Beyond 'Yes' and 'No'
Here's an interesting take on recent events in Catalonia from 'Global Voices' which goes beyond a simple Yes or No to independence.
For the moment both sides seems to have taken a step back, so it will be interesting to see if the 'pro' and 'anti-independence groups can agree upon a democratic process capable of reviewing the country's constitution while addressing other issues including the widespread corruption which has existed in Spanish society for years.
https://globalvoices.org/2017/10/10/beyond-the-yes-and-no-of-catalonias-independence-referendum/
Beyond the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ of Catalonia’s Independence Referendum
A woman rebukes the National Police during the Catalan referendum, on October 1st 2017. Photo by Vicens Forner Puig, with with permission.
With hashtags like #votarem (“we will vote”), citizens with the right to vote in Catalonia, a region in northeast Spain, published their photos and stories on social media while they participated in a controversial referendum on independence. The vote on 1 October was deemed illegal by the central government in Madrid, which considers it unconstitutional.
Catalonia's current independence process started in 2012, when the Catalan Parliament resolved to request authorisation from the government in Madrid to hold a referendum on self-determination. Despite Madrid's continuous rejection, supported by the country's Constitutional Court, the Catalan government unilaterally decided to call a non-binding consultation in 2014, and, finally, the referendum on 1 October.
While public TV channels and other mass media outlets were criticised for their coverage of events, every minute of election day could be followed on social media, which was filled with excited testimonies, people who spent the night outside the polling booths to prevent them being shut down, or videos of long queues and people waiting for hours to vote.
Images of elderly people entering or leaving the voting booths amid applause from their neighbours were particularly popular. Their key role throughout the process led to slogans such as “sense les àvies no hi ha revolució” (“without grandmothers there is no revolution”) or “nuestros abuelos no se tocan” (“hands off our grandparents”).
The violent actions of the state's security forces were without a doubt one of the most debated subjects, from videos of buses full of police leaving from Cordoba, on the other side of the country, to images of Basque firemen who traveled to join Catalan firemen in defending the polls. The debate over if the repression was justified, and whether the referendum was illegal, was a fiery one.
Catalans were not the only people reacting to violence with indignation. For example, in a viral tweet, Patricia Horrillo, an activist and journalist in Madrid, argued that criticism of police repression should be independent of personal political views:
You may not agree with the independence movement, but if you see today's images of police repression and are not outraged, look again.
This reaction to the brutality could also be seen on the streets, where protests were called in solidarity with the Catalan people in different parts of the country, such as Madrid, Seville or Granada.
Beyond the referendum results and the tension around the country's fate, social media circulated some conciliatory anecdotes, like the viral photos and videos of people going to vote dressed in the Spanish flag, the flag of the Second Spanish Republic (which came to an end in 1939; Spain is currently a constitutional monarchy), or the shirt of the national football team. These moments of solidarity across political divides were repeated during the strike called two days later to protest police repression.
Many citizens decided not to participate in the vote, as they considered it illegitimate or pointless. However, after witnessing the images of repression, many others who had not intended to vote expressed their determination to do so as a gesture of protest and joined the strike in solidarity.
Thus, some of the voters who said “no” to independence explained on social media their decision to participate in the referendum as an exercise in defending what they still consider a democratic right. For example, in the video below by Euronews, a protester who voted “NO” explains his reasons for going to the strike:
Protester: I think that in a democracy we all have to vote, and no matter what our opinion is we must show it. I'm also here to protest against the violence inflicted on my people, the Catalan people. It's completely disproportionate, for people who only wanted to voice their opinion.
Videographer: Where are you from?
Protester: I'm from Esplugues. Esplugues in Llobregat.
Videographer: Are you pro-independence?
Protester: No.
Videographer: What have you got there? Which flag is that you've got there?
Protester: Ah, this is the Spanish republican flag.
Videographer: Did you vote in the referendum?
Protester: I voted.
Videographer: What did you vote?
Protester: I voted “no”. I voted “no”. I stayed until the poll closed to stop them from taking the ballots.
