Former President of Spain and People's Party, Mariano Rajoy, receiving managers of SCC. From left to right: Óscar Uceda, Álex Ramos, Miriam Tey, José Rosiñol and Mariano Rajoy.
SCC was legally constituted on April 7, 2014. SCC stated that its goal is to be a transverse platform against separatism.[14] On April 23 of the same year SCC had its official presentation to the public at the Victoria Theater in Barcelona.[2][15] Susana Beltrán, who became a deputy of CitizensinCatalonia's Parliament,[16][17] was the host of the event and Bosch, Domingo and Coll delivered the keynote speeches.[2] José Rosiñol was the moderator and also member of the provisional executive office. Other members from the provisional executive office who also attended the event were Isabel Porcel, Ana María Lindin and Ferran Brunet.[18] The event was attended by members of mainstream political parties with representation in the Spanish parliament such as PP, Citizens, PSC and UPyD[2] Some founding members were members of the Somatemps, including its first president Josep Ramon Bosch, Javier Barraycoa, Josep Alsina and Xavier Codorniu.[19][20][21][22] SCC also received support from Jorge Moragas and Miram Tey.[23] Several leading supporters of the group has far right connections or sympathies.
On 12 October 2014 (Día de la Hispanidad), gathering 40,000 demonstrators in Barcelona against independence, according to the local police spokesman.[32][33]
On 8 October 2017, it mobilized hundreds of thousands of people (350,000 according to local police chief of press, more than 1 million according to the organization itself) in a demonstration at Barcelona.[34] Former EU Parliament president and current Foreign Affairs Minister, socialist Josep Borrell, and Nobel Award Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, delivered closing speeches at the demonstration.[35]
On 12 October 2017, a total of 65,000 people attended to a demonstration call made by SCC.[36]
On 29 October 2017, 300,000 people according to local police (one million according to SCC) marched against the unilateral declaration of independence by the Catalan Regional Government.[37] Manifesto speakers were Josep Borrell[38] and Francisco Frutos, former leader of the Spanish Communist Party which condemned his participation in the demonstration and stated that he did not represent them in any way.[39][40][41]
On 18 March 2018, 7,000 people were present in another demonstration.[45] In this demonstration, former French Prime MinisterManuel Valls delivered the closing speech.[46]
SCC demonstration calls have received cross-party support from Catalonia's Popular Party, PSC and Citizens[47][48][49] and it is regarded by some as the leading anti-independence platforms in Catalonia along with the movement for Tabarnia.[50]
Catalan Civil Society went to the European Parliament to claim that in Catalonia there is linguistic discrimination and that children rights are being violated. They also claimed the existence negative effects in children academic performance due to using Catalan as tuition language in the Catalan education system. This is contradicted by [63][64]Republican Left of Catalonia former MEP Josep Maria Terricabras, who recalled that PISA report does not show any difference,[65] as is the case of the last PISA report, Spanish regional tests and university admission tests.[66] SCC are not the only ones making these claims. Some related media and other similar entities have self published documents claiming alleged negative effects of the current Catalan school system for Spanish-speakers,[67] based on flawed according to some authors [68] secondary reports[69] analysing PISA and PIRLS tests.[69][70][71][72] Professors of the University of Barcelona Jorge Calero (former President of the Higher Council for Evaluation of the Educational System of Catalonia) and Alvaro Choi published a complete report[73][74] on the issue based on a detailed analysis of the data from the 2015 PISA reports, which reaches the conclusion that Spanish speakers obtain worse results than Catalan speakers all other variables been equal. As already stated, that report was found to have flaws according to some authors, concretely in its assumptions over the population of the statistical analysis, which are considered unverifiable.[68] The same problems were found in another report from Calero about PIRLS.[75]
Regarding the alleged instrumentation of public education, this has been a common topic among spanishist entities.[76][77][78][79][67][34][80][81] However, there's data pointing out that the most decisive factor in changing children's political views is their social networking revolving around their own parents, children and neighbours.[82][76][83] There's also data suggesting that schools can't be the source of the increase of Catalan independentism either.[76][77][78][84] There has also been a correction from a local section of the political party Citizens regarding a sound case of alleged indoctrination occurred in Sant Andreu de la Barca[85][86] stated in a report of SCC.[87] Moreover, Catalan public education syllabus depends on the central government of Spain too, whose history syllabus has been modified to accommodate the political views of the elected central government.[79]
And yet, numerous and abundant publications echo the existence of data that attest to the indoctrination and instrumentalization of Catalan schools in favor of the Catalan nationalist and pro-independence ideology.[88][89][90][91][92][93]
Javier Barraycoa, former member of SCC and founder of Somatemps,[94][95] has claimed that SCC received funding from the central government of Spain to support the pro-union demonstrations of the 8th and 12 October 2017.[96][97]RENFE subsidized 50% of the cost of 245 train tickets for the Diada public act of SCC on September 11, 2014, in Tarragona.[31]Josep Alsina has claimed that SCC receives grants from the Joan Boscà Foundation to which Catalan businesses has provided funding.[98]
The Spanish online newspaper Público claims the balance sheet presented by SCC “lacks transparency” given that whilst SCC has only 75 members and 4,000 collaborators SCC, it managed to collect one million euros in funding in 2014.[31] The members only account for 1.5% of money contributions. Another 1.5% comes from gathering posts and urns. The rest, 97%, comes from private donations. However, audits have found no indication of wrongdoing. Félix Revuelta, founder and principal stakeholder of Naturhouse, stated that he and many other businessmen provided financial support to SCC.
