Catalonia march for independence

[mypost]

Yes, you have to draw the line somewhere, I shouldn't be able to declare my flat an independent monarchy where not supporting Bray is punishable by public flogging. However, at the other end of the scale, should the Estonian people have just been happy to be ruled from Moscow? Sub-regions of Ireland ended up staying part of the UK? Should we have abandoned the idea of independence because of these regions and the potential for messiness? There's a sensible cut-off point, and it's not the exact same in every situation.

Estonia and the other Baltic nations were officially recognised countries before 1945. As was most of the countries that comprised Yugoslavia. Kosovo was a rebel province, that simply declared itself independent without going through either a political process or a democratic process. That declaration is not legal, and so I don't recognise it. And the "ethnic cleansing antics" that went on in the region over the years, were not one-sided either.

In Catalonia, the Spanish community is spread throughout the province, so any regional difficulty would be unlikely to arise. Mypost's mention of Montenegro is most relevant here - the UN and EU set the bar at 55%, which was just barely met, and Serbia accepted the outcome. The problem here is that when the new Spanish Constitution came in after Franco's death - it outlawed even the possibility of votes in any region, so it is the democratic principle that's at stake here, rath er than the eventual outcome.

Even if votes were permitted, the other issue is that it's not simply the Spanish side of the region Barcelona's decision to make. The rest of Catalonia seems quite happy living in France and Spain.

[peadar1987]

Estonia and the other Baltic nations were officially recognised countries before 1945. As was most of the countries that comprised Yugoslavia. Kosovo was a rebel province, that simply declared itself independent without going through either a political process or a democratic process. That declaration is not legal, and so I don't recognise it. And the "ethnic cleansing antics" that went on in the region over the years, were not one-sided either.

Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, Estonia had been a nation state for 21 years in total, from 1918 until 1939. Before that it had been part of the Russian Empire, East Prussia, a Lithuanian-Polish confederacy, and Sweden, among others, as a region with significant linguistic, cultural, and ethnic heritage of its own. So a bit like Catalunya is today. Or a bit like Kosovo, which is primarily ethnic Albanian, whereas Serbia is, well, Serbian, as I'm sure you know.

Ireland hadn't been independent in 800 years before 1922.

Nations have always emerged and disappeared. Deciding whether a people have the right to self-determination based on whether or not they was a Grand Duchy with significant autonomy in that region in 1722 isn't exactly the best way of going about things.

Even if votes were permitted, the other issue is that it's not simply the Spanish side of the region Barcelona's decision to make. The rest of Catalonia seems quite happy living in France and Spain.

Again, the potential for things to be less than perfectly clean isn't the best reason for keeping Catalunya part of Spain. The path to an independent Catalunya, if that's what significant proportions of the people in the region wanted, would probably involve very complicated negotiations about which regions stayed in Spain, which stayed in France, and which wanted to join the Catalan Republic, or whatever they called it. The fact that Perpignan might well choose of their own free will to remain part of France shouldn't be a deal-breaker for secession of other regions from Spain, in the same way that the choice of the Six Counties to remain part of the UK shouldn't have meant that Galway, Cork, and Tipperary should have their wish for independence ignored.

[Charlie Darwin]

Estonia and the other Baltic nations were officially recognised countries before 1945. As was most of the countries that comprised Yugoslavia. Kosovo was a rebel province, that simply declared itself independent without going through either a political process or a democratic process. That declaration is not legal, and so I don't recognise it.

I'm sure they're devastated.

[nigel-harps1954]

Most of all, I love how they show their support for each other by not singing their national anthem.

[culloty82]

A regional election on November 25th will show where things stand. Meanwhile, Venice wants to break away from Italy.

[Charlie Darwin]

Catalans have handed a majority to parties backing independence from Spain, strengthening the region's drive for a referendum on secession in defiance of Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, the first exit poll showed.Catalan president Artur Mas, who called early elections to force the debate on independence, won between 54 and 57 of the 135 seats in the regional assembly for his Convergencia i Unio party, according to estimate by Spanish broadcaster TV3, funded by the regional Catalan government.

The Separatist Catalan Republican Left won between 20 and 23 seats. Two smaller parties that also back a referendum secured at least 15 seats between them.
...

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...reaking17.html

[BonnieShels]

And now that that's all over nothing will happen.

[culloty82]

And now that that's all over nothing will happen.