The referendum also brought to light certain contradictions for some citizens who did not feel included in the process from the start, or who did not have the privilege of participating in it. In an article in the newspaper El Salto, feminist activist Ana Burgos, who is from the region of Andalusia but lives in Catalonia, wondered, “What is an Andalusian doing defending anything here, with all the Andalusphobic rubbish that I put up with every day”:
From the start of the process and throughout its development, I never felt included: a convergent leadership that had little to do with me in a society that is – like so many others – profoundly classist, racist and patriarchal, and whose national political project, with very little self-criticism, did not represent me. […]
So, the offenses against the people committed by [Spanish President Mariano] Rajoy and his followers drove us to take to the streets to defend a process that we did not trust and institutions that we did not believe in, or at least that many of us saw as problematic. […] And the thing is we were really taking to the streets to defend our sisters and neighbours, a people who were getting a beating.
Another of the criticisms and contradictions that was highlighted made reference to the hundreds of thousands of migrants residing in Catalonia, but who do not have citizenship, and therefore were excluded from participating in the referendum. One activist commented in a Facebook post that has since become unavailable:
Her: Will you vote on Sunday?
Me: I don't have the right to vote.
Her: And if you had it, would you vote?
Me: I don't have the right to vote.
Her: Yes, yes, I understand. But if you had it, would you go and vote?
Me: I don't have the right to vote.
Her: Seriously… would you go and vote?
Me: I'll go and vomit because I can't vote.
Fàtima Aatar, an anthropologist and activist, reflected on the non-inclusion of foreign residents in the vote for the magazine La Directa:
…how is it possible that in an act of political, legal and social disobedience, there was no disobedience on this specific issue? Why did they choose to inherit Spain's immigration law considering that it is one of the most characteristic issues of the regime? Disobedience? When and for whom?
Drawing parallels between the physical and administrative violence exercised by the Spanish state against migrants and the repression during the referendum, Moha Gereou, a journalist and activist based in Madrid, commented:
If you are not from Spain but you want to be part of it you are met with violence.
If you are from Spain but you do not want to be part of it you are met with violence.
A lot is yet to come in the next weeks and months. It is difficult to predict what might happen, but it is clear that Spain and Catalonia are facing one of the most complex and decisive processes of their recent democratic history, and the way in which the institutions respond will mark the future of the state, of the peoples who make it up, and above all, of ordinary citizens.
Dinero Negro (09/10/17)
The news that Spain's most successful footballer Lionel Messi is to face trial over allegations of tax fraud comes as no surprise because the concept of 'dinero negro' or black money has been an established part of Spanish culture for years.
Not only that, the role of football seems to rife with famous figures and clubs going out of their way to avoid paying their fair share taxes, as Scotland knows only too well with now infamous arrangements of Rangers Football Club which involved the club paying their star performers in 'loans' which had the unique quality of never having to be repaid.
The allegations against Lionel Messi date back to 2007-08 and involve a sum of around 4 million Euros while the star forward for Barcelona and Argentina enjoys a basic salary of 16 million Euros a year without including his many lucrative commercial endorsements.
By the way, the caption on the cartoon above says " I never received any black money.... it was purple or yellow."
Spain has been governed by both Conservative and Socialist in the past 15 years, but at long last the problem of 'dinero negro' or black money appears to be getting taken seriously - if this story from the business pages of the Times is an indication of things to come.
If you want to know why the Spanish economy is in such a state - or why the Greek economy is a basket case - the answer is that people don't like paying their taxes and for years the authorities in both countries have turned a blind eye to scandalous practices - which should have been outlawed years ago.
Marbella property cabal jailed for €3.8bn graft racket
Juan Antonio Roca liked to be called "J.R" after the ruthless character in the television series Dallas National Police Press
By Graham Keeley
A cabal of crooked politicians, former mayors, a footballer, a bullfight impresario, police chiefs and builders were jailed or fined yesterday in Spain’s biggest political corruption scandal.
After a two-year trial, 52 people were sentenced for their part in a €3.8 billion (£3.2 billion) graft scandal at the heart of Marbella town council, which led to the dissolution of the municipal authority in 2006 when it was uncovered.
The court heard that the defendants ran the town on the Costa del Sol like their own fiefdom for 15 years. At the height of Spain’s building boom, the court was told that they were taking multimillion-pound kickbacks for illegal building contracts.
The scandal threatened to have a huge impact on Britons with second homes in the town. The council was immediately dissolved by the Government, posing a question over 30,000 villas, many owned by Britons, but which were deemed to have been built illegally. Thousands faced having their homes demolished as the Government began a crackdown. However, a new council did a deal with developers which spared all but a few flats.
