The numbers are overwhelming for a little country of 7 million people. An unprecedented case in the world. Catalans have organised themselves acting as a State to organise a radical democratic display. 60000 volunteers (the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games gathered 30000 volunteers and was considered exceptional), 500000 million votes cast, 4 rounds of referendums and more than 400 towns and villages, including two of the Catalan capitals, Girona and Lleida. Yesterday the hashtag used to tweet about the referendum, #consultes, was at the top 4 trending topics in Spain during …

My favourite day of the year in Catalonia is La Diada de Sant Jordi, our Saint Patron. Not only it is usually a beautiful sunny but cool day in Barcelona but walking around with all the little stands ornamented with senyeres (the Catalan flag) selling roses and books is a delight. Couples and families strolling down the streets, the girls holding their roses and books. If there’s a day worth experiencing in Catalonia that day is definitely Sant Jordi. I make a point of celebrating it every year no matter …

Finally we’ve got a date, the last round, the capital, the last referendum for the independence of Catalonia will take place on April 2011. The organisers of Barcelonadecideix.cat met yesterday and debated about the date with the accumulated experience from the previous rounds of 13D, 28F and the soon to come 25A.
Conscious of the challenge it will pose the organizers have preferred to give themselves plenty of time since this time everyone will be watching. The Barcelona Council, currently with PSOE in power, will not help the organisation by …

(This is a translation for this article)
Recently it’s been made public that the strategy that the referendums’ National Coordinators want to follow is to promote a binding referendum using the brand new Catalan referendums law. On paper it looks good, we get the signatures. Then we take them to the Parliament, which will evidently approve it and then we take it to Madrid, where they’ll obviously deny it and then we have the conflict. Next we use the right to self-determination and under the supervision of the international bodies to …

Fa poc s’ha fet pública que l’estratègia que la coordinadora nacional de les consultes vol seguir és la d’impulsar un referèndum vinculant mitjançant la llei de consultes. Sobre el paper tot sembla molt bé, s’aconsegueixen les signatures, es porta a la mesa del Parlament, que evidentment l’aprovarà i finalment es porta a Madrid, ens la deneguen i tenim el conflicte servit. Després ens basem en el dret a l’autodeterminació i sota la supervisió dels organismes internacionals per a que la Generalitat convoqui el referèndum.
Tot això està molt bé sobre …