Precis

When Foreign Correspondent’s roving reporter Eric Campbell made Barcelona his base in 2016, he saw it as a place from which to cover stories, not a story in itself.

That all changed in 2017 when the Spanish government cracked down hard on an illegal independence referendum held by the regional Catalan government.

Thousands of national riot police descended on the Catalan capital of Barcelona, dragging voters away from polling stations, firing rubber bullets and locking up the movement’s leaders.

“They hurt us not only in our skin, they hurt us in our souls,” says one independence supporter. “This was a deep injury. I think it will never heal.”

The brutal repression of the vote provoked months of political turmoil and divided the city between those in favour of independence and those against.

To understand the push for independence, Eric traces today’s political passions back to the centuries-old tensions between centrist Spain and Catalonia, when Madrid first repressed the region’s distinct language and culture. Then to more recent history, when dictator Francisco Franco tried to kill off the Catalan language and traditions.

Today in Barcelona those traditions are very much alive.

Eric takes us behind the tourist traps to reveal a city still celebrating its culture, from the neighbourhood ‘castell’ – or human castle – competitions, to football games where independence chants are a feature of every match, to riotous medieval festivals with devils, giant puppets and fireworks.

As he farewells Barcelona after three years, Eric leaves a community divided politically, but united in its passion for its capital and culture.

This is an affectionate portrait of an incredible city at an incredible time.

Aerials. Barcelona/Choir sings

Music

00:00

Ext. Catalan Palace of Music. Campbell looks out of window

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  The Catalan Palace of Music is a cultural icon in the heart of Barcelona. It’s also my morning view.

00:29

Super:
Reporter
Eric Campbell

Music

00:43

Campbell walks onto street

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  I’ve lived in Barcelona for three years, experiencing one of Europe’s most extraordinary cities at an extraordinary time.

00:48

Aerials. Barcelona. City GVs

Straddling the northeast coast, it isn’t just Spain’s second largest city, it’s the capital of Catalonia, a region with its own language, traditions and a history of anarchism and separatism.

00:56

Vox pops at rally

ESTHER ORIOL: "I feel 100% Catalan, I don’t feel Spanish."

01:11

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  I’ve watched it mount a full-scale bid to secede from Spain.

"It feels like a bad marriage."

01:13

MAN ON STREET: "Yeah. A very bad marriage."

01:21

Police during referendum

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  I’ve witnessed the Spanish state spill blood to stop it, and seen a far right party rise up across the country, vowing to crush the separatists. Now, as I’m preparing to leave,

01:22

Campbell at football game with Jordi

I’m trying to make sense of why a community so welcoming has been so riven by conflict. And why so many want to split from a country I’ve come to love.

01:38

2017 referendum footage. Police presence in Barcelona

It was a weekend that changed everything. On September 30, 2017 I saw thousands of national police taking up positions around Barcelona. The regional Catalan government had defied the capital Madrid to call an illegal referendum on independence. Teachers, students and parents were occupying schools to ensure they could be used as polling stations.

02:00

Woman at school

YOUNG WOMAN: We’re going to try to make sure this stays open, that’s the plan.

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Now, what if the police order you to leave tomorrow, and stop people coming in to hold the vote.

YOUNG WOMAN: Well, that’s the worse-case scenario and we hope that doesn’t happen.

02:31

Police smashing in, beating people

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  At dawn, the worst case happened -- worse than anyone had feared. Elderly voters were dragged and clubbed. Unarmed civilians were shot with rubber bullets. And something broke in Catalonia’s heart.

02:41

CATALAN MAN: We are peaceful people, and we are not going against anyone.

03:04

Catalan man on street

It’s important that you speak with everybody and see what happened this day, because it’s super dramatic. They are fighting against us like 300 years ago.

03:08

Mural/Spanish conquest paintings

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  What I’d seen was the latest chapter in a story dating back to the 18^th century, when Spain first crushed Catalonia’s self-rule. After a long and bloody siege, Barcelona fell to the Spanish king on September 11, 1714. It remains Catalonia’s day of mourning.

03:17

Jordi with Campbell at football

JORDI RIVERA:  Since then, things have never been the same for Catalans.

03:44

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Jordi Rivera was the first Catalan friend I made here. Today, he’s showing me how the dream of independence is kept alive at Camp Nou, the home ground of FC Barcelona. Barça, as it’s known here, is playing a team from Madrid.