The brains behind the scam was Juan Antonio Roca, 61, a former jobless builder who became head of planning on the council. He was jailed for 11 years, fined €240 million and banned from public office for 34 years for bribery, perverting the course of justice and money laundering.
In 2006, when Roca was arrested, Marbella residents were shocked by the riches he had amassed. He filled a series of houses with stuffed lions and giraffes, left a stable full of starving thoroughbreds and 275 works of art, including a Joan Miró painting that was left to go mouldy in his toilet.
Roca, who liked to be called “J. R.”, after the ruthless character in the television series Dallas, told anyone who questioned his authority: “I am Marbella.”
He set up 70 ghost companies to receive the kickbacks and valued them at €200 million. “The display of wealth has been open and shameless,” Miguel Ángel Torres, for the prosecution, told the court.
At Roca’s side was Julián Muñoz, the former mayor and ex-boyfriend of Isabel Pantoja, a singer. He was jailed for two years and banned from public office for ten years for fraud. He is serving a seven-year jail term for money laundering and bribery. Pantoja was fined €1.5 million for laundering money for him. Marisol Yagüe, who became mayoress after Muñoz, was jailed for seven years and fined €2 million.
The former Atlético Madrid footballer Tomás Reñones, who was assistant mayor, was jailed for four years for fraud. Also convicted was José María González de Caldas, a former president of Seville Football Club and manager of Manolo Benítez, better known as El Cordobés, a famous matador. He was jailed for eight months for bribery. Two police chiefs and a series of builders were jailed or fined. The cabal was created by the former mayor of Marbella, Jesús Gil y Gil, who died in 2004 facing corruption charges.
'Dinero negro' or black money is the talk of the 'steamie' in Spain at the moment - because many leading officials in the Spanish Government's party (the PP or People's Party) - have been accused of accepting payments from a secret slush fund on which they paid no tax. allegedly.
Now at a time when people in Spain - just as in the UK - are 'all in this together' revelations of secret tax free payments - from a Swiss bank account no less - could be enough to bring the the Spanish Prime Minister (Mariano Rajoy) and his government crashing down.
The whole business reads like a script from a Holywoood movie - The Untouchables, if you ask me - because in the Brian de Palma version starring Sean Connery and Kevin Costner - the man who 'does for' Al Capone (played by Robert de Niro) - is an accountant who kept his own set of books which led to his boss's downfall.
So the Mafia mobster was not sent to jail for murder - as everyone knows thanks to The Untouchables - but for fraud and failing to pay his taxes to the US Treasury
The same thing appears to be happening in the Spanish PP - if these allegations are true.
Because the party's former treasurer - a shady character named Barcenas - is on trial in a separate corruption scandal - and in the course of this legal action certain documents have emerged which seem to implicate the Spanish Prime Minister and his People's Party.
But that's not the really big story - the really big story is that tax evasion is Spain is endemic - so widespread in fact that everybody's at it up to and including the legal profession.
For example, when people buy or sell a property in Spain - there is a declared or official price - and another real price which the buyer actually pays.
The real price is say 100,000 Euros - but the official or declared price may be only 70,000 Euros - with the difference being payed to the seller in cash by the buyer - so that the seller keeps 30% of the sale price but without paying any tax.
And the laugh is that the lawyers - or notaries - who oversee the buying and selling process for both sides in Spain, unlike in the UK - know exactly what's going but conveniently look the other way when the 'dinero negro' cash changes hands.
Now this kind of behaviour would be impossible in the UK - although it is certainly rife in Spain and possibly many other Mediterranean countries as well.
Just imagine how much tax has been unpaid and deliberately evaded - with all the property building that's gone on in Spain during the last twenty years - the mind boggles.
Yet the thing is it's happened under very government - of the both the left and the right - under the Socialists and Conservatives - and that's a much bigger scandal than the one threatening to engulf the People's Party at the moment.
Dinero Negro (12 October 2013)
Spain has been governed by both Conservative and Socialist in the past 15 years, but at long last the problem of 'dinero negro' or black money appears to be getting taken seriously - if this story from the business pages of the Times is an indication of things to come.
