2017/09/30

Help Catalonia !, by Albert Sánchez Piñol

What is happening in Catalonia is terrible: an unprecedented step backwards for democracy in modern Europe. On 20 September, the Guàrdia Civil (the Spanish military police) took the Catalan institutions by surprise and arrested some twenty leaders of the Generalitat (the Catalan government), which in practice means that it placed the Catalan region and its people under a de facto state of emergency. The purpose? To forcibly prevent a democratic referendum on the independence of Catalonia. I write these lines without knowing what will happen in the next few days: it could get even worse. The question is: how have we got here? Allow me a bit of history.

Catalonia is not a simple region of Spain. It never has been. In the tenth century, it already had its own sovereigns and institutions. Until the eighteenth century, what we know today as  Spain was no more than a confederation of nations, having in common a monarch, a religion, and little else. (In the "conquest" of America or the Flanders wars of the 16th century, for example, there were no Catalans, because they were Castilian territories). Consider: Germany as a state was the result of the consensus of the various territories that came together to form it. In Spain, unity was only achieved through military terrorism. On September 11, 1714, after a long and devastating war, Barcelona fell into the hands of the Castilian troops. The Catalans never accepted the new regime. As a Spanish general from the nineteenth century said, "Barcelona must be bombarded every fifty years." (In fact they did it more often.) In 1936 the military who launched the Civil War claimed three reasons: defending the Catholic Church and fighting communism and separatism. Today communism is in the waste bin of history and the Church has lost its ancient power. But the separate Catalan identity, in spite of all the attacks and all the repression, still continues to exist.

Spain has always seen Catalan identity as a tumor. In the 21st century all Catalan demands have been rejected despite wide popular support. And all the polls point out that 80% of Catalans support a democratic referendum as a means to resolve disagreements with Spain. And so, since 2010, more than one million Catalans have taken to the streets every September 11th in support of an independent republic. You read that right. One million protesters, radically peaceful, year after year, out of a population of seven million!

The Catalan process towards independence has revealed the profound failings of Spanish democracy. An example: for the Germans, the Constitutional Court is an admirably neutral institution, which impartially resolves political conflicts. In Catalonia there are, in fact, people who believe that the Spanish Constitutional Court is impartial, but they are as few as those who think that the moon is made of cheese. In Spain there is no division of powers, at least with regard to the Catalan case. It's hard to believe, but the newspapers make the rulings public before the court even meets. The general prosecutor of the State dares to publicly accuse  Catalan citizens of being "abducted by their Government"! Can you imagine the president of the German Constitutional Court being a militant member of the governing party?

The Spanish government tries to make global public opinion see the independence supporters as a group of ignorant and fanatical nationalists. The reality is almost the opposite: bullfights, the greatest symbol of Spanishness, are prohibited in Catalonia, as they are considered an undesirable, cruel and atavistic spectacle. And here we come to the key point of this issue:

In Catalonia today, things are exactly the opposite of how the Spanish Government says they are. The propaganda of Madrid is based on putting into practice the ancient slogan: "if Hitler returned, he would accuse his enemies of Nazism." Thus, the ruling party calls the promoters of a democratic referendum: populists (!), totalitarians (!!) and even fascists (!!!). And this is a political party that was founded by ministers of the bloody dictator Francisco Franco! When the Spanish police force violates the sanctity of the postal service, they claim that it does so to "protect the rights of citizens"; when the Guàrdia Civil invades printing companies to seize ballot papers, it is acting to "guarantee the rule of law". When more than 700 Catalan mayors are threatened with prison (more than 700, when in all of Catalonia there are only 900 municipalities !!!) for the "crime" of being prepared to set up ballot boxes, it is done to "defend democracy". And finally: the government which called this referendum is a legitimate one, which has parliamentary support that goes from the liberal right to the extreme left. And, in spite of this, citizens are prohibited from voting. With what argument? With the argument that voting is undemocratic and that the referendum is a "coup d'etat". (I assure you this is not a joke.)

The break between Madrid and Catalonia can no longer be fixed. Spain has died. But the separatists did not kill it, but its own elites, with their political arrogance, their moral, mental and emotional inflexibility. When a minister from Madrid refers to the case of Catalonia, we still hear echoes of the voices of the old nobles and conquistadors. For them, the sacrosanct unity of the country is not a kind of friendly coexistence, a social pact that is renewed and modernized periodically. No. For Madrid, national indivisibility is a kind of pseudo-religious dogma. Some say that, on his death-bed, Franco the dictator told the future King Juan Carlos: "I only ask that you maintain the sacred unity of Spain." What Madrid did not understand was that the only democratic way to retain Catalonia was by respecting its culture and its institutions. (In addition, Juan Carlos was too idiotic to understand anything: he did nothing but visit prostitutes and kill elephants.)

Catalonia is not the problem; it is the solution. Spain is using armed force to retain Catalonia. Such a state has already lost all its legitimacy. You can not love someone who scares you. But in addition this obtuse strategy of force has polarized the conflict: for now the Catalan flag, the Senyera, no longer represents just one small nation against an unfriendly state. Today, this old flag brings together all the democrats who oppose authoritarianism and the massive repression of human rights. Do not be fooled: in Catalonia, right now, the battle that is being fought is precisely this, democracy versus authoritarianism.

But let's be optimistic. Europe has before it an unusual, historic opportunity. Madrid is not negotiating because it simply can not admit the existence of Catalonia as a political subject. (Do you remember what we said a moment ago about Spanish imperial arrogance?) If Europe gets involved, it will be doing democracy a favour. And, paradoxically, it will also be helping these same Spanish leaders, who are aware, deep down, of the magnitude, popularity and broad base of the independence movement. With Europe as an intermediary, the Spanish government will be able to claim to its more ultra-nationalist elements that a higher power has forced it to negotiate. In this way, Europe would have reaffirmed its fundamental values ​​and its objective of mutual support. To help Catalonia, then, is to help Spain and Europe. Abandoning it, on the other hand, would amount to renouncing Europe's commitment to the most basic human freedoms. Let us help Catalonia. After all, what is this intolerable thing that the Catalans are demanding?

The right to vote.

Albert Sánchez Piñol

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