Catalonia Notes

   Barcelona is a city with a very special flavour. The first thing that catches your eye on the way from the airport are the very few cars for a two-million city and a large number of motorcycles. Almost everybody has one here. There are also bicycles, but significantly fewer. This is how Barcelonans have solved the traffic issue.

   Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, one of the rebellious Spanish provinces, besides the Country of Basques and Galicia. Catalonians have their own language related to Spanish, yet different. On the contrary, the language of Basques is riot related to any known linguistic family. During the Franco years the Catalonian language was forbidden and after the death of the dictator it was allowed to be spoken in public places. Today street signs and subway directions are written In Catalonian along with Spanish, however, it has received official status only in 2006.

   The left movement in Catalonia is diverse. On the streets one can see leaflets of numerous parties and groups, the majority in Catalonian. Among the street posters I took pictures of are signs in Catalonian: "Esquerra independista des Barcelones" - " The left of Barcelona for independence" , "Combatem el feixisme" - " We will win over fascism!", leaflets of solidarity with the resistance in Greece and announcements of the ecologists' rallies. The national question has a big significance in Catalonia. Both among the communists and among social-democrats there are two tendencies: one for complete independence of Catalonia, and another for a federalist solution with broad autonomy. The comrades who invited me to Barcelona represent the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC) created in the 1930s as a result of the merger of several groups, Communist Party of Spain (Marxist-Leninist) (PCE(m-l)), which has recently joined a coalition with the Proletarian Union, and Communist Party of the Catalan People and its youth organization Young Communists of the Catalan People. In May 2008 in Catalonia an interparty association was created -Association of Solidarity with the Republic of Belarus - under which many different parties and movements collaborate.

   I would like to point out a few features specific to life in Barcelona, which I have noticed, unlike tourists who are always shown the glossy side of life. There quite a few homeless people in the city living on the sidewalks of large streets and right on the streets in the neighbourhoods. In the neighborhoods the streets are not divided into a sidewalk and a street proper. They are all one: people walk where the cars and motorcycles run, and the homeless live along the edges. Barcelona is by no means Moscow, but in winter the temperature here reaches zero. Another peculiar feature of Barcelona is that television is not free, but costs a lot as for local standards. On the second day of my visit to Barcelona we searched for place to eat and could not find a vacant spot, even though the reasonably priced cafes were on every corner. Local comrades explained: a soccer game between Barcelona and Madrid was on that night and all soccer fans, which means the entire population of Spain, those of them who do not have television at home flooded cafes and pubs so that there was no room for a needle to drop.

   Today, one of the centres of resistance of Barcelona is its University. At the entrance or the main building one can see a poster with a crossed out number 65. This means a protest against the introduction in Spain of the law about a 65(!) hour work week. Since November the main building of the University has been occupied by the students who protest against introduction of the Bologna system. The two cornerstones of the reform, which caused the students' rage are privatisation of student buildings and introduction of the two-level education system. Above the door of the second floor is a slogan in ' Spanish; "Estudiante unido jamas sera vensido" - "The students united will never be defeated" , a modified version of the slogan of the Spanish Republic "The people united will never be defeated". Here is the meaning of other posters and slogans: "Today you are a university graduate, tomorrow - a blue collar worker" and "No to Bologna system!" Many students who participate in the action live, eat and sleep right here on the territory of the occupied buildings. On the second floor blankets are laid out and tents are put up. Students actively discuss the Greek experience of the last several weeks. To us it is a shock to hear that police in Spain (as well as in Greece) has no right to enter a university. According to the protesters, the government already was compelled to make some concessions, however, the protesters were determined to defend their rights to the end. The beginning of a new semester after the Christmas break is uncertain. On agenda is the general student strike. I must note that students do not limit themselves with just local demands. A good portion of their slogans are about international solidarity, in particular the hottest topic of the last few weeks - Israel's aggression in Gaza. The posters and stickers in support of the Palestinians can be seen everywhere in the city, and that same evening we visited a Palestinian home in Barcelona.

   There are Palestinian and Lebanese cafes in the city, and many of them, however, we were asked not to take pictures for security reasons. As of January 10th, already after my departure in Barcelona was scheduled a huge demonstration against Israel's aggression, and now as I write these lines, it has already happened. A hundred thousand people came to the University square to show their rage.

   I would like to express a big thank you to all my friends who hosted me in Catalonia.

   Maria Donchenko