If you want to know why the Spanish economy is in such a state - or why the Greek economy is a basket case - the answer is that people don't like paying their taxes and for years the authorities in both countries have turned a blind eye to scandalous practices - which should have been outlawed years ago.
Marbella property cabal jailed for €3.8bn graft racket
Juan Antonio Roca liked to be called "J.R" after the ruthless character in the television series Dallas National Police Press
By Graham Keeley
A cabal of crooked politicians, former mayors, a footballer, a bullfight impresario, police chiefs and builders were jailed or fined yesterday in Spain’s biggest political corruption scandal.
After a two-year trial, 52 people were sentenced for their part in a €3.8 billion (£3.2 billion) graft scandal at the heart of Marbella town council, which led to the dissolution of the municipal authority in 2006 when it was uncovered.
The court heard that the defendants ran the town on the Costa del Sol like their own fiefdom for 15 years. At the height of Spain’s building boom, the court was told that they were taking multimillion-pound kickbacks for illegal building contracts.
The scandal threatened to have a huge impact on Britons with second homes in the town. The council was immediately dissolved by the Government, posing a question over 30,000 villas, many owned by Britons, but which were deemed to have been built illegally. Thousands faced having their homes demolished as the Government began a crackdown. However, a new council did a deal with developers which spared all but a few flats.
The brains behind the scam was Juan Antonio Roca, 61, a former jobless builder who became head of planning on the council. He was jailed for 11 years, fined €240 million and banned from public office for 34 years for bribery, perverting the course of justice and money laundering.
In 2006, when Roca was arrested, Marbella residents were shocked by the riches he had amassed. He filled a series of houses with stuffed lions and giraffes, left a stable full of starving thoroughbreds and 275 works of art, including a Joan Miró painting that was left to go mouldy in his toilet.
Roca, who liked to be called “J. R.”, after the ruthless character in the television series Dallas, told anyone who questioned his authority: “I am Marbella.”
He set up 70 ghost companies to receive the kickbacks and valued them at €200 million. “The display of wealth has been open and shameless,” Miguel Ángel Torres, for the prosecution, told the court.
At Roca’s side was Julián Muñoz, the former mayor and ex-boyfriend of Isabel Pantoja, a singer. He was jailed for two years and banned from public office for ten years for fraud. He is serving a seven-year jail term for money laundering and bribery. Pantoja was fined €1.5 million for laundering money for him. Marisol Yagüe, who became mayoress after Muñoz, was jailed for seven years and fined €2 million.
The former Atlético Madrid footballer Tomás Reñones, who was assistant mayor, was jailed for four years for fraud. Also convicted was José María González de Caldas, a former president of Seville Football Club and manager of Manolo Benítez, better known as El Cordobés, a famous matador. He was jailed for eight months for bribery. Two police chiefs and a series of builders were jailed or fined. The cabal was created by the former mayor of Marbella, Jesús Gil y Gil, who died in 2004 facing corruption charges.
'Dinero Negro' (10 February 2013)
'Dinero negro' or black money is the talk of the 'steamie' in Spain at the moment - because many leading officials in the Spanish Government's party (the PP or People's Party) - have been accused of accepting payments from a secret slush fund on which they paid no tax. allegedly.
Now at a time when people in Spain - just as in the UK - are 'all in this together' revelations of secret tax free payments - from a Swiss bank account no less - could be enough to bring the the Spanish Prime Minister (Mariano Rajoy) and his government crashing down.
The whole business reads like a script from a Holywoood movie - The Untouchables, if you ask me - because in the Brian de Palma version starring Sean Connery and Kevin Costner - the man who 'does for' Al Capone (played by Robert de Niro) - is an accountant who kept his own set of books which led to his boss's downfall.
So the Mafia mobster was not sent to jail for murder - as everyone knows thanks to The Untouchables - but for fraud and failing to pay his taxes to the US Treasury
The same thing appears to be happening in the Spanish PP - if these allegations are true.
Because the party's former treasurer - a shady character named Barcenas - is on trial in a separate corruption scandal - and in the course of this legal action certain documents have emerged which seem to implicate the Spanish Prime Minister and his People's Party.
But that's not the really big story - the really big story is that tax evasion is Spain is endemic - so widespread in fact that everybody's at it up to and including the legal profession.
For example, when people buy or sell a property in Spain - there is a declared or official price - and another real price which the buyer actually pays.
