Poesia Catalana

This is how the Spanish police is arresting journalists who report on the Catalonia protests.

This man is Albert Garcia, a photographer for El País newspaper. And he was wearing the journalists' accreditation.

This night (18th-19th October 2019) he got brutally beaten up by the Spanish police when he was taking photos of the police brutality against the protestors.

Since Monday, all around Catalonia there have been thousands and thousands of people non-stop protesting against the incarceration of 9 more Catalan political prisoners, and to demand an end to Spanish repression and occupation of Catalonia. The protests were peaceful until the police started brutally charging, throwing gas, shooting FOAM and rubber bullets (at least 1 man has officially lost his eye for being hit by one of them, others are in hospital and might lose their eyes too, another has lost 40% of testicular mass), hundreds have had to be attended at hospitals, and then the cops go to the hospitals to identify and arrest victims. At least 5 people have been jailed after being arrested protesting this week, and 110 others have been arrested. Spain has also taken down websites of peaceful pro-independence Catalan organizations, considered them terrorists when they've never committed any crime and just wanted a peaceful solution and for the Spanish government to listen to the demands of Catalan people. Spain still refuses to meet and talk about it.

Catalan independentist stickers from the 1970s.

language moodboard  ✧ catalan (català)

Best train rides in the Catalan Countries 1/7:

Tren del País Càtar i de la Fenolleda, known as the Red Train. This train travels for 60 km (37 miles) from Ribesaltes (Northern Catalonia) to Atsat (Occitania). It crosses the two regions mentioned in its name: the Cathar Country (the Department of Aude, a land full of castles where the Cathar religion flourished in the Middle Ages) and the Fenolhedés (the Occitan-speaking shire that has historically been considered a unity with Northern Catalonia), as well as a part of Northern Catalonia.

The train travels through vineyards, green valleys and plateaus, and stops at different villages with Medieval architecture.

Era Querimònia: how the tiny Val d’Aran was a self-governed free country with no feudalism from the 1200s until 1834

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:

After the battle of Muret in 1213, where the Crusaders and the Kingdom of France defeated the Catharists (an sincretic religion that interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ based on a life without luxury, which was very spread in Occitania and part of Catalonia and greatly persecuted for centuries by the Catholic Church) and the Catalan and Aragonese army, France occupied all the Occitan territories and started an enormous persecution of the Catharists that lasted for over two centuries, until their annihilation.

WHAT IS THE ARAN VALLEY?:

The Aran Valley (in Aranese, the local dialect of Occitan, Val d’Aran) is a small valley situated in the middle of the Pyrenees mountain range, at the southern part of Occitania, bordering Catalonia in its South and East, and Aragon in the South-West. Because of their situation, the Val d’Aran was given the choice: follow the rest of Occitania and be occupied by France, or become part of its neighbor and ally Catalonia.

ARAN’S CHOICE:

Seeing the defeat of the Occitans, very closely related to the Catalans in language and culture and who shared political relationships until the defeat in Muret, the Aranese decided to join Catalonia, since Catalonia had promised to renognise the Valley’s own traditional organization.

The Val d’Aran, officially part of Catalonia, was de facto independent and kept its language, culture and organization under the protection of the Crown of Catalonia and Aragon.

ERA QUERIMÒNIA:

Many treatises and other documents were signed by Catalonia recognising Val d’Aran’s uniqueness, but the most important one is probably Era Querimònia (in the photo above). This document was signed in 1313 by king James II of Catalonia and Aragon recognising that

the Aranese forests, mountains, water, fishing and hunting are common property only of the Aranese people. They can’t belong to any private person, and can be used by all inhabitants.

Aranese people do not work for the king, there is no royal servitude in Aran

that Val d’Aran has the right to its own political administration, law and its own traditional economic system

that the Valley is not under the rule of the Catalan-Aragonese kings, and the Aranese people are not subjects of any king. But Aran is directly tied and protected by the House of Barcelona (the kings of Catalonia-Aragon), meaning that it is protected from the fights between different feudal lords.

