Free Tweety! The New Catalan Battle Cry

The Spanish government rented three ships and sent two to Barcelona and one to Tarragona to house the thousands of riot police and army personnel that it is sending to Catalonia to keep order. Never mind that the Catalans are keeping perfect order without them. What they are really doing is intimidating the Catalans so that they won't go to the polls on Sunday to vote on the referendum. For days there have been hundreds of thousands of Catalans in the streets with the slogan "We Will Vote."

But to that slogan another, unexpected battle cry has just been added: "Free Tweety!" The reason for this new campaign (which is taking place on the internet and not on the streets) is that on the side of one of the ships docked in Barcelona are painted the Warner Bros. cartoon characters Tweety, Sylvester, Daffy Duck, and the Tasmanian Devil. Because people were making fun of the cartoons on what is currently a military ship -- not very dignified by anyone's estimation and not particularly intimidating -- someone in charge had the bright idea of covering the cartoons with huge plastic tarps, which they did (although not very artfully) a few days ago.  Thus the campaign to Free Tweety.

  

And Tweety has, in fact, been freed! 

I don't know if freedom came as a result of the wind, Catalan activists, ineptitude by those who hung the tarps in the first place, or for aesthetic reasons.  But he has found a place in the hearts of many Catalans, and has been adopted as a kind of mascot for the independence movement. 

Photos and images found on the internet