Catalonia-exit?

Politics and religion
1

We’ve got a few Spaniards around here, yes? Maybe even some soon to be ex-Spaniards the way things seem to be going…

So, in the friendliest way, WTF is going on? Is this as serious as it looks? Because it looks serious. Rajoy appears to have answered in the clumsiest way possible, the King’s proclamation was apparently a bit of a dick move including picture of an ancestor known for being less than good to the Catalans, the Catalan President would apparently be cool with printing stuff on the side of buses if he was English, so, WTF?

2

I had never heard of this until the last few weeks. But I do remember the Basque separatists causing trouble around 1980. They went violent around then and I can remember seeing the military with machine guns in the streets of some Spanish cities.

3

Apparently that Catalan government won a majority of seats but represents an actual minority of the population? And they seem to be pushing this agenda against a lot of concessions already being offered?

4

I have a couple of Catalans in the office, and the resentment for the Spanish government runs deep. Until the 70’s, they were disallowed for teaching their language (Catalan which is not a subset of Spanish). I offer them the argument that of course they want to succede, as they hold a higher economic prosperity than that of the nation, but they insist it is more about cultural identity and grievances over the years dating all the way back to the Spanish Civil war.

All the usual reasons as Quebec and Scotland, of which I’ve been in the right time and place for, except there wasn’t hundreds of armed Mounties or UK riot police beating people’s brains in for voting in those… imagine if there had been. Both would be separated right now, I bet. It was probably the stupidest thing Spain could have done, letting the dogs loose.

5

I defy someone to name an independence movement that didn’t end drenched in blood when the central government was wllling - and able - to resist. Particularly when the capitol of the central government is just down the f’ing road.

It seems like an awful lot to risk on Madrid blinking. Do they not see what happened in Ukraine? Yugoslavia? Syria?

6

Exactly spilled blood legitimizes a cause better than anything and polarizes and forces loyalties.

7

Catalexit? Sounds like a luxury car.

8

A helpful quote for this situation:

“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”
–Emma Goldman

(Hey, the first Google Video hit for her is a video by Feminist Frequency. That’s funny.)

9

Had the Canadian federal governemnt declared the 1980 referendum illegal and tried to supress it (I don’t think even the Conservatives would have gone this far though) then it would have been very bad, there probably would have been a violent uprising.

That said, though the Government allowed the referendum to proceed and legitimized it by campaigning actively for the No side, Trudeau did say at the time that Canada was not bound by the results… so the real test would have been had the Yes side won.

Looks like the Spainish government actively fuelled the Yes vote with their antagonism, rather than trying to make a positive case for unified Spain and working with the No side on messaging.

10

https://brobible.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/catalinamixer2.jpg?quality=90&w=600

It’s the f*cking Catalina Wine Mixer…

Wait, sorry. Wrong thread.

11

I’ve been waiting for this thread to pop up.

It’s serious.

My personal background is that I am a non-Catalan European Federalist (I don’t want independence from anybody but give further competences to Europe and for Spain to lose autonomy). So I disagree with secessionist movements on practical and ideological grounds. That said, half of my family is Basque, my wife is Galician and I am pretty sensitized and supportive of national identities within Spain. I also think that if a people want to secede (a clear majority) they have the right to do so.

In my opinion all this would have been avoided had we chosen to allow for a vote 10 years ago (even now secessionists are not a majority, or at least they were not until Sunday. Today I’m not so sure), or even had the Spanish government allowed for Catalonia to get their new Statute of Autonomy, which was taken away. But sadly allowing a vote seems to be political suicide for national parties (although I think this is changing) and we have been stuck with a right wing government that have a lot of anti-nationalist voters and that have refused to engage in dialog.

So, for the last 5 years or so the situation radicalized (in part because a Catalonian government that used nationalistic feeling to divert attention away from rampart corruption, in part because of the economic crisis, in part because of age old grievances -although many nationalists are immigrants or sons of immigrants-). And while the Catalonian movement moved in that direction NOTHING was done by the Spanish government. And I mean nothing.

