Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ChairmanPoo]

17 according to local news. 

This situation is spinning out of control fast.

(Why oh why must this happen precisedly during my holidays)

[Loud Whispers]

I am deeply concerned

[smjjames]

It's been slowly escalating, with the 'slowly' picking up speed over time.

Spain seems to be trying everything possible outside of outright murder to stop the referendum, and it's only making everything worse because it'll make the Catalonians angrier and more likely to do a hard split, then Spain does more crackdown, rinse and repeat. I see no offramp from this spiral atm.

[ChairmanPoo]

Itīs more complex than that but itīs a good sum-up


My personal analysis
See, all this started around 2008. The Catalonian goverment (then under the Socialist Party) was promised a reform of itīs autonomy status to improve self-goverment... and the overall situation of Catalonian autonomy, really. As it stands they have actually a worse deal than most autonomous communities. It kept getting delayed, and things came to a close around 5-6 years ago, when the Catalonian goverment (under control of the major nationalist party once again) demanded from the (then conservative) central goverment to make good their promises.
 Only... as I said, the central goverment was (and is) in hands of the very conservative and very centralist "Popular Party". Who happened to have an absolute majority in parliament at the time. So they basically ignored them. Then tensions started to build up, each side tensed the rope more and more, and eventually we have come to this situation.

Some things to note (IMO):
- Catalonian society is very evenly split about the matter of independence. Votes-wise, non nationalistic parties had a slight edge in the last election, even. (That was before all this mess, of course. Who knows what the current split is)

- The central goverment's tactics actually FOSTER nationalistic sentiment, goes without saying. When they insist on screwing you up you start to look into nationalistic positions in a far more sympathetic light. I know it happens to me, for certain.

- Itīs delliberate. See, this kind of heavy handed approaches sit very well with "Deep Spain", which overlaps very well with the main voting segment of the conservative party.

- However, itīs very likely to backfire this time. The situation is too damn tense at the moment. This wont be good for anyone.


What I think should happen to avoid bad outcomes:
- Everyone should take a step back
- The Central goverment should fulfill the promises made to the Catalonian goverment, with interest
- A  referendum (well planned, with guarantees) should be done further down the line, once things are calm again.  Personally I think that deep sociopolitical changes should have a threshold higher than 51%, too.

Not that anyone is going to listen to me, anyways. Good thing Iīm living abroad, as this does not bode well.

[smjjames]

I get and know that it'd be more complex, just that as an outside observer and even more removed from European politics than Martinuzz, it looks like a downward spiral with no obvious (to me) offramp other than delaying the referendum.

That said, hopefully cooler heads prevail here, which would be the 'everybody takes a step back' part.

[ChairmanPoo]

It wont happen.

See, this thing about the arrests... it was totally unexpected to me TBH. I fully expected the police to crack down on the referendum. But what I was actually expecting was more on the lines of seizing all the material for it,   public noises of outrage by both the PP and the nationalist parties of Catalonia.... and then  in a couple of months likely an autonomy reform for Catalonia, without much fuss (AKA a compromise under the table).

With arrests and open police repression.... it looks disturbingly close to the situation we had in the Basque Country up until 10 years ago.   I donīt know where this is heading at the moment, and I donīt like the look of things.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Even most anti-nationalist Catalans support holding a reference, right? If so, wow, the central government really is making some unwise calls here.

[smjjames]

I don't know what the polling is on holding a referendum over there, but I concur with the Spanish government making some very unwise calls here. I can only hope that it doesn't devolve into a civil conflict.

ChairmanPoo, the memory of the Spanish Civil War is still relatively fresh in Spain, right? No idea how high the desire is to not get into another Civil War within a hundred years of the previous.

[ChairmanPoo]

Even most anti-nationalist Catalans support holding a reference, right? If so, wow, the central government really is making some unwise calls here.

Thatīs a very good question. I donīt know if they do. Odds are many of them donīt. Moods tend to get very heated about this sort of thing.

I don't know what the polling is on holding a referendum over there, but I concur with the Spanish government making some very unwise calls here. I can only hope that it doesn't devolve into a civil conflict.

ChairmanPoo, the memory of the Spanish Civil War is still relatively fresh in Spain, right? No idea how high the desire is to not get into another Civil War within a hundred years of the previous.

Iīm not really worried about civil war. For a civil war to take place you need two armies... and I think the Govern has neither the resources or enough prospective recruits to fight a war. For that matter, I donīt think that the central goverment will ramp up the pressure that much, either.

What worries me is the far less unlikely prospect that radical elements among the nationalists might decide to respond to political repression with  extreme tactics. That particular problem is far fresher in memory than the SCW.

[scriver]

I was going to say, though I wouldn't know exactly how fresh in mind the Civil War is, the oppression under Franco that followed it undoubtedly is just as fresh or more so. And the non-Castilian nations were definitely harder targeted as far as national identity go, or at least that is certainly how they seem to feel. I'm not super secure in my knowledge of Franco, mostly just know stuff about the political persecution under him, but I think that's they way it was at least.

