Nearly 20 minutes into the latest clash between Spain's most popular
football teams, Barcelona's 98,000-seat Camp Nou stadium erupted into
a deafening roar. Tens of thousands of Catalans in the city at the
heart of their separatist movement chanted in unison: "Independence!"
More than ever, FC Barcelona, known affectionately as Barca, is living
up to its motto of being "more than a club" for this wealthy
northeastern region where Spain's economic crisis is fueling
separatist sentiment.
Lifelong Barca club member Enric Pujol was at Camp Nou for this
month's game against Real Madrid, the team of Spain's capital. Wearing
his burgundy-and-blue Barca jersey, Pujol also held one of the
hundreds of pro-independence "estelada" flags, featuring a white star
in a blue triangle, which bristled throughout the stands.
"It was a beautiful emotion to see Camp Nou like that," said Pujol.
"Barca is more than a club because of the values it transmits. It is
linked to Catalan culture. In this sense it is a club and a social
institution that acts like our flag."
Barca has been seen as a bastion of Catalan identity dating back to
the three decades of dictatorship when Catalans could not openly
speak, teach or publish in their native Catalan language. Barcelona
writer Manuel Vazquez Montalban famously called the football team
"Catalonia's unarmed symbolic army."
Barca-Real Madrid matches have a nickname: "el clasico" – the classic
– and they are one of the world's most-watched sporting events, seen
by 400 million people in 30 countries. But local passions run high. In
Spain, where football has deep political and cultural connotations,
many see the clashes of Spain's most successful teams as a proxy
battle between wealthy Catalonia and the central government in Madrid.
If Barca is a symbol of Catalan nationalism, Real Madrid is an emblem
of a unified Spain.
"Look, the truth is that ever since the Civil War there has always
been tension in Spain," said Pujol. "Having traveled in Spain, they
always look at us as Catalans."
Ahead of kickoff before any "clasico," Camp Nou traditionally greets
Real Madrid players with a huge mosaic of Barcelona's
burgundy-and-blue stripes made up of colored cards. This year, for the
first time, they held up cards forming the red-and-yellow striped
Catalan "senyera" flag – an explicit nationalist message. (Barca says
it can neither confirm nor deny reports that its away uniform next
season will be modeled on the senyera.)
Then came the crowd's collective shout for independence at 1714 hours
– in reference to the year 1714 when Barcelona fell to the troops of
Philip V in the War of Spanish Succession. It was organized by a
pro-independence group through social media.
Barca fan David Fort sees his team as a vehicle to show the world that
Catalonia has its own language and culture, which is distinct from
what he called the "bulls and flamenco" associated with Spain.
"We have this love for Barca because we have the chance to be
represented around the world," said Fort, a 38-year-old architect from
the southern Catalan town of Tarragona. "When we travel and they ask
me if I am Spanish, I say not exactly, but when I mention Barca they
say `Ah! The Catalan team', and of course since they are champions you
feel proud."
Barca, like every institution in Spain, was marked by the Spanish
Civil War of the late 1930s and resulting right-wing dictatorship that
ended after Franco's death in 1975.
Franco's soldiers killed Barca's club president in 1936, and the club
was forced to change its name from a Catalan to a Spanish version. And
while Real Madrid was identified with the regime, Barca, for many,
came to represent Catalan anti-fascist resistance.
"Under Franco, people could not shout `Long Live Catalonia!,' but they
could shout `Long Live Barca!' (¡Visca Barca!)" in Catalan, said
Ernest Folch, a newspaper columnist who writes about Barca for El
Periodico. The chant became a kind of code for expressing Catalan
pride.
"Barca is an anomaly. There is no other club with its particular
history," said Folch. "It survived the Franco dictatorship, and has
always been a focal point for protest and ferment where sport has
mixed with politics."
And politics is a very hot topic these days in Catalonia.
Voters will go to the polls on Nov. 25 in regional elections sure to
be judged as a litmus test of the strength of the pro-independence
movement that brought 1.5 million people to the streets of Barcelona
on Sept. 11 in the largest rally since the 1970s.
Catalonia is heavily in debt and has in fact asked Spain for a
(EURO)5.9 billion ($7.5 billion) bailout. Even so, regional lawmakers
voted on Sept. 27 to hold a referendum on self-determination at a date
still to be determined. And although it is still unclear that a "Yes"
vote would win, Spain's central government has called such a
referendum unconstitutional and will surely try to stop it from taking
place.
That all puts Catalonia, and therefore Barca, in the midst of Spain's
struggles to deal with consequences of back-to-back recessions, 25
percent unemployment, and high public debt that has drawn it into the
euro crisis along with already bailed-out Greece, Ireland and
Portugal.
Barca's appeal, of course, transcends its regional identity. The team
is beloved throughout the world, and a poll last year found that it
had displaced Real Madrid as Spain's most popular team. Barca has 546
fan clubs in Catalonia, and 841 in the rest of Spain. Some of these
fans_ even in Catalonia – disagree with what they perceive as the
political turn the club has taken in recent years.
"It's surreal to talk about these ideas related to independence," said
fan Jamie Easton, 27, a Spaniard born in Barcelona to a British father
and a mother of Catalan descent. "Barca is a Catalan and Spanish club
because Barcelona is part of Spain, and fans can feel however they
want."
The upswing in separatist sentiment in Catalonia has forced both the
club and its players_ many of whom form the backbone of Spain's world
champion national team – to try a difficult balancing act between
supporting their most fervent pro-independence fans without alienating
the millions of others who are not.
"We are Barca. We represent Catalonia and we will support whatever
Catalans want," said Barca and Spain midfielder Xavi Hernandez. But he
added: "We try to isolate ourselves from everything outside the game.
We know the political issue is there, and the people have the right to
express themselves however they wish, but we are here to play football
and make sure people have fun."
The glaring exception to the moderate tone is former coach Pep
Guardiola, a hugely popular figure in Catalonia, who appeared in a
video during the Sept. 11 march saying: "Here you have my vote for
independence."
Two weeks after the politically charged "clasico," Barca president
Sandro Rosell made his first official visit to southern Spain to cool
tensions at a meeting of Barca fan clubs.
"I don't know what information you are receiving here, but I preferred
to come here and say on behalf of the club that Barca will never get
mixed up in political issues," Rosell told the 1,000 Spanish fans,
promising that Barca would never display a mosaic of the separatist
"estelada" flag at Camp Nou.
"This doesn't mean that this isn't a Catalan club and that of course
we will defend our roots and origins, but one thing shouldn't be mixed
with the other. One thing is politics and the other is identity. Barca
unites us all."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/fc-barcelona-catalan-independence_n_2038634.html
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