03:47

Eric:  "So which team is going to win here?"

Jordi: "Fully, Barça. There’s a big difference in the quality of the players, so in theory Barça has to won. But this is football. Anything can happen."

Eric:  "So it’s the best club in the world normally."

Jordi:  "Yeah."

Eric: Just maybe not today?"

04:07

Jordi: "Well not lately, but it’s the best team in the world."

04:26

Eric:  So Barça for Barcelonans, it’s more than just a sport, isn’t it?"

Jordi: "Yes. It’s more than a sport, it’s a place where people can express themselves."

04:36

Drummers

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Every home match still makes a sharp reference to Spain crushing Catalan rule in 1714. Seventeen minutes and 14 seconds into the game, people start chanting for independence.

04:50

Crowd chant

Crowd chant:  In- Indepe- Independencia!

05:04

Campbell and Jordi at football game

Jordi:  "Well, it represents the year when we lost the battle against the Spanish empire."

Eric:  "So at 17 minutes 14 seconds you have a siren to mark 1714."

Jordi:  "Yeah, to remember when we lost the battle."

Eric: "It was a long time ago, Jordi."

Jordi:  "Yeah, but we are still feeling the consequences of losing that battle."

Eric: "Okay."

05:13

Jordi:  "It was the moment that all the Catalan institutions were banned by the Spanish empire."

05:34

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Opinion polls suggest the Catalans are evenly split between staying with Spain and leaving. Some from the independence side still believe they can defeat the central government, just as Lionel Messi routinely scores to beat teams from Madrid. Madrid’s crackdown on the referendum hasn’t cowed them.

05:44

This is a very political town.

06:12

Campbell to camera

Not a week goes by that there's not some major demonstration in my neighbourhood, and tonight, it’s Junts Per Catalunya -- the Together for Catalonia group that was one of the key forces behind the independence referendum. And these days, many of their senior figures are or on the run or in jail.

06:17

Junts Per Catalunya rally

After the referendum, Madrid temporarily stripped Catalonia’s autonomy. Nine alleged ringleaders were detained without bail. Screens display how many days they’ve been in prison.

06:36

Jordi Sanchez, who headed a grassroots independence group, was charged with rebellion, leaving behind his wife Susanna Barreda and their three children.

06:50

Susanna at rally

SUSANNA BARREDA:  It seems like we have two lives, the one we had before 16th October 2017, which is the day he was put in pre-trial prison, and the current life. What the Spanish state is doing is putting their political adversaries in jail. It’s obvious they are in jail because of what they think.

07:01

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Tonight is a special occasion for her. It’s the end of the first national election campaign since the referendum. Her husband Jordi and some of his co-accused are running for the national parliament as they await their verdicts.

07:27

Susanna addresses rally

SUSANNA BARREDA: What they have to know is that together we will follow this path that we started, this path to freedom from which there is no going back.

07:44

Jordi Sanchez video call

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Prison authorities in Madrid are letting them video-call the rally.

Jordi Sanchez: "Hi Susanna! You and I have done some bizarre things, but talking through a television, me in prison and you presenting the final stage of this campaign…"

07:55

Campbell watches video calls

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Moments later, Catalonia’s former president, Carles Puigdemont, calls in from Belgium. He fled Spain to avoid arrest.

08:15

Puigdemont: "Your children will thank you for the lesson you have taught them about dignity. None of the oppressors, no one who used force on October 1^st, who unfairly put you in prison, will be able to explain their actions to their children.

08:24

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  But for every fervent independendista, there’s a Catalan who wants to stay with Spain. My friend Jordi doesn’t want to secede, he’d settle for greater autonomy.

JORDI RIVERA:  For example, a federal or confederate system,

08:43

Jordi Rivera interview

going further than that doesn’t make much sense in this globalist world.

08:56

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  But he wants Catalans to be allowed to make the choice.

09:02

JORDI RIVERA:  Eighty percent of the population wants to be asked what kind of relation they want to have with the rest of the Spanish state.

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  So it’s very split, but everybody wants a referendum.

JORDI RIVERA:  The big majority, yes.

09:06

Beach GVs

Music

09:19

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  For many who visit here,

09:28

Montage of buildings

Barcelona is a city of extraordinary buildings and rich Spanish culture. But for locals, it’s a showcase of what Catalans can create -- from Antoni Gaudí’s unfinished Sagrada Familia cathedral to Domènech i Montaner’s Palace of Music.