In 2015 Catalan separatist parties ERC and CiU, together with the Catalan Green party ICV, sent a joint letter to Socialist MEP Sylvie Gillaume, then vice-president of the European Parliament, protesting the awarding of European Citizen's Price to Societat Civil Catalana. In the letter, they claimed that the SCC has links with Catalan far-right groups and promotes xenophobe and extremist ideas. However, SCC received the award in February 2015, triggering another protest letter. Socialist MEP Gillaume dismissed this second letter, arguing that the award had already obtained approval at the Spanish and EU levels with the support from representatives from PP, PSOE, and UPyD. In her award ceremony speech, Ms. Guillaume stressed that the award was given in particular to the fight against fascism and in favor of freedom of expression, tolerance and intercultural dialogue.[108] Members of the European Parliament from PSOE and PP Ramón Jaúregui and Santiago Fisas were decisive in the argument to dismiss the accusations.[109]Catalan Parliament, under the control of separatist groups, accepted a proposal from ICV to file a complaint to the European Parliament. PP, PSC and Citizens voted against the proposal, while ICV-EUiA, ERC, CUP and CiU supported the proposal.[16][109][110]
In January 2019, a court of law in Barcelona ruled that several pro-independence associations and politicians had to pay a €15,000 fine for a manifesto published in 2015 which falsely accused SCC of having ties to Nazism and the extreme-right groups.[111][112] The court also ruled that the defendants should stop making similar defamatory accusations in the future.[111]
^TV3, Arriba España (in Catalan), archived from the original on 2018-05-28, retrieved 2018-05-27{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^ abSuarez, Gonzalo (16 October 2017). "Los españolistas catalanes salen del armario: "Ya hemos pagado la hipoteca franquista"" [The Catalan Spanishists supporters come out of the closet: "We have already paid the Francoist mortage"] (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2017-10-16. Retrieved 2023-03-29. Y ahora, ¿qué? Es el dilema que afrontan los españolistas. Unos, como SCC, optan por mantener la movilización callejera. Otros, como C's, creen que ha sido un movimiento imprescindible, pero puntual. «Las mayorías se demuestran en las urnas», afirma De Páramo. «No podemos manejar la democracia contando manifestantes, sino votos».
^"Josep Ramon Bosch asesora a Manuel Valls". ElNacional.cat (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2018-07-19. Retrieved 2018-07-19. Josep Ramon Bosch i Codina es el factótum encargado de convencer a Manuel Valls para que encabece la lista "constitucionalista" por Barcelona en las municipales del 2019.
^Wong, Alia (2017-11-03). "Is Catalonia Using Schools as a Political Weapon?". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 2018-09-13. Retrieved 2018-09-11. Spanish nationalists have blamed Catalan-language instruction as a sinister force for fostering separatist sentiments.