The real price is say 100,000 Euros - but the official or declared price may be only 70,000 Euros - with the difference being payed to the seller in cash by the buyer - so that the seller keeps 30% of the sale price but without paying any tax.
And the laugh is that the lawyers - or notaries - who oversee the buying and selling process for both sides in Spain, unlike in the UK - know exactly what's going but conveniently look the other way when the 'dinero negro' cash changes hands.
Now this kind of behaviour would be impossible in the UK - although it is certainly rife in Spain and possibly many other Mediterranean countries as well.
Just imagine how much tax has been unpaid and deliberately evaded - with all the property building that's gone on in Spain during the last twenty years - the mind boggles.
Yet the thing is it's happened under very government - of the both the left and the right - under the Socialists and Conservatives - and that's a much bigger scandal than the one threatening to engulf the People's Party at the moment.
The Blame in Spain (09/10/17)
Paul Preston penned an excellent piece for The Sunday Times yesterday explaining the background to events in Catalonia where support for independence has risen thanks largely to the heavy-handed behaviour of the Madrid government and prime minister Rajoy.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/catalan-breakaway-the-long-fight-to-keep-spain-whole-vmvlsf307
Catalan independence: the long fight to keep Spain whole
Madrid’s response to the Catalan vote adds to a list of lost chances for peace
Paul Preston - The Sunday Times
King Felipe, with Queen Letizia, has tarnished his position - UTRECHT ROBIN/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
For General Franco, there were two Spains: the “authentic” and the “anti-Spain”, the victors and the vanquished in the civil war.
After Franco’s death on November 20, 1975, Juan Carlos was proclaimed “King of all Spaniards”, a phrase thereafter adopted as his mantra and now abandoned by his son.
Last Sunday, nearly 900 Catalans were injured as the Spanish police and civil guard employed brute force to stop millions voting in an unconstitutional referendum on independence.
I have since spoken to several Catalans who were beaten, including several who had intended to vote to remain in Spain. Many are changing their minds after 10,000 police were sent to Catalonia from other parts of Spain where resentment of Catalans is palpable.
The firing of rubber bullets, the smashing up of polling stations and the violence against women and old people evoked memories of the Franco dictatorship.
Claims by the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, echoed by Juan Carlos’s son King Felipe, that these violations of human rights were “proportionate”, have marked a return to the past.
Felipe was expected to appeal for calm and dialogue but, instead, ignoring the violence, he condemned one side of the conflict. In doing so, he has tarnished his position as a neutral head of state. Similarly, the EU’s support for Rajoy has served to poison the atmosphere.
The events of last weekend have confirmed a pattern of the past 100 years — of which Rajoy seems unaware — whereby Catalan separatism feeds off Madrid’s centralist intransigence. With a deep sense of separate identity, built on a different language, a rich culture of literature, architecture and music, many Catalans aspire to greater political recognition and fiscal autonomy.
Intransigence from Madrid tips nationalism into separatism. For instance, the ruthlessly anti-Catalan policy of the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera from 1923 to 1930 led to the huge electoral success in April 1931 of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia) and the subsequent autonomy statute of September 1932.
One of the objectives of the military rising of July 1936, within its declared intention of eliminating “without scruple or hesitation those who do not think as we do”, was the eradication of Catalan independence.
The honour of leading Franco’s victory parade in Barcelona, the Catalan capital, was given to Navarrese troops, according to a British military observer, “not because they have fought better, but because they hate better — that is to say, when the object of this hate is Catalonia or a Catalan”. One officer told a Portuguese journalist that the only solution to the “Catalan problem” was “kill the Catalans. It’s just a question of time.”
Under Franco, hundreds of thousands were exiled and many thousands held in concentration camps. The language and culture were repressed. All vestiges of independence were erased, a process symbolised by the fate of the former Catalan president Lluis Companys. He was arrested by the Gestapo in France in August 1940 and handed over to the Spanish police. For five weeks, he was tortured. Accused of military rebellion, he was sentenced to death, shot and turned into a martyr for the Catalan cause.
Inevitably, the dictatorship increased Catalanist feeling. Demonstrations in Catalonia were crucial in persuading Francoists to participate in the negotiations which underlay the transition to democracy.