09:29

Neighbourhood GVs

Music

09:46

Campbell walks through alleyways

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  In my neighbourhood, La Ribera, the narrow cobblestoned alleyways are much as they were in the days of self-rule. This was the city’s artisan centre and it’s still full of small traders and craftspeople.

09:53

Every neighbourhood, known as a barri, is different, with its own schools, community centres, bars and markets.

10:14

Campbell in deli

Eric:  "And bacon, in small slices…Thank you."

10:21

Catalan flags on balconies

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Most barris are filled with flags -- not Spanish, but Catalan. The ones with stars are symbols of independence. What you won’t see in these barris is this…

10:31

Flamenco festival

Music

10:44

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:   What many think of as Spanish culture is almost alien to Catalonia. Flamenco, for example, comes from the deep south, in the region of Andalusia. Most people here couldn’t dance it to save themselves. It’s only staged for tourists, or in this case, an annual festival for people of Andalusian origins. Catalan culture looks rather different.

10:55

Catalan festival – giant puppets

Festivals like this go back to the Middle Ages when Catalonia was a great maritime empire, focussed more on France and the Mediterranean than Madrid. But within living memory Madrid tried to erase any expression of Catalan identity.

11:32

Archival. Newsreels

NEWSREEL NARRATION:  The great Spanish port of Barcelona is one of the important strongholds of the loyalists in the present revolt.

11:59

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  In 1936, the city became a bulwark against the far right general, Francisco Franco after he attacked the republican government.

12:08

NEWSREEL NARRATION:  The local headquarters of the Marxist Union is a beehive of activity, with a steady stream of militiamen reporting for duty.

12:17

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  They held out for two and a half years until Franco took the city and revenge.  He imposed a brutal regime across Spain; jailing, executing, or exiling hundreds of thousands of republicans and banning regional languages like Basque, Galician and Catalan. This ally of Hitler was still in power in the 1970s.

12:25

Esther

ESTHER ORIOL:  They promoted a single Spanish culture as the common culture. It was just not the reality of some regional identities in Spain.

13:00

Esther at castell building

13:13

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Since the general’s death in 1975, Catalan customs have returned with a vengeance. Esther Oriol is a keen castellera, building human towers called castells. In Franco’s time, it was a fringe sport restricted to the countryside. Today, there are more than a hundred big clubs. She’s looking forward to teaching her two year old daughter Laia to climb.

13:21

ESTHER ORIOL:  "I do like to, yeah, I do like to. I think it’s a nice tradition for families. It's not as dangerous as it seems. It's not so dangerous because we really train to perform that towers, and I hope my team will perform a lot

13:48

Esther and Laia with Campbell

when Laila's going to climb on the top of them."

14:04

Castell building

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  When her own parents were growing up, even Catalan names like Laia were banned. Now, all regions enjoy autonomy. Catalans have built a relatively rich economy, a Catalan-speaking civil service and good locally run schools. But many, like Esther Oriol still want their own country, where taxes stay in Catalonia and Madrid never rules.

14:07

Esther interview

ESTHER ORIOL:  Well, I'm pro-independence since I was a child. I don't have memories of anything else. I am born in democracy, so I have born in autonomy, but I'm pro- independence.

14:37

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  For her, the attack on the independence referendum was as unexpected and shocking as a castell’s collapse.

14:53

Castell collapses

Music

15:02

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  While this accident just caused cuts and bruises, the political injuries may be felt for generations.

ESTHER ORIOL:  In October of 2017, we wanted to express our will.

15:13

Injured castellera

This was a thing that started from the base, from people of the neighbourhoods, my cousin, my father. And the state of Spain, I don't know who, sent policemen to hit us.

15:25

Esther interview

And they hurt us, not only in our skin, they hurt us in our souls. This was a deep injury. I think it will never heal. It will never heal. So I hope that my little girl will live in a free country when she gets older, but I'm not able to find an easy solution.

15:39

Music

16:01

Puppet workshop/Bullfight posters

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  They haven’t just worked hard to revive their folk traditions. Catalan nationalists have shunned some of the Spanish traditions

16:11

Gracia trains matadors

they feel Madrid imposed on Barcelona. Until recently, the city held regular bull fights in its grand stadium La Monumental. Fernando Gracia is a retired matador who now teaches the sport. He remembers the glory of facing down toros before crowds of thousands.