^ abSoler, Sergi (2019), "Los relatos del procés: discurso y propaganda en la política catalana (2012-2017)" [The stories of the process: discourse and propaganda in Catalan politics (2012-2017)], UAB, pp. 55–56, retrieved 2023-03-29, Uno de los argumentos más repetidos por Ciudadanos durante la campaña fue el del adoctrinamiento y la inmersión lingüística en las escuelas catalanas como causante de la situación que se daba en Cataluña [...] Así mismo, SCC, agrupación cercana al partido, lanzaba en junio de 2015 una campaña en contra del adoctrinamiento en las escuelas donde se anima a la ciudadanía a denunciar practicas que se pudiesen considerar de adoctrinamiento, como por ejemplo carteles políticos o prohibiciones de usar alguna de las lenguas oficiales. Algunos periódicos de ámbito nacional como La Razón se hicieron eco de esta campaña.46Este argumento sobre el adoctrinamiento como culpable del crecimiento independentista que también defendió el ministro Wert en 201247, no obstante, es rebatido con datos por algunos estudiosos como Fernando Molina y Alejandro Quiroga, quienes critican la poca solidez de las acusaciones poniendo de manifiesto el rápido crecimiento del movimiento nacionalista catalán y argumentan que «esta lectura obvia que esas mismas políticas nacionalizadoras estuvieron operando durante tres décadas en las que el respaldo a la independencia estuvo siempre por debajo del 20%. Cuando el secesionismo creció de forma vertiginosa, a partir de 2010, lo hizo en todos los grupos de edad y en todo el espectro ideológico.» (Molina y Quiroga, 2017: 61). Según estos datos aportados por Molina y Quiroga, el adoctrinamiento no tendría influencia en la creación de independentistas en el procés, por lo que este argumento entraría dentro de una de las técnicas de manipulación de masas que describía Timsit referida a la creación de problemas inexistentes para después ofrecer soluciones para éstos.
^Montalar, M A C (9 October 2017). "Barcelona: Razia españolista en tiempos de propaganda" [Barcelona: Spanishist raid in times of propaganda]. arainfo.org (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-03-29. La SCC es algo así como el alterego españolista de la Assemblea Nacional Catalana (ANC), aunque las dos niegan esta relación tienen algo en común, ambas son asociaciones civiles que trabaja por un objetivo político concreto. En el caso de SCC por defender la españolidad de Catalunya.
^Carrasco, Rafael; Villar, Ernesto; Tejedor, Laura. "Twitter como herramienta de comunicación política en el contexto del referéndum independentista catalán: asociaciones ciudadanas frente a instituciones públicas" [Twitter as a political communication tool in the context of Catalan independence referendum: civic associations vs. public institutions]. IconO 14. 16 (1): 76 – via Redalyc. Las cuentas de los grupos que apoyan el referéndum son más de cuatro veces más eficientes que las cuentas del grupo en contra de la consulta. El resultado tiene un aparente sesgo cuantitativo, en el sentido de que la causa independentista cuenta con dos altavoces (Òmnium y ANC) frente a solo una voz activa entre los españolistas (Societat Civil Catalana), pero esta circunstancia no afecta al análisis cualitativo, ya que el hecho de haya dos asociaciones en lugar de una no indica que la masa social sea necesariamente el doble ni que su eficacia deba duplicarse, si tenemos en cuenta que lo que se analiza no es el volumen total de tuits enviados, sino la viralización y eficiencia que éstos logras atendiendo a la fórmula matemática empleada.
^Wilson Daily, Ann; Kemmelmeier, Markus (April 12, 2019). "Youth Perceptions of Voting Participation in the Midst of Catalonia's Active Struggle for Independence". Youth & Society. 53 (2): 21. doi:10.1177/0044118X19840965 – via SAGE. Notably, the public debate concerning Catalan independence seemed to create distinct atmospheres at different schools. Average school levels of Catalan identification predicted perceived importance of voting in a referendum; that is, students in a school with many Catalan identifying students were more likely to consider voting in a referendum as important—regardless of their level of Catalan identification. While again evidencing the extraordinary nature of the independence debate, this observation is compatible with Hierro's (2015) finding that Catalan schools help craft student identification with Catalonia, but not with Spain.
^Hierro, María José (2015-06-22). "Crafting identities in a multinational context: evidence from Catalonia". Nations and Nationalism. 21 (3): 461–482. doi:10.1111/nana.12124. The results, which draw on the analysis of a household survey, suggest that more years of schooling makes more likely that individuals develop a dual identity; however, parents' attachment to Catalonia is key in fostering an exclusive identification with Catalonia. Results also suggest that residence in neighbourhoods in which the proportion of natives and immigrants from other regions of Spain favours contact between children from different identity backgrounds is decisive in promoting a more Catalan-oriented identification between second generations.
^"La extrema derecha aprovecha el conflicto catalán para reactivarse". eldiario.es (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2018-11-16. Retrieved 2018-09-10. ¿Quiénes han sido los agresores? En algunos casos la Policía los ha identificado con entidades de la extrema derecha, que han participado activamente en las marchas constitucionalistas organizadas por Sociedad Civil Catalana (SCC). Pero no todos responden al perfil clásico de neonazi. Desde esta asociación se desmarcan y condenan estos sucesos. Reconocen, además, que no pueden controlarlos.