Sunday's "poll" may have been a sham, but it has left the region facing two potential follow-ups: Either Rajoy, the Spanish PM allows a real referendum, or local elections, focused on independence will be held, after which a nationalist government would simply declare independence, so the first option seems the easier for Madrid to win.

[BonnieShels]

Well, my post is from 2012 above.

And there's no way a Catalonian Govt will secede unilaterally.

[BonnieShels]

So the Spanish authorities doing their best to increase support-levels for Catalan independence.

Some disgraceful scenes coming in from Barcelona.

[NeverFeltBetter]

What does Catalonia secession look like in the aftermath of a vote like this? Will Madrid have to occupy the province with police?

[BonnieShels]

Pretty much what they would have to do. If they were reasoned in their response before now they wouldn't have to go down that road but watching the Guardia Civil attacking Firefighters and having a standoff with Catalan Police is certainly disturbing. Rajoy is certainly out of his depth.

The EU response will be telling. A lot of leaders around Europe nervous. Fair dues to Charles Michel (Belgian PM) coming out with something.

[BonnieShels]

Foreign Office response:

"The referendum is a matter for the Spanish government and people. We want to see Spanish law and the Spanish constitution respected and the rule of law upheld. Spain is a close ally and a good friend, whose strength and unity matters to us."

You couldn't make it up.

[DannyInvincible]

So the Spanish authorities doing their best to increase support-levels for Catalan independence.

Some disgraceful scenes coming in from Barcelona.

Shocking scenes indeed. It's crazy that the Spanish government think taking a hard-line will help, especially in the information age. History has shown time and time again that such an approach only increases sympathy and support for those being subjected to state violence.

Paradoxically, the clamp-down - an attempt to suppress the independence movement - has actually given it wider exposure, à la the Streisand effect, than it probably would have garnered had the government not been so intransigent.

[BonnieShels]

Absolutely correct. It smacks of sheer stupidity. I'm sure the reasoning was to corral protesters (voters) and get them to fight back legitimising force against them.

It's backfired spectacularly.

[BonnieShels]

Great website for keep up-to-date.

http://spain.liveuamap.com/

[DannyInvincible]

Colm Tóibín (who lives in Barcelona, to the best of my knowledge) with a good piece in the Guardian on the present situation and the region's fractured history with Madrid: https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...lan-separatism

Madrid is not itself prepared to make a detailed case against the vote being held, but rather is insisting that it is illegal, as though the law were something that could not be changed. It is curious also that Madrid politicians have not been travelling the length and breadth of Catalonia – as, say, Gordon Brown did in Scotland in the runup to the independence referendum there – to make the argument against the referendum and against Catalan independence. Why have these politicians stayed in Madrid? Why did we not hear from them on the independence question in Catalonia this summer? Why have they offered coercion rather than argument?

...

The success of the policy on language is the main reason why Spanish politicians have not been visiting towns and villages in Catalonia, and not speaking on radio or TV to make the case against the referendum. Catalonia, for them, has become terra incognita. If Rajoy or his attorney general were to visit the heartland, they would find that no one had heard a political discussion in the Spanish language before, and they would notice also a strangeness, a sense that they themselves were in a foreign country.

[BonnieShels]

Current update 2154:

Catalonia has 'won right to statehood'

Carles Puigdemont, Catalan’s leader, has announced that the region has won the right to independence following today’s referendum.

[BonnieShels]

From RTVE: Taking the Generalitat count as valid, with 95% of the votes counted, 90.09% of the participants voted Yes to the independence of Catalonia (2,262,424 votes) ; He has not harvested 7.87% of the votes (176,566) and there have been 40,686 blank ballots (2.03%) and 20,729 null votes (0.89%). It is striking that the sum of these percentages exceeds 100% of the votes; in particular, gives 100.88%.

[DannyInvincible]

The BBC reported that turn-out was 42.3 per cent. I'm guessing the Spanish government clamp-down affected turn-out quite a bit with the Catalan authorities claiming that 319 of about 2,300 polling stations had been shut down. The Spanish government counter-claimed that 92 stations had been closed.

Catalan officials have also claimed that more than 750 people were injured.

Meanwhile, Gerard Pique condemned the brutality of of the Spanish government and offered his resignation from the Spanish national team if his presence would be deemed problematic in a tearful interview after Barca's game against Las Palmas today (which was played behind closed doors in the Nou Camp): https://www.theguardian.com/football...n-independence