One year after the 1 October 2017 Catalan referendum on independence, thousands —according to the local police, 180,000— took to the streets of Barcelona to commemorate the date and to demand action from the Catalan authorities to implement an independent republic in Catalonia. But after having seen devolution suspended for 7 months, the current pro-independence Catalan government is cautious about steps it takes. Yesterday’s demonstration left images in the form of symbols and signs that help explain where this political conflict stands right now. Keep reading

“I like minorities, diaspora communities and micro-societies. The Minorcans’ journey to Gibraltar brings together those three interests.” This is how Catalan journalist, philologist and historian Martí Crespo (Barcelona, 1972) explains his motivation to trace a not very well known episode of the western Mediterranean history of the 18th and early 19th centuries: the settlement in Gibraltar of hundreds of Minorcans from the Balearic Islands, a community that at some point reached 6% of the Rock’s population, and whose legacy can be traced to date. Out of his work, Els ‘minorkeens’ of Gibraltar has been published this summer, the book being presented in Barcelona (26 September), Minorca (15 and 16 October) and the Rock (26 October). Keep reading

The Bamyan province lies at the centre of Hazarajat, one of many territories of which Afghanistan is made up. One of the larger minoritised peoples of Afghanistan, the Hazara —a Farsi-speaking, Shi’a group—, live there. A couple of years ago, Nationalia released —find it here in Catalan— an interview with Carme Roure, in which the state of discrimination and violence faced by the Hazara was analysed. Today, we are having a look onto a rather kinder face of that territory through this Global Voices story. Keep reading

The crisis in Southern Cameroons, which has resulted in a violent confrontation between armed pro-independence groups and the Cameroonian forces over the last 9 months, is not giving any sign of moving towards a solution —rather the contrary is true. Since the date of the symbolic declaration of Southern Cameroonian independence of 1 October, at least hundreds have been killed in a conflict that has been dragging on since the 1960s and has a lot to see with the centralization of power at the hands of the Cameroonian state. Keep reading