“Magnificent ambassadors of the noble and just Catalan cause”

  • The Catalan President applauds the human tower teams that will travel all over Europe to perform this Sunday

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VilaWeb
Redacció
07.06.2014 - 09:39

La premsa lliure no la paga el govern, la paguen els lectors


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More than 5000 human tower builders will travel all over Europe to demand the right to vote this Sunday at noon as part of “Catalans want to vote – Human towers for democracy“. It is an initiative organized by Òmnium Cultural and that aims to fill the squares of Brussels, Paris, London, Berlin, Geneva, Rome, Lisbon, Barcelona, forty-one towns in Catalonia, as well as Montreal and Santiago (Chile) with the human castles of seventy-one Catalan human tower teams, or “colles castelleres”, to call attention to the Catalans demands to vote on independence on November 9th. The human towers will be constructed simultaneously at 12 noon on Sunday. They are using the hashtag #CatalansWantToVote to share information on social networks.

The human tower teams that will perform this Sunday in eight European capitals to demand the right to vote in Catalonia on November 9th are “magnificent ambassadors of the Catalan cause” who through their performances are supporting “noble and just demands”, said Artur Mas, President of the Catalan Government, addressing the human tower team representatives and Muriel Casals, President of Omnium Cultural. Casals said that human towers would be built on Sunday at noon all over Europe and Catalonia as an expression of the capacity of Catalans to come together to try to “reach the sky”. Casals explained that “reaching the sky” for the Catalan people means winning the right to vote.

Artur Mas received a large representation of human tower teams at the Catalan Government Palace, the Generalitat on Friday. The teams, together with the civic association Òmnium Cultural, have organized a human tower performance in cities all over the world, including seven European capitals—eight if you include Barcelona itself—in order to call attention to Catalonia’s demand to vote in a Catalan referendum on independence on November 9th.

Human tower building is a particularly Catalan activity, originating in Valls (near Tarragona) at the end of the 18th century. It consists of building 7-, 8-, 9- and sometimes even 10-story towers of people, with a certain number of people per level. Human tower teams generally have a few hundred members, sometimes as many as one thousand, as different tower formations require a considerable “pinya” or base. Castle-ing is also characterized by the wide variety of people involved: everyone in the community—men and women, young and old—can take a place in a human tower, with the most stable at the bottom, the strongest towards the middle, and the quickest and most lithe toward the top, sometimes as young as 5. Team members and often members of the wider community join to form a pinecone-shape base at the bottom that offers stability to the tower and a cushion should it fall.

Human tower building was declared by UNESCO to be amongst the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on November 16, 2010.

Mas said performances like the international human tower event on Sunday was important because the Catalan sovereignty process needs “to have an international impact in order to consolidate the national transition that Catalonia has begun”.

Mas said that over the last two years the Catalan people have demonstrated in “elegant and peaceful” ways, for example with the Catalan Way on September 11, 2013, in which 1.6 million people held hands from one end of the country to the other, 250 miles away, the Catalan National Day of 2012, in which 1.5 million people peacefully filled the streets of Barcelona to demand independence, and with performances like the human tower building all over Europe, including Catalonia, as well as in Montreal (Québec) and Santiago (Chile).

Mas stressed that while “what” is wanted is important, the “how” one gets there is also essential, and pointed out the “good feeling” which is omnipresent in Catalan demonstrations.

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