Barcelona In the United States, 9/11 stands for the attack that hit the New York City Twin Towers, killing thousands, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. 2026 commemorated the 25th anniversary of that attack. Survivors, former presidents and mayors, and many others made appearances as well as Mayor Mamdani and Trump. Mamdani’s remarks hit the high points, recognizing the sacrifices and pointing positively forward. Trump did his best to try to justify his ill begotten Iranian war based on 9/11 in remarks best forgotten.
9/11 turned out to be huge in Barcelona, too, as the first participants in this 23rd Organizers’ Forum international dialogue began to arrive. In the city, the date is an annual holiday. As Wikipedia notes,
The National Day of Catalonia[1] also known as the Diada, is a day-long festival in Catalonia, celebrated annually on 11 September. It is one of the public holidays in Catalonia. It commemorates Catalan last stand at the siege and fall of Barcelona at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1714 and the subsequent repression and loss of the Principality of Catalonia‘s institutions, legal system and, thus, its separate state status.[2] After the evacuation of the pro-Habsburg armies from Spain at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, as a result of the Peace of Utrecht (1713) in which the Bourbon pretender Philip V was recognized king of the Iberian dominions of the Spanish Monarchy, the Principality of Catalonia unilaterally decided to remain in the war by vote of its Junta de Braços (Catalan assembly of Estates) on 9 July 1713, in order to protect the Catalan constitutions and lives from the expected repression, beginning a brief and separate conflict, the War of the Catalans. After months of intense fighting, the Army of Catalonia was finally defeated at the Siege of Barcelona by the combined Spanish and French armies on 11 September 1714 after 14 months of siege. The subsequent promulgation of the Nueva Planta decrees (1716) suspended most of the Constitutions of Catalonia and abolished its institutions, meaning the end of the Principality of Catalonia as a separate state.
The dissolution of the Catalan state has not gone down easily. A vote, declaring independence and separation from the Spain’s national government, was held in 2017, almost three-hundred years after the defeat, gaining over 92% of the vote. The vote was declared unconstitutional by the Spanish court. Several of the parliamentary leaders of Catalan were arrested and later given amnesty. In the more recent 2024 election, the Catalan Socialist Party, linked to the national governing party, won the election as support for pro-independence parties lost ground. Polling indicates that support for independence had dropped to 42% in 2024 from 49% in 2017.
Watching the local news coverage of this year’s 9/11 events in Barcelona saw many smiling, sign waving marchers, but also saw fireworks of a sort as a black brigade of anarchists battled with the police towards nightfall.
Three hundred years, different linguistic practice, and long family traditions don’t erase all historical memories, as we should fully know in America as well, even as the current administration attempts to rewrite history, including the dark days of slavery. Perhaps we can hope that Juneteenth might become the US equivalent of Barcelona’s 9/11 at some point in the future.