16:21

Bullfighting stadium

FERNANDO GRACIA:  When the bull passes through the cape,

16:45

Campbell, Garcia and model bull

that feeling of beating fear and showing your bravery, that feeling is extraordinary. But you always know that if you get it wrong and the bull hits you, your life is at risk.

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  So it’s life or death?

FERNANDO GRACIA: It’s life or death.

16:49

Former bullfighting stadiums

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  But in 2010 the Catalan parliament banned the sport, citing animal cruelty. Aficionados saw it as a slap in the face from Catalan nationalists. La Monumental became a music venue. Barcelona’s other big stadium, Las Arenas, is now a shopping mall. And Fernando’s students

17:08

Students practising with model bull

can now only use models.

17:32

Campbell with Gracia

Eric:  "Would you like to be able to practise with real bulls in Barcelona?"

Fernando:  "Well yes, I would like to."

17:38

Students practising with model bull

Music

17:41

FERNANDO GRACIA: It’s very difficult, complicated.

17:49

Gracia interview

If a child likes football he can go to football school or his father buys him a ball and he plays with other kids. But where does a kid find a bull or a cow to practise bull fighting? What we do in this school is help them. We take them to farms so they can practise with cows.

17:52

Railway line, high-rise buildings/ Students practising with model bull

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  They train in the working class municipality of L’ Hospitalet, far from the modernist Gaudí buildings of the rich inner city. Many of the families here migrated from poorer parts of Spain in the 1950s and '60s to work in Barcelona’s booming factories.  And they resent Spanish heritage and language being treated as something foreign.

18:15

FERNANDO GRACIA:  Partly it feels like that. Even though pro-independence people have a lot of power over the media we still have a majority who are against independence.

18:44

Pro-Spanish rally

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  In 2017, hundreds of thousands of Catalans took to the streets in a counter-demonstration against the independence push.

19:02

Vox pops at rally

YOUNG WOMAN:  I’m here to show my support for all the people from Barcelona who believe that Spain is a whole country and they want to be part of Spain. So we all came here to show our support for the silent majority.

19:14

WOMAN:  We have been silenced, because we have faith in our democracy and institutions, but sometimes they have to hear how we feel.

19:29

MAN:   I’ve said many times that independence in Catalonia would be a disaster for Catalonia, for Spain and for Europe.

19:39

Campbell to camera on street

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  The independence push has had an unexpected and seismic backlash across Spain. It’s spurred the explosion of a new far right party called Vox. Vox doesn’t just want to bring Catalonia to heel, it wants to expel tens of thousands of migrants from this very diverse city. I’m on my way to meet its unlikely Barcelona leader.

19:49

Garriga supporters

Vox means voice, and it claims to be the voice of real people. Like many new populist parties, it’s been getting advice from Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon. Its local head, Ignacio Garriga, is the son of an African migrant -- a handy counter to claims the party is racist. In April, he was one of 24 candidates to win seats in the national parliament, creating the first far right bloc since the return of democracy.

20:15

Garriga speech

IGNACIO GARRIGA:  "It’s possible to have a Barcelona that looks to the future with hope, proud of its Spanish identity."

20:50

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Vox is promising national unity, an end to political correctness, defence of men’s rights from aggressive feminists, and a crackdown on migration. It also talks of reconquest -- a reference to the medieval Reconquista when Christian knights drove Muslim Moors from Spain.

21:00

IGNACIO GARRIGA: "We’re going to regain our city and put it at your service. Let’s start the reconquest of Barcelona. God bless you and Barcelona and let’s win!"

21:21

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Vox wants to do more than stop separatism; it wants to strip Catalonia of the autonomy it has and put it under the direct control of Madrid.

IGNACIO GARRIGA:  Our policy is clear.

21:44

Garriga interview

Reject separatism. Persecute it with the full force of law, because the separatists have put our sovereignty and national unity at great risk.

21:56

Vox rally on Ramblas

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Holding a rally on the tourist strip, the Ramblas, Vox manages to avoid any heckling from leftists or independence activists,

22:07

Travel to rally

but when we travel by bus with them to a rally outside the city, there’s a very different reception.

22:19

Anti-Vox vox pops

CHANT: "Get out, fascists, from our neighbourhoods!’’

