Countries and Aragon. To capture the last resisting points in Catalonia —Barcelona (the capital city) and the Cardona Castle—, the Spanish and French troops surrounded them in a siege. A siege is one of the cruellest ways to force a population to surrender, leaving them cut off from the rest of the world, with no food coming in, no fresh water coming in, and no medicine or other medicinal materials (in the 1700s, ice that was brought from the mountains and had to be brought daily was one of the most important materials for medicine).
Even though in the first few months Barcelona had already run out of food, the people and institutions decided to keep resisting, because they knew of the massacres, destruction, and oppression that the Spanish Bourbons were unleashing on the conquered lands. Thousands of Barcelonians died of hunger and illnesses, which spread quickly among a population that has been left weak due to starvation and from illnesses caught by eating rotten food, rats, or anything else they could find to survive.
At that point in history we have to add a new horror: bombings. Up until that moment, artillery was used against the city walls. The army's idea was to bomb the city walls so they could demolish part of it and then get the army to enter the city through that broken part of the wall. Aiming with a 17th century cannon isn't easy, and for this reason the bombs often ended inside the city. The armies didn't particularly care, but it was not where they were aiming. However, in the Nine Years' War (1688-1697), the French army had started a new strategy: bombing the civilian population on purpose. Isn't the point of a siege to force people into the situation of "either surrender or die", putting their lives at risk and causing terror? Bombing them contributed to that. It's considered that the first time they tried this strategy was during the Siege of Barcelona in 1697. Soon, the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1715) started, already with this new mindset. Only in the last 6 months of France and Spain's Siege of Barcelona in 1713-1714, they dropped 36,000 cannonballs on the city, which had a population of about 38,000 people.
After Castilla (Spain) finished its occupation, a period of extreme repression started. The king Philip V applied the so-called "right of conquest", considering all Catalan people a conquered population and also traitors for having fought for so long against him. He illegalized our language, institutions, laws, holidays and other cultural practises, as well as starting a period of military terrorism and forcing large parts of the cities' populations to demolish their own family homes with their own hands to make space for military fortresses for the Spanish Army. He started a system of Spanish supremacy that continued for years to come. The laws went so far as to even ban Catalan children from playing with kites, believing that all Catalans are suspects and that children could be sending secret messages.
Every year we hold marches on the 11th of September, the anniversary of the fall of Barcelona in that war, to commemorate the Catalan resistance in that war and all the dark times that came after it, and to ask for our rights, self-determination, and national liberation.
Needless to say, this year in all the marches around Catalonia there were many Palestinian flags next to the flags of Catalan independence. The machines of war and occupation have not stopped becoming more lethal. It once seemed that nothing could be more inhumane than starving and bombing civilians, yet now next to the same bombings there are drones trained to target journalists, schools, hospitals, and children. Israel —with weapons and impunity provided by the USA and EU— considers that every Palestinian, including children and newborns, is an enemy that needs to be exterminated. Israel wants to steal Palestinian land to fulfill their colonial dream of creating an ethnostate where only one nationality, one religion, and one way of being is allowed. And they want to do it in someone else's homeland.
But the peoples of the world will show them that the age of empires is over.
Boycott all presence of Israel in sports, cultural, academic events. Boycott the brands that collaborate with the genocide and apartheid. Be loud about it. Force all states to sanction Israel and to enact a full blockade of economic and diplomatic relations with Israel. Leave it isolated, until it doesn't have the material means to continue the massacres and apartheid. It was done with South Africa, it can be done again.
The new brand Fuze Tea is also owned by Coca-Cola.
An easy way to not forget anything is to download the app No Thanks. You can scan any barcode and it tells you if that brand is complicit with Israel's genocide or not.
