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    Memes, Video Games Mock Catalonia's Prolonged Deadlock With Spain

    Smartphone game apps "help us survive the sad, difficult, demoralizing reality of politics," says a Catalan illustrator who helped create a version of Donkey Kong making fun of Catalonia's crisis.
    by Lauren Frayer Feb 01, 2018 5 minutes
    Demonstrators support former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont in front of the regional parliament in Barcelona on Tuesday. Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium to avoid arrest for leading a secession bid, is facing possible charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds and faces arrest if he returns from Brussels.

    Four months after Catalonia's independence referendum triggered a cascade of political events, independentistas are once again rallying outside the Catalan parliament in Barcelona. Catalonia's deposed president is still on the run. And Spain's renegade northeast region may be heading for fresh elections — yet again.

    Friday is Groundhog Day in the U.S., but the place where things really feel like the 1993 Bill Murray film about being stuck in a time warp is Catalonia. History is repeating itself with yet another standoff between separatists, who want to break away and form a new country in Europe, and the Spanish central government, determined to stop them.

    This is Europe's most serious secessionist challenge, and it shows no signs of going away.

    This past autumn saw turmoil in Catalonia and its regional capital Barcelona,, when separatists held an illegal independence vote and the central government deployed riot police to halt it. Madrid imposed emergency rule, firing local lawmakers and forcing fresh elections.

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