22:25

WOMAN:  Vox is chauvinist, it’s racist, it’s all the ‘isms’ that belong to fascist ideology.

22:31

WOMAN 2:  Vox is a fascist party. It's anti-feminist \because they see us as an enemy to be defeated. Others too, like the LGBT community.

MAN: "Fascists!"

WOMAN 3: They are going to kick us out because that’s how "democratic" they are.

22:39

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Well, this is fairly typical of what happens when Vox campaigns in, what some might call, enemy territory. It’s not just the fact that they’re against independence. Many Catalans see it as a return of Franco.

23:07

Vox rally inside hall. Supporters with Spanish flags. Garriga enters

23:20

Inside the hall, there’s a sea of Spanish flags and a cacophony of Spanish slogans.

23:27

Catalans face off with police

Outside, far left Catalans determined to stop the rise of the far right.

WOMAN 4: We cannot forget that Franco's the only dictator that died in bed.

23:35

Woman vox pop

He had funeral of state. State funeral.

23:45

[Archival] Franco funeral

After that, they decided to change the rules of the game. But the rules didn't change really;

23:50

Woman vox pop

they just put some makeup on that. They did a fake transition.

23:59

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  At times, the city can feel like it’s on a knife edge.  Barcelona has been bracing for riots if Jordi Sanchez and other independence leaders are sentenced to long jail terms. But for the most part, I’ve seen people trying to heal the rifts. Almost every family has different opinions, as well as relations from outside Catalonia, and they all have to get along.

24:15

Jordi with Campbell

JORDI RIVERA:  We all have friends and family. We all want to make friends and relate to people wherever they come from, Castilians, Basques, Australians.

24:42

Correfocs dragons/drummers

24:57

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Whatever people’s politics, almost all Barcelonans are intensely proud of their culture -- not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing expression of who they are.

25:12

Before leaving, I have a chance to see perhaps the most extraordinary ritual of all. Tonight, the barri around Sagrada Familia is holding its annual community festival, staging what’s called correfocs, meaning fire run.

25:24

Campbell greets Albert

Albert Riudeubàs is one of the volunteer organisers. He’s also in charge of one of its dragons.

25:42

Albert shows firework attachment on dragon

ALBERT RIUDEUBÀS: We put fireworks here on the dragons that shoot sparks. People run in front, and the dragons chase them through the streets of Barcelona.

25:49

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  They’ll carry these 55 kilogram dragons around the neighbourhood to the famous Sagrada Familia cathedral, with devils lighting fireworks on them.

26:03

Parade participants

ALBERT RIUDEUBÀS: In the tradition of correfocs, the dragons represent evil, the devil, the evil in people, and they go out in the streets to chase people.

26:15

Parade. Dragons/fireworks

26:31

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  There isn’t a single tourist watching the locals reclaiming their streets and traditions.

26:38

ALBERT RIUDEUBÀS: During the time of Franco all these things stopped. In most Catalonian cities correfocs, human towers, our traditions were pushed out. There were only a few small villages like Berga where the tradition was kept up. It returned in the '80s and '90s with democracy. We regained all the popular traditions.

26:46

Parade continues

These dragon figures are mostly 30 or 40 years old. There are only five or six dragons more than 100 years old.

27:14

Parade at Sagrada Familia

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  It’s religious in a sense -- the ritual stemmed from the Catholic Church -- but it feels pagan. It’s all about celebration, and there’s a complete absence of nanny state controls. Everyone plunges in at their own joyful risk.

27:36

Campbell to camera at parade

What is extraordinary about Barcelona is that you see this all the time. Every barrio, every neighbourhood, has a festival, they all compete with each other, and all the participants, the dancers, the drummers, the musicians, the acrobats, they’re all locals. And that to me is what epitomises Barcelona and Catalonia. There’s this incredible sense of community and identity which the Francoists tried so long to suppress, but it just gets bigger every year. 

28:02

Dragons and exploding fireworks

For much of the time I’ve been here, people have tried to fight a battle between what they saw as the evil of Madrid and the good of Barcelona. It has flared up and, for now, flamed out. I’m going to miss Barcelona’s neighbourhoods, its celebrations, and in a way, its conflict -- not the politics so much as the intense passion behind it. I’m leaving a place that’s been turbulent, exhilarating and always unique -- a nation within a nation and a world of its own.

28:37

Credits see below

29:27

Outpoint

29:58