As a result, Val d’Aran was a self-governed, feudalism-free country for centuries, and nowadays most of the Valley is still public property.

Era Querimònia remained the law regulating the relationship between Val d’Aran and Catalonia from 1313 until 1839, when Spain abolished the Aranese self-government.

SPAIN’S INVASION OF CATALONIA AND ARAN’S FATE:

In the year 1714, Catalonia lost the War of Spanish Succession and lost its independence: losing its own government institutions, the right to speak the Catalan language, its traditonal law system (much more democratic than the Spanish one) and became a possession of Spain where the Spanish language and culture had to be imposed, and governed by Spanish “gobernadores” appointed by the Spanish monarchy. (We talked about that in this post)

But the Aran Valley remained the only part of the former Catalan-Aragonese territories with its traditional laws and institutions. Spain could not manage to control the tiny valley shielded by the mountains.

But in 1834, the Kingdom of Spain suspended the Conselh General d’Aran (“General Council of Aran”, Aran’s traditional government) and imposed in the Valley the new Spanish administrative system of provinces, forcing Aran inside the Lleida province.

The Aranese language could not be legally used in schools or documents, and it suffered especially brutal repression during the fascist dictatorship of general Franco in Spain (1939-1975), but the language resisted in the people and is still spoken nowadays.

VAL D’ARAN’S RIGHTS NOWADAYS:

After the ending of the fascist dictatorship, the different cultures under Spanish rule got some of their rights restored, such as the ending of language persecution (even if we still face discrimination nowadays). In the first moment, Aran was integrated into the Spanish administrative unit of Catalonia.

On 17th June 1991, after 156 years, the Conselh General d’Aran was restored. This day is celebrated in the valley as the Hèsta d’Aran (the Festivity of Aran).

The regional Government of Catalonia has since recognised the Aranese government as an equal, and the Aranese government has the power in the Aran Valley on most matters. Both governments hold frequent meetings where the Aranese expose their demands. The Aran Valley is also not integrated into the Catalan administrative system of comarques (shires), but is instead the only parçan (the traditional Occitan administrative region) of Catalonia.

The Aranese language is official in all of Catalonia and is the language used in public education in the Aran Valley.

Catalonia also legally recognises the Aran Valley as its own nationality, and Catalan law even recognises the Val d’Aran’s right to self-determination, which means that any time the Aranese people want to they can vote on a referendum and become independent from Catalonia.

The problem is that these rights are recognised by the Government of Catalonia, but not by the Government of Spain, who holds the supreme power. Catalonia’s government has pledged to give even more self-rule to Aran once Catalonia becomes independent, since it can’t be done under Spanish law.

Aqüeducte de les Ferreres, known to locals as Pont del Diable (the Devil’s Bridge) is an Ancient Roman aqueduct in Tarragona, Catalonia.

In Catalonia, as well as in other parts of Southern Europe, there are many old bridges and aqueducts known to locals as the Devil’s Bridge. They are usually Roman constructions that were renamed in Medieval times, when peasants had forgotten how to build them and believed that only the Devil would be capable of doing it. In Tarragona, there are different versions of the legend, but the most well-known one says the following:

In Roman times there was a drough, and the city of Tarraco (modern Tarragona) needed water. They were building the aqueduct from cliff to cliff when a the strong winds of a storm destroyed it. The master builder, desperate, said that only the Devil could build a bridge to last for a thousand years.

At that moment, Satan appeared and said that he would build the bridge that night and that it would last forever. As payment, the Devil demanded the soul of the first inhabitant who drinks the water that the bridge would carry.

The Devil built the bridge and the next morning he was waiting at the other side, waiting to see who would drink first. Meanwhile, from the other side, the master builder and the workers showed him a donkey: the first inhabitant to drink from that water. The Devil, who was expecting a human soul, had to be content with a donkey’s.