03.06.2014 - 16:04
More than five thousand human tower builders (or castellers, in Catalan) will demand the right to vote on their political future this Sunday by participating in “Catalans want to vote – Human towers for democracy“. It is an initiative organized by the Catalan cultural organization Omnium Cultural and whose goal is to fill the main squares of Brussels, Paris, London, Berlin, Geneva, Rome, Lisbon, and Barcelona and forty-one cities and towns in Catalonia with the human towers of more than seventy-one teams. With this international event, the Catalan groups want to publicize the will of the Catalan people to vote on November 9th through the symbol of the human towers all over Europe and Catalonia.
Òmnium and representatives of the seventy-one participating human tower teams presented the details of the initiative this Tuesday called “Catalans want to vote. Human towers for democracy” in front of the Church of the Sagrada Família, designed by world famous Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí.
Muriel Casals, Òmnium’s president and José Maria Cortès, the representative of the Coordinator of Human Tower Teams were also present.
So, next Sunday 71 teams will perform in 8 European cities and 41 Catalan towns by raising human towers in symbolic locations simultaneously. In addition to the original locations, there will also be human towers in Pamplona (as part of the Basque Way), Montreal (Canada) and Santiago (in Chile).
The teams that will perform in international locations will build a human tower at 12 noon, and will unfurl a banner which says “Catalans want to vote” in the official languages of each of the chosen cities. They will then complete their performance, including the traditional pillar, or one-person-per-level tower.
The objective of this event is to “internationalize the Catalan democratic desire,” said Casals on Tuesday, “It’s a movement to help spread the word about our will and to show Europe that on November 9th, we want to vote.”
To that end, Òmnium has called for a mobilization by Catalans to go the locations where the castles will be built on June 8 to support the right to decide. This call is especially directed to Catalans living abroad since “the event is a good opportunity to actively participate in a process that must culminate with a referendum in November”.
The project would not have been possible without the support of the Coordinator of Human Tower Teams which helped organize the event. In addition, in each European city, there is one “prestigious sponsor” who will be in charge of reading a manifesto that gives support to the initiative and its intentions. In Paris, it will be world-renowned musician Jordi Savall, in London acclaimed historian Paul Preston, in Lisbon playwright Helder Costa, actor Sergi López in Brussels, actor Joan Mompart in Geneva, and the president of Òmnium Cultural, Muriel Casals herself, in Barcelona.
Performances in emblematic locations in European cities
The Xics de Granollers will perform in Berlin in the Alexanderplatz. The Castellers de Vilafranca will perform in the Grand Place de Brussel·les. The Castellers de Sants will be at the Torre de Bélem in the Portuguese capital, the Colla Joves dels Xiquets de Valls will be at the Tower Bridge in London, the Colla Vella dels Xiquets de Valls will be at the Champs de Mars in Paris and the Bordegassos de Vilanova will be in Giancomo in Rome.
#CatalanTalk with Muriel Casals, president of Òmnium Cultural at 5:15pm Tuesday
Liz Castro will interview Muriel Casals, president of Òmnium Cultural on Twitter as part of her series, #CatalanTalk, at 5pm on Tuesday June 3. You can follow the hashtag #CatalanTalkEN for the English version, #CatalanTalkCA for the Catalan, #CatalanTalkES for Spanish, and #CatalanTalkFR for French and #CatalanTalkDE for German, later in the evening.