The first democratic elections in June 1977 saw 75% of the vote in Catalonia cast for parties seeking the reinstatement of the 1932 statute. Catalonia, along with the Basque country and Galicia, was granted a statute of autonomy in 1979, although the effect of this was diluted by the concession of autonomy to 17 regions in July 1981, of which 13 had no tradition of nationalism.
In 2005, when support for Catalan independence stood at just 13.6%, a revised autonomy statute was drafted. Agreed in the Catalan parliament, after lengthy debates, it was approved in the Madrid Cortes in 2006 but fiercely criticised by the Spanish right-wing media. Catalan products were boycotted.
A challenge by the right-wing Popular Party (PP) saw the text referred to the extremely conservative constitutional tribunal. After a four-year delay, which frustrated and inflamed independence sentiment, its judgment in June 2010 revoked articles concerning fiscal parity and added references to the “indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation”. It was a slap in the face for the moderates who had hoped for a mutually beneficial arrangement with Spain.
By then, thanks also to austerity policies in response to the economic crisis, support for independence was hovering around 40%.
Shortly after the PP was voted into power in 2011, the centre-right Democratic Convergence of Catalonia party, pushed by young radical nationalists, called an independence referendum. Madrid permitted a consultative poll on independence in November 2014, which seemed to be a victory for the nationalists only because of the abstention of those opposing independence.
Tensions intensified as the Catalan elections in 2015 saw a new nationalist coalition government under Carles Puigdemont announce a definitive referendum on independence. Rather than take the opportunity offered by the likelihood of a “no” vote to offer to discuss some movement towards the 2005 autonomy text, the PP government chose to ignore the aspirations of millions of Catalans and declared that it would prevent independence by any means.
In the present stand-off, a unilateral declaration of independence would be rash. Even if Madrid did not respond with violence, a Catalan state would face immense difficulties in integrating into the EU.
Equally, that Madrid should have risked the economic lunacy of alienating one of the country’s wealthiest regions is a triumph of ideology over a sense of history. There is electoral capital to be made in parts of Spain from anti-Catalanism but, in the long-term, it can only damage Spain.
The present situation could easily have been avoided. Rajoy, in the knowledge of the strength of anti-independence feeling (which he may have squandered), while insisting that the constitution does not permit a referendum on autonomy, could have suggested that a consultative procedure, if it got a certain majority, could open the way to serious talks about the original 2005 autonomy statute.
Now, Rajoy has left himself with the prospect of invoking the suspension of regional autonomy. That would mean using the army, arresting Puigdemont and members of the Catalan cabinet as well as untold numbers of functionaries.
It would also see millions of people on the streets in solidarity in Catalonia and elsewhere, especially the Basque country. At that point, the scale of violations of human rights would make it difficult for the EU to go on saying that this is just an internal matter for Spain.
Professor Paul Preston is director of the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies at the London School of Economics and author of The last Days of the Spanish Republic
For General Franco, there were two Spains: the “authentic” and the “anti-Spain”, the victors and the vanquished in the civil war.
After Franco’s death on November 20, 1975, Juan Carlos was proclaimed “King of all Spaniards”, a phrase thereafter adopted as his mantra and now abandoned by his son.
Last Sunday, nearly 900 Catalans were injured as the Spanish police and civil guard employed brute force to stop millions voting in an unconstitutional referendum on independence.
I have since spoken to several Catalans who were beaten, including several who had intended to vote to remain in Spain. Many are changing their minds after 10,000 police were sent to Catalonia from other parts of Spain where resentment of Catalans is palpable.
The firing of rubber bullets, the smashing up of polling stations and the violence against women and old people evoked memories of the Franco dictatorship.
Claims by the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, echoed by Juan Carlos’s son King Felipe, that these violations of human rights were “proportionate”, have marked a return to the past.
Felipe was expected to appeal for calm and dialogue but, instead, ignoring the violence, he condemned one side of the conflict. In doing so, he has tarnished his position as a neutral head of state. Similarly, the EU’s support for Rajoy has served to poison the atmosphere.
The events of last weekend have confirmed a pattern of the past 100 years — of which Rajoy seems unaware — whereby Catalan separatism feeds off Madrid’s centralist intransigence. With a deep sense of separate identity, built on a different language, a rich culture of literature, architecture and music, many Catalans aspire to greater political recognition and fiscal autonomy.