Seriously, by August you would think nothing was happening because nobody was taking it seriously. I really think the government made a disastrous miscalculation thinking this vote was just a bluff and that Catalan politicians would not risk prison. Why they did this calculation evades me. Anybody with a reasonable perception of reality knew this was for real and serious and that negotiations were the best way to ensure shit didn’t hit the fan. I think the Spanish government was grossly incompetent on this regard until early September. In September they started to see it was for real, but it was too late to negotiate and they panicked.

Incompetence gave way to something far worse. Hubris and madness. What happened on Sunday has made my perception of Catalonian independence go from possible but unlikely (before last year) to somewhat probable but still avoidable (run up to the vote) to almost certain after the police violence.

I think a federal Spain with ample autonomous competences for Catalonia would still be preferable for most Catalonians (I still think secessionists are perhaps under 50%) but that can’t happen with the current government. Unless the opposition force them out (a possibility) opening a possibility of dialog, they will declare independence (note that they haven’t done so yet). But there’s a VERY tight deadline here to start negotiations, specially after the stupid use of force (note that a previous illegal vote was just ignored and things remained calm, the same could have been done here). And if they do declare independence and we are still stuck with the grossly incompetent buffoons in Moncloa I would not bet against military intervention and further and more extreme violence.

Ultimately I think Catalans have a right to choose, but Sunday most people didn’t vote (participation was way under 50%, really hard to tell in the current climate since a lot of people are radicalizing -and I can’t blame them for it-) and that a real vote with guarantees should be offered to them. Right now, if they go like this, there are going to be a lot of Catalans unhappy with secession, which is breeding ground for further conflict.

12

Basque separatists were violent well before the 80s. They were one of the few groups to oppose the fascist dictatorship in the 60s and 70s. When democracy came they lost a lot of support.

13

Juan’s take is almost word for word mine. The police actions were both outrageous and enormously counterproductive and have made the whole situation much more dangerous, and much more likely to end in conflict. I have no idea why they didn’t just let the vote go ahead and ignore it.

14

Yeah, my understanding is a lot of the opposition flat-out boycotted the vote. Others were scared due to the potential for violence.

15

Nothing about how this was another Russian-backed secessionist movement? Anything that’s bad for the west is good for Putin.

16

They decided that they had more to lose by allowing unequivocally illegal actions. Perhaps they feared it would set a precedent (both within Catalonia and elsewhere in Spain) that other political actors might decide that they could start conducting other kinds of illegal behaviour as long as it was in the name of ‘democracy’.

The optics are awful outside Spain (and made far worse by media that have made little attempt to delve beyond the most obvious and facile level of analysis and insight), but the little I hear from Spanish acquaintances is that by and large the Government’s show of resolve has been met with support from most Spanish citizens.

So far, I’ve mostly seen people arguing for the referendum/secession based on complete misunderstandings of fairly fundamental democratic concepts e.g.;

Arguing that Catalonia not being independent is somehow a ‘democratic deficit’
That Catalonians unilaterally seceding is ‘direct democracy’
That not allowing an illegal referendum is ‘undemocratic’
And indeed, that referendums themselves are some sort of pure form of democracy that should be sought at all costs.

The irony that in 20th century history, it was Fascist leaders who were most fond of referendum seems entirely lost on people arguing against ‘Fascist’ Spanish actions at the moment.

The violence committed by the Police was deplorable, but it was a minuscule amount of violence (genuinely, have people lost all sense of perspective?) and certainly doesn’t merit the ‘brutal oppression’ tag people are merrily throwing around.

I mostly just feel sorry for Catalonians. They have been misled by corrupt demagogues for years, and the average pro-secessionist seems completely unaware of

a) That all evidence states that the UN and ICJ only consider a ‘people’ to have a right to external self-determination rather than internal self-determination (and only then, if the two prospective states are easily divisible in terms of shared culture, history etc etc)
b) That the Treaty on the Function of the EU guarantees Spanish right to territorial integrity and mandates that the EU cannot intervene.

If Catalonia is to universally declare independence, it will receive no support from the UN and the EU must have no dealings with it other than through Spain.

There is no end-game for unilateral action. The only way for the EU to intervene is for their to be genuine widespread and concerted human rights violations, or for all EU members to agree on a treaty change.

