Protesters gather outside police offices in Barcelona, Spain, on Oct. 2. Six weeks after Catalonia's independence referendum, the gap between a significant part of Catalan society and the rest of Spain shows no sign of closing.
Catalonia's independence referendum set in motion a chain of events whose consequences will be felt across Spain for years. A few weeks after the vote, which took place Oct. 1, Madrid reacted to Catalonia's subsequent declaration of independence by dissolving the Catalan government, taking direct control of its institutions and calling an early regional election for Dec. 21. But Catalan society is so divided, and the political and emotional distance between Catalan nationalists and Spanish unionists so big, that the vote alone will not end the region's problems. The gulf that separates nationalists from unionists raises questions about Spain's future. The country that managed to build a democracy after the end of a dictatorship in the late 1970s now seems disoriented as it endures its biggest crisis in four decades. Opposing Views of the Same Event Catalans were divided between nationalists and unionists long before last month's referendum .