Intransigence from Madrid tips nationalism into separatism. For instance, the ruthlessly anti-Catalan policy of the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera from 1923 to 1930 led to the huge electoral success in April 1931 of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia) and the subsequent autonomy statute of September 1932.
One of the objectives of the military rising of July 1936, within its declared intention of eliminating “without scruple or hesitation those who do not think as we do”, was the eradication of Catalan independence.
The honour of leading Franco’s victory parade in Barcelona, the Catalan capital, was given to Navarrese troops, according to a British military observer, “not because they have fought better, but because they hate better — that is to say, when the object of this hate is Catalonia or a Catalan”. One officer told a Portuguese journalist that the only solution to the “Catalan problem” was “kill the Catalans. It’s just a question of time.”
Under Franco, hundreds of thousands were exiled and many thousands held in concentration camps. The language and culture were repressed. All vestiges of independence were erased, a process symbolised by the fate of the former Catalan president Lluis Companys. He was arrested by the Gestapo in France in August 1940 and handed over to the Spanish police. For five weeks, he was tortured. Accused of military rebellion, he was sentenced to death, shot and turned into a martyr for the Catalan cause.
Inevitably, the dictatorship increased Catalanist feeling. Demonstrations in Catalonia were crucial in persuading Francoists to participate in the negotiations which underlay the transition to democracy.
The first democratic elections in June 1977 saw 75% of the vote in Catalonia cast for parties seeking the reinstatement of the 1932 statute. Catalonia, along with the Basque country and Galicia, was granted a statute of autonomy in 1979, although the effect of this was diluted by the concession of autonomy to 17 regions in July 1981, of which 13 had no tradition of nationalism.
In 2005, when support for Catalan independence stood at just 13.6%, a revised autonomy statute was drafted. Agreed in the Catalan parliament, after lengthy debates, it was approved in the Madrid Cortes in 2006 but fiercely criticised by the Spanish right-wing media. Catalan products were boycotted.
A challenge by the right-wing Popular Party (PP) saw the text referred to the extremely conservative constitutional tribunal. After a four-year delay, which frustrated and inflamed independence sentiment, its judgment in June 2010 revoked articles concerning fiscal parity and added references to the “indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation”. It was a slap in the face for the moderates who had hoped for a mutually beneficial arrangement with Spain.
By then, thanks also to austerity policies in response to the economic crisis, support for independence was hovering around 40%.
Shortly after the PP was voted into power in 2011, the centre-right Democratic Convergence of Catalonia party, pushed by young radical nationalists, called an independence referendum. Madrid permitted a consultative poll on independence in November 2014, which seemed to be a victory for the nationalists only because of the abstention of those opposing independence.
Tensions intensified as the Catalan elections in 2015 saw a new nationalist coalition government under Carles Puigdemont announce a definitive referendum on independence. Rather than take the opportunity offered by the likelihood of a “no” vote to offer to discuss some movement towards the 2005 autonomy text, the PP government chose to ignore the aspirations of millions of Catalans and declared that it would prevent independence by any means.
In the present stand-off, a unilateral declaration of independence would be rash. Even if Madrid did not respond with violence, a Catalan state would face immense difficulties in integrating into the EU.
Equally, that Madrid should have risked the economic lunacy of alienating one of the country’s wealthiest regions is a triumph of ideology over a sense of history. There is electoral capital to be made in parts of Spain from anti-Catalanism but, in the long-term, it can only damage Spain.
The present situation could easily have been avoided. Rajoy, in the knowledge of the strength of anti-independence feeling (which he may have squandered), while insisting that the constitution does not permit a referendum on autonomy, could have suggested that a consultative procedure, if it got a certain majority, could open the way to serious talks about the original 2005 autonomy statute.
Now, Rajoy has left himself with the prospect of invoking the suspension of regional autonomy. That would mean using the army, arresting Puigdemont and members of the Catalan cabinet as well as untold numbers of functionaries.
It would also see millions of people on the streets in solidarity in Catalonia and elsewhere, especially the Basque country. At that point, the scale of violations of human rights would make it difficult for the EU to go on saying that this is just an internal matter for Spain.
Professor Paul Preston is director of the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies at the London School of Economics and author of The last Days of the Spanish Republic
