From National Holiday to Independence Day: Changing Perceptions of the “Diada”

Abstract

Issues related to Catalan secessionism are central to current debates on European integration, nationalism, and territorial politics, and the Catalan independence movement has become famous for its large annual demonstrations on Catalan national day, the Diada. This paper represents the first attempt at a thorough empirical investigation of the most important political event in Catalonia combining historical and ethnographic analysis that covers the current modern period from 1977 to 2019. This paper uses a mixed-methods approach to study the Diada mobilisations with two different main approaches determined principally by the availability of sources. We investigate the recent period of activating the Diada since 2012 using qualitative interviews, ethnographic data, and social media analysis. For the more distant periods of the Diada celebration, we use a more classical historical approach centred on discourse analysis of print media and public discourses. We find that there has been a marked shift in the perception and organisation of the Diada in recent years. We conclude that when civil society organisations are in charge of the Diada celebration, the result is a more politically charged event that mobilises a much larger proportion of the population than when politicians and political parties organise the celebration. Further, when political parties are in charge, the Diada not only mobilises far fewer people, but usually takes on a much more cultural and festive character compared with the explicitly political Diada demonstrations organised by civil society actors since 2012.

Corporeal performance in contemporary ethnonationalist movements: the changing body politic of Basque and Catalan secessionism

“…Catalonia’s greatest historical landmark in its relationship to Spain is 1714, when the Principality of Catalonia lost its relative autonomy, as part of the Crown of Aragon, to the Spanish crown in the War of Spanish Succession (1701–1714). Catalonia’s National Day Diada commemorates this loss and today has become the greatest pro‐independence rally (Humlebæk and Hau 2020). In the 19th century, the Catalan Renaixença affected a cultural and linguistic revival of Catalan consciousness (Conversi 1997), which culminated in the foundational text of modern political Catalanism written by Enric Prat de la Riba in 1906, La nacionalitat catalana .…”

“…The 2010 Constitutional Court rejection of the Catalan use of the word ‘nation’ as opposed to ‘nationality’ for the region, among other points, drove a million Catalans into the streets under the banner ‘We are a nation, we decide’. The successes of the mobilisation of the civil sphere made formal politics shift toward the idea of independence (Dowling 2018; Humlebæk and Hau 2020). The 2015 regional elections resulted in the first pro‐independence government in Catalonia, which in October 2017 organised a referendum outlawed by the Constitutional Court.…”

“…The current secessionist fervour in Catalonia has been recognised for its overwhelmingly festive and peaceful nature (Humlebaek and Hau 2020), and it is not comparable to the decades-long confrontation in the Basque Country. Centralist voices, however, were quick to draw comparisons.…”

Bridging Regionalism and Secessionism: Territorial Autonomy Movements in the Iberian World

“…Two years later, however, any ambivalence was gone. The banners and speeches at the marches celebrating the Diada (Catalonia’s national holiday) in 2012, and the even larger events in 2013 and 2014, advocated “the right to decide,” which then unambiguously referred to a popular vote on Catalonia’s independence from Spain (Humlebæk and Hau 2020). The direct democracy frame also came to inform other protest tactics.…”