17

I don’t disagree with most of what you’ve written, but a couple of points I have issues with:

This is far from true. On the issue, the population was roughly divided through political parties. PP and Ciudadanos not willing to negotiate, The PSOE willing to open Spain to federalism, but so far entrenched in opposition to the vote, and the rest of parties who thought the vote was illegal (well, except for Catalonian nationalists) but that there was no point in opposing it by force (the previous vote was allowed and considered illegal).

Since Sunday the position of many leaders and voters from the PSOE has shifted, or it seems so so far. There’s a part of the population who supports the government sending the police, but it is the more radicalized part of the population in the side opposite secession. Moderates are mostly very critical so far (while pointing out the vote is still illegal and not trustworthy) and some, like me, are voicing concerns that government action just threw more wood into the fire.

Ok, what about stupid, useless, ineffective oppression? The police accomplished nothing. They managed to close about 200 voting points of 2.7k of them. The impact it had on turnout or vote counting was negligible and radicalization of Catalonian citizens has skyrocketed. There’s no tangible benefit to be seen so far, imho. The only visible outcome of the intervention is to keep support of the farthest right to the government and the images everybody has seen. It’s a complete loss for the government, I think.

The rest of what you say is spot on. The vote is meaningless and hurtful for those who are opposed to secession within Catalonia. The democratic option would be to establish a legal way to vote through dialog (a vote that the secessionist might lose). And independence is going to be really hurtful (I agree Europe won’t deal with an independent Catalonia until Spain accepts such independence).

However:

This might come to pass. The lack of restraint on the police does not bode well if they send in the army (which I think will not happen even with a declaration of independence, but I can’t say is impossible anymore). In that case violence from both sides would be in the cards. Oh, and we also have far right groups saying they will take action if the government does not.

I really hope I’m wrong, though.

18

From a very optimistic POV the correct move for the government would’ve been to go “You wanted to vote? Awesome. We love votes. Totes illegal though, and iffy, and not up to par with a real democratic vote, but hey, we love the voting spirit of the citizens. The people who called the vote though, they’ve gone against the law, so you know, consequences…”

But that’s assuming the government isn’t a bunch of barely reconstructed fascists, which might be optimistic (I don’t much follow the politics from the other side of the border).

I hope it certainly doesn’t get any worse, what I’ve seen makes it look like both sides have good points about independence, but the government response makes me fear. Just a few days ago I was saying in another forum that the independentists were crazy if they though they’d get to stay in the EU after a unilateral declaration, no EU country wants to encourage that sort of thing, even if we ignore the veto from Spain, and especially since world public opinion isn’t going to go against “good guy Spain”…

19

I only have three limited avenues of insight;
1)My sister-in-law is Galician (and has been in Galicia with my nephew since Friday)
2)Spanish acquaintances I’ve collected from playing games
3)Newspapers.

Newspapers in particular, while critical of Rajoy, seem to have been very supportive overall.

The police accomplished nothing.

The action showed that Madrid were not interested in backing down. It showed that very, very clearly. Whether that ends up having disastrous consequences, or positive consequences (less likely) will be seen in the future.

The lack of restraint on the police does not bode well if they send in the army

What lack of restraint? Thus far reports have listed serious injures in numbers so small that I can count them on two hands. A few disproportionate actions by individual police does not in any way represent a collective lack of restraint.

The videos and images of police brutality appear to some extent have been manufactured. The old lady everyone talks about? Long time radical independence activist. The younger woman who apparently had her fingers broken one by one? An independence politician. The only people out there taking photos were people who very much want independence to happen. Is it really out of the realms of believability that there may have been attempts to be provocative and antagonistic, particularly when the whole referendum was designed from the get go to be a provocative and antagonistic middle finger to Madrid?

Is a certain level of doubt in absence of concrete information really such an impossibility these days?

20

Newspapers are going to newspaper. The three main newspapers are pretty much pro establishment and are extremely biased when talking about these issues. We have some better press here and there, less partisan, and those are critical. People though… In my experience there has been a lot of criticism on how it was handled. And this is in Madrid. In Catalonia you have former anti secessionist public figures switching sides like crazy.

Regarding the videos and the optics of Sunday, I have no doubt there’s a lot of propaganda in how it’s been disseminated. That does not imply restraint. The police should have backed down, in my opinion, and to their credit a lot of them did. Some of the videos I’ve seen show scenes I am deeply uncomfortable with, even without injuries. But you are right that looking just at front pages is naive.