I should probably put the usual disclaimer here that a lot of what i might say on the matter might have been influenced by Catalonian relatives of certain nationalist fervour.

[ChairmanPoo]

Itīs all very fresh in memory. Lots of people alive have relatives buried in ditches. And no hope of recovering the bodies due to the govermentīs coverup.

And the non-Castilian nations were definitely harder targeted as far as national identity go, or at least that is certainly how they seem to fee

Very much so. You should hear what my older patients during my stint in the Goierri region had to say about what they lived through during the Francoist era.

I should probably put the usual disclaimer here that a lot of what i might say on the matter might have been influenced by Catalonian relatives of certain nationalist fervour.

I kind of sympathize with many of the nationalist's positions.  I try to keep a cool head, though, as the situation is very delicate.

I also think itīs important to consider that in both the Basque Country and Catalonia the population is very evenly split in nationalists and non-nationalists (this is obviously a gross simplification, as there is a wide spectrum in both). Thatīs also something to consider. I think by itself it would justify avoiding heavy-handed measures, one way or the other.

[scriver]

Itīs all very fresh in memory. Lots of people alive have relatives buried in ditches. And no hope of recovering the bodies due to the govermentīs coverup.

And the non-Castilian nations were definitely harder targeted as far as national identity go, or at least that is certainly how they seem to fee

Very much so. You should hear what my older patients during my stint in the Goierri region had to say about what they lived through during the Francoist era.

I'm sorry if I offended you with my clumsy phrasing. I didn't mean to sound dismissive of it, I just wanted to highlight the second-handedness of what I know about it.

[ChairmanPoo]

... I wasnīt offended (really, I have a rather thick skin over identity issues. Iīm more sensitive towards stereotypes abroad because Iīm  working abroad and it worries that a negative one might cause me trouble down the line.  Speaking about that, btw, Iīm not looking forward to questions about whatīs going on when I get back to my workplace in 2 weeks...)

I was confirming what you were saying.  I was moved by the tales of elderly Basque peasants telling me that when they were children they were beaten in school if they were heard speaking Basque.  One of them told me that he felt I was "smarter" because of my good Spanish (and lousy, survival-level Basque). See, there is this stereotype from back then: if you speak Basque youīre an illiterate peasant, and viceversa. Made me wonder about the concept of cultural genocide, and to what extent what happened back then (before I was born) actually influenced me. I seriously had seldom considered the issue beforehand.


In other regards: The Spanish President Mariano Rajoy is giving a speech right now  (lambasting the Catalonians). Every word makes me more sympathethic to the Catalonian Govern. Despite the fact that, rationally speaking, I kind think the situation is a powder keg and itīd be better to hold the referendum for the time being, at least. I hear Mr Rajoy speak and start wishing that the whole thing goes forward and hits him in the face.  Now I understand how the % of Catalonians openly identifying as nationalists has gone up from 10 to 45% in 4 years. The man has a gift.

[da_nang]

I don't really have any support to give to the Catalans.

Their situation is nowhere near that of peoples in pre-1918 Russia. When the Bolsheviks took power in the October revolution, they declared that all peoples of Russia had the right to secede completely. In other words, Finland, the Baltics and other peoples in Russia declared a bilateral independence. When some of them later got forcefully reincorporated into the USSR, the countries officially were seen as occupied.

This is not the case with Catalonia, which has been apart of Spain ever since the Aragonese crown married into the Castilian crown centuries ago.

There is none of the oppression, ethnic cleansing, or genocide that was present in Kosovo or Yugoslavia, and Franco and his nationally oppressive rule has been dead for over 40 years.

Scotland was legally given the ability to bilaterally secede when the British Parliament granted them the referendum, something that was much easier due to the lack of a constitution.

The way I see it, Catalonia either plays the long game and legally amends the constitution of Spain, or goes to war like the US and Ireland. 

[ChairmanPoo]

They very much have been shafted with the autonomy agreements, which the goverment has repeatedly failed to honor. At the very least they deserve that. 
Also, the former Domestic Affairs mimister was recorded admitting to have sabotaged Catalonian institutions, including healthcare.

Plus they get othered constantly in the national news. Which is kind of an old tactic too, they did the same thing with the Basque Country... and still do, to an extent.


I don't think full blown independence would be a good move in today's economic climate, but it should be within their right to get it as well. I do think such a radical change in the status quo should require a threshold higher than 51, but I think the usual centralist claim of "everyone -as im everyone in Spain- should have a say" is bollocks, aimed at making the referendum impossible.





BTW: and for clarification: my position has always been that Spain should be reorganized into a federal republic. I'm no secesionist per se but I don't think secesionism should be out of the question either, if presented on a sane manner.