Wednesday 23 June 2010

Catalunya Acció sues Adidas

Coinciding with the debut -and first loss- of the Spanish team in the World Cup, the President of Catalunya Acció has made public the denounce that this organization presented at the end of February against Adidas, sponsor of the Spanish team for flagrant breach of the Law of Linguist Politics. The suing was admitted by the Catalan Agency of Consumers. Moreover, Santiago Espot 'seriously observes all the official sponsors and providers of the Spanish team' and all the firms sited in Catalonia that show any collaborationism, affinity or sympathy for Spain' will be put under 'strict surveillance' and will be sued should they commit any offense or fault.
santiago espot, catalunya acció
Catalunya Acció frames these actions as one step forward in its task 'for the Catalan sports teams and for the full normalization of our language'.

Catalunya Acció assures that, 'with all legal and democratic means conceded by the Estatute' will survey the companies supporting Spain, reserving the 'patriotic right and duty' to present such denounces.






                                                                                                                          Santiago Espot
                                                                                                                      CEO Catalunya Acció




Published at directe.cat

Tuesday 22 June 2010

Força Catalunya and I

The title is not an act of personalism. Simply, it is to explain my relationship with what it will be, surely, a new political actor in this country. Or, in other words, the reasons why I link my political action with a project I am one of the promoters. I know that the critics and the predictions of catastrophe about our initiative will be present; but it is strong, a lot stronger, the urge and the need of being able to offer Catalans a political alternative for independence, where the influence of Spain and its Catalan satellites will be inexistent. Now it is the moment, and I am sure that will succeed.

It is habitual to hear that, in front of the possibility of creating a new political party, its possibilities to succeed are remotes, or near to impossible. To affirm this is to recognize the great power of the actual parties, and is understandable. Really, when somebody sees the acquisitive presence of the Parliamentary parties in the media, it is normal to think that beginning from scratch and compete with them is very difficult. We reduce it all to the minutes that we might appear on the screen. It seems like the dictatorship of the mass media is invincible. Talent and audacity without great informative coverage are sterile, we believe. I shall not be so ingenuous to negate the importance of a certain continuous presence in the media to have possibilities in an electoral contest. However, reading where the collective state of mind of the electorate is little consistent. Do we know what people want? How can we know it?

From a few years ago, the study of what people want is the centre of the strategy of the political parties within the Parliament. They have definitevely renounced to convince about an idea -any idea-, to make a simple discourse adapted to the most generalized opinion. Everybody plays the score of the surveys because nobody is able to change the collective state of mind. What is important is not what is best for the people but what is closest to what the surveys say. When everything reduces to tactics of percentages, discourses empoverish and people drive away of their leaders even though they believe they know what we think. They believe they know the thoughts of their voters, and abstention is majority. Either the surveys are wrong or politicians do not know how to say what the people want.

I may affirm that Força Catalunya will not be moved by surveys. Does Centre d'Estudis d'Opinió -important company that produces surveys- say that we are not enough supporters of independence? Ramon Llull affirmed "Qui no persevera, no va" -who does not persevere, does not go-. We will apply the recipe of the Majorcan wise man and we shall not lose our spirit until winning the great majority of Catalans. Our effort will be to make see the sons of Catalonia that not being the rulers of our own destiny, we cannot expect anything profitable. Do we have to openly denounce those who develop politics influenced by Spain and that will become a nuissance? We only know too well that by wanting to please people, no Nation has become free. As we do not ignore that occupied countries continue to be occupied because its native inhabitants are accomplices of the politics that make it possible. Will we have to face, openly and hardly, the Spanish and French power? We shall do so with the weapons of dialectics, courage and intelligence. Moreover, our discourse and attitude will denote the firmness needed to win respect from the enemies of Catalonia.

The message from Força Catalunya will be not complicated to be understood and will speak clearly, among other things, because we have had no contact with the official politics after francoism. We have neither set foot in any official office nor we have participated in any government.

