Strike with your sickle!

This day, the year 1714, Barcelona's walls collapsed and had to surrender to the Spanish troops of king Felipe V after a 14 months siege. Thousands of people were executed, imprisoned and sent to exile. Hundreds of homes were demolished to build a fortress, not to protect the city from attacks, but to keep an eye on us and being able to bombard the population if there was any kind of revolution. Catalan laws and institutions were dismantled, language and traditions forbidden.

Today is Catalonia's national day. Today, we remember and homage those who fight and died defending their ideas and freedom. Today, we celebrate that after these 298 years, we still speak Catalan and we keep our traditions, even though they've been prosecuted for most of those years. Today, we keep on fighting for our freedom. Today, at 18.00, more than half a million people will walk through Barcelona to let the world know we want to be free!

You may wonder were does the name of the post come from? It's part of the refrain of our national anthem, Els Segadors (The Reapers). It comes from a popular song which appeared during a XVIIth Century revolution. The lyrics in English, according to a translation found in Wikipedia, would be something like this:


    Catalonia triumphant
    shall again be rich and bountiful.
    Drive away these people,
    Who are so conceited and so contemptful.

    Refrain:
    Strike with your sickle!
    Strike with your sickle, defenders of the land!
    Strike with your sickle!

    Now is the time, reapers.
    Now is the time to stand alert.
    For when another June comes,
    Let us sharpen well our tools.

    Refrain

    May the enemy tremble,
    upon seeing our symbol.
    Just as we cut golden ears of wheat,
    when the time calls we cut off chains.

    Refrain


Visca Catalunya lliure!