Will we be told that only with a message for independence nobody can convince Catalans? There is not better political program than that who aspirates to freedom. In fact, in Catalonia, all politics that is not openly for independence is reactionary. This is why we have the obligation to constitute Força Catalunya. The tool of those Catalans who are not willing to lenghthen the beginning of the process that has to finish with the constitution of the Catalan State. The success will depend on all those who are willing to do take it. Those who alredy are in it and who will come.

Santiago Espot
CEO Catalunya Acció and promoter Força Catalunya
Published at El Punt (May 13th, 2010)

Tuesday 15 June 2010

Speech by Daniela Grau at Elna, Northern Catalonia


Speech made by Daniela Grau, member of Catalunya Acció, on Sunday May 16th 2010, during the acts organized with the Institut de Projecció Exterior de la Cultura Catalana (IPECC) and the Elna Town Council, remembering the massacre of 1285 at the Cathedral of the city, one of the most cruel episodes of the French Crusade against Catalonia.



Cathedral of Elna

Dear Compatriots,

how lucky we are! -despite our secular disgraces as conquered nations, and still colonized -, being able to tell so many stories about our ancestors, with the Chronicle by Bernat Desclot in the 13th Century. Moreover, we may follow the formation of the first Counties, I mean, the very Catalonia itself. As for two historians specialists in the topic, J Bolós and V. Hurtado, we have in the Rosselló, Conflent, Vallespir and Fenollet more than 600 documents earlier that 991, more than any other region within the Caroligian Empire, which extended from the Elba to the Danube. We are the memory of Europe, so too in the Middle Ages.

Nowadays, the intellectual compromised proclaim the need of the Historical Memory. This is that the Maternity of Elna has become in the last few years the most coinciding place of memory in Northern Catalonia, where some 80 girls bear the name of Elna.

To encourage our people to remember the traumas of 1939, silenced for more than 70 years, is easier, more permissible, more successful than making more ancient traumas know, voluntarily manipulated or hidden for centuries, as it is generally our History. Because by not owning a Catalan State, not having own Government, we cannot have our own elaborated school teachings. We are ignorant of our own History and cannot extract any lessons.

In the case of the massacre of Elna -May 25th 1285- by French troops commanded by the King Philip le Hardi -stratagem-, there is, without a doubt, a supplementary reason to hide; the admittance of the responsibility and guilt of a traitor Catalan leader, and, the analysis of his reasons and not distorting the context, as it was done half a century later by another Chronicler, Ramon Muntaner.

Ignoring the mistakes is condemning oneself to repeat them.

Elna had not been besieged nor massacred should James II King of Majorca, Count of the Rosselló  and the Cerdanya, Lord of Montpeller, unduly mystified as 'the good King James', had not betrayed his own word, if he had respected the agreement signed six years before with his brother, Peter, King of Catalonia-Aragon. James had compromised to help Peter against the enemies and to maintain the within Rosselló the Uses of Barcelona and the Constitutions of Catalonia. Elna had not been demolished, its women raped, children thrown against the walls, the churches burnt, had not been so ingenuous as to fall in the sarcastic traps of the French King, who had the consent and the help from the Pope, to take possession of Catalonia. James knew two years before about the massacre, July 1283, when the invasion of Catalonia was the target of the Papal Crusade. During the spring of 1285, the French King concentrated an army of such power as "from an earlier century, the French Crown had not joined". The day after Easter, King Peter came to Perpinyà to speak to his brother and to stop the invasion, but James, fatigued, confined for two days in his quarters and preferred to escape through the sewers of the Royal Palace of Perpinyà, abandoning his wife and sons, and seek refuge at la Roca.

The population opposed a heroic resistance. First, Salses, the border between Catalonia and France, then el Voló and finally Elna. The Crusade finished with the victory of the King Peter, called the Great, defeating the French at the Coll de Panissars -Albera, and the death of Philip le Hardi.

James II gave the Country to the enemy, because he trusted the supposed foreign ally instead of his own brother. He trusted a foreign power more than his own, the Catalan people. Ai las! Unfortunately for us, the cradle of Catalonia, its North, History repeated again, when the Rosselló was given as ransom. It was sacrificed in exchange of a supposed help from the French, who took profit by invading the territory. However, we continued heroically resisting the invaders during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, until the annexation to France in 1659.

And today, if we remain still here, 350 years after, is because we have remained loyal to Catalonia.

We wish, then, that this commemoration allow us to find again our memory and to reinforce the national conscience. Animating us to unmask the leaders who keep Catalonia under foreign rule, and may turn the owners of our destiny. We thank IPECC, the Institute for the Projection of the Catalan Culture for its participation, and Mr Garriga Trullols for his active collaboration. IPECC commemorates every year transcendental events for our History like the victory at Coll de Panissars and the memory of Francesc Macià at Prats de Molló, and contributes now to unveil the illustrious city of Elna, the ancient Iberian Illiberis, martyr city in the 13th century. As the historian Josep Termes said "the Nation is the result of the past and the History, but is also future will-power: Catalonia, independent State".

Daniela Grau
Elna May 16th, 2010

Friday 11 June 2010

Only States may confederate.


Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida, leader of Unio Democràtica de Catalunya 'I am not supporter of the independence of Catalonia, I am confederalist'.

Commentary;

Mr Duran i Lleida, to say 'I am confederalist', at this moment, and also in the last century, might sound very pleasant to win the votes of all those who are NOT INFORMED or others like you, who know that the confederation of Catalonia with Spain is impossible, because of the simple reason that Spain does not want to confederate. Spain does not even respect that shit of "Estatut" cut and planed of that 30th September (2006), still waiting for the sentence by the Constitution Tribunal.

When you say "I will not bring forward a ballot for independence during the elections", you have all the right of doing so, but what I think is that the facts and the freedom process of Catalonia will go through you, above and beyond Convergència and Unió, and your connivance with Spain will be uncovered and a lot of your voters, a lot of those who voted affirmatively for the independence of Catalonia will rethink very soon whether they have to give their support to a project that still trust the Spaniards, who, instead of preparing the rupture with that group of thieves and usurpers and the new Catalan State, helps Spain in the aim of destroying Catalonia.

Do not make us laugh, Mr Duran i Lleida, and do not embroil the unwary people, you should know -you know it well, though, that a Confederation is established between two sovereign States and not between two autonomous communities, so that if you are really 'confederalist', stop being silly and start working for the urgent independence of Catalonia and for the establishment of the future Catalan State. Then, you could prepare yourself for an eventual confederation with the other Catalan speaking, culture and tradition countries, demonstrating that you are not a true liar.

Catalan independence and its supporters will remove all regionalist traitors and collaborationists with the enemies of Catalonia.

Prepare yourselves, Mr Duran i Lleida and colleagues, your time is arriving. The time to settle up the matter with Catalonia.

Josep Vilalta.
President of Berguedans per la Independència de Catalunya

Salvador Molins
Member BIC and Counsellor Catalunya Acció

Tuesday 8 June 2010

Now it is necessary to get the engines running for Independence from within the Parliament

Catalunya Acció is not doing otherwise but following its strategy towards the achievement of the Independence of Catalonia around 2014, the objective proclaimed at its birth in 2004.

To achieve our independence, two forces must be active. One comes from outside the Parliament, the other comes from within. Naturally, it is absolutely necessary that these forces target their objectives to one direction, the independence of Catalonia.

The forces from outside have already begun and are up and running to achieve it -Catalunya Acció, the ballots, 10Mil and other multiple organizations and platforms.

Now it is necessary to bring the discourse for independence to the Parliament, we need to start the second engine. So that is the task and goal for Força Catalunya.

Salvador Molins
Counsellor Catalunya Acció