[Peace-discuss] Catalonia

[Karen Aram]

This from a FB friend, which supports my opinion on Catalonian independence:

"The Spanish left, jointly with Catalan workers’ parties, has spoken against independence, while maintaining the legitimate right to call a referendum and denouncing the repression by Madrid. The PCE launched a call for mobilization against the monarchy, to give birth to a Federal Republic in solidarity with all the peoples of Spain, to destroy forever the legacy of Franco but also the reactionary legacy of nationalism in the form of chauvinist ethnicities and identity.”

Another individual wrote:

" Partition will only make things worse. Look no further than Yugoslavia/Iraq and now Spain!! The Ruling Catalonian Elites are no longer getting their hands out from the Spanish Government so now they're socially manipulating the people of Catalonia to secede. This is how the EU will try and maintain control by Balkanizing nation states. Ever since Brexit? The EU is Desperate to maintain control.”




On Oct 2, 2017, at 13:25, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:


A partial answer to my question of independence, in relation to Catalonia and other nations, by Pepe Escobar

The future of the EU at stake in Catalonia

Fascist Franco may have been dead for more than four decades, but Spain is still encumbered with his dictatorial corpse. A new paradigm has been coined right inside the lofty European Union, self-described home/patronizing dispenser of human rights to lesser regions across the planet: “In the name of democracy, refrain from voting, or else.” Call it democracy nano-Franco style.

Nano-Franco is Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whose heroic shock troops were redeployed from a serious nationwide terrorist alert to hammer with batons and fire rubber bullets not against jihadis but … voters. At least six schools became the terrain of what was correctly called<http://www.eldiario.es/politica/batalla-buenos-malos-posiblemente-perdamos_0_689431120.html> The Battle of Barcelona.

THE DAILYBrief
 Extreme right-wingers even held a demonstration inside Barcelona. Yet this was not shown on Spanish TV because it contradicted the official Madrid narrative.

The Catalan government beat the fascist goons with two very simple codes – as revealed by La Vanguardia. “I’ve got the Tupperware. Where do we meet?” was the code on a prepaid mobile phone for people to collect and protect ballot boxes. “I’m the paper traveler” was the code to protect the actual paper ballots. Julian Assange/WikiLeaks had warned about the world’s first Internet war as deployed by Madrid to smash the electronic voting system. The counterpunch was – literally – on paper. The US National Security Agency must have learned a few lessons.

So we had techno power combined with cowardly Francoist repression tactics countered by people power, as in parents conducting sit-ins in schools to make sure they were functional on referendum day. Some 90% of the 2.26 million Catalans who made it to the polls ended up voting in favor of independence from Spain, according to preliminary results. Catalonia has 5.3 million registered voters.

Roughly 770,000 votes were lost because of raids by Spanish police. Turnout at around 42% may not be high but it’s certainly not low. As the day went by, there was a growing feeling, all across Catalonia, all social classes involved, that this was not about independence any more; it was about fighting a new brand of fascism. What’s certain is there’s a Perfect Storm coming.

No pasarán

The “institutional declaration” of overwhelming mediocrity nano-Franco Rajoy, right after the polls were closed, invited disbelief. The highlight was a mediocre take on Magritte: “Ceci n’est pas un referendum.” This referendum never took place. And it could never take place because “Spain is a mature and advanced democracy, friendly and
tolerant”. The day’s events proved it a lie.

Rajoy said “the great majority of Catalan people did not want to participate in the secessionist script”. Another lie. Even before the “non-existent” referendum, between 70% and 80% of Catalans said they wanted to vote, yes or no, after an informed debate about their future.

Crucially, Rajoy extolled the “unwavering support of the EU and the international community”. Of course; unelected EU “elites” in Brussels and the main European capitals are absolutely terrorized when EU citizens express themselves.

Yet the top nano-Franco lie was that “democracy prevailed because
the constitution was respected”.

Rajoy spent weeks defending his repression of the referendum by invoking “the rule of law such as ours”. It’s “their” law, indeed. The heart of the matter are Articles 116 and 155 of a retrograde Spanish constitution, the first one describing how states of alarm, exception and siege work in Spain, and the latter applied in “order to compel the [autonomous community] forcibly to meet … obligations, or in order to protect the … general interests.”

Well, these “obligations” and “general interests” are defined by – who else, Madrid and Madrid only. The Spanish Constitutional Court is a joke – it couldn’t care less about the principle of separation of powers. The court congregates a bunch of legalistic Mafiosi/patsies working for the two parties of the establishment, the so-called “socialists” of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) and the medieval right-wingers of Rajoy’s People’s Party (PP).

Few outside Spain may remember the failed coup of February 23, 1981 – when there was an attempt to hurl Spain back into the long dark Francoist night. Well, I was in Barcelona when it happened – and that vividly reminded me of the South American military coups in the 1960s and 1970s. Since the coup, what passes for “justice” in Spain never ceased to be a mere lackey to these two political parties.

The Constitutional Court actually suspended the Catalan referendum law, arguing that it was violating the – medieval – Spanish constitution. This disgraceful collusion is crystal-clear for most people in Catalonia. What Madrid is essentially up to amounts to a coup as well – against the Catalan government and, of course, against democracy. So no wonder the immortal civil-war mantra was back in the streets of Catalonia: “¡No pasarán!” They shall not pass.

Brussels does demophobia

Rajoy, thuggish, mediocre and corrupt (that’s another long story), lied even more when he said he keeps the “door open to dialogue”. He never wanted any dialogue with Catalonia – always refusing a referendum in any shape or form or transferring any powers to the Catalan regional government. Catalonia’s regional president, Carles Puigdemont, insists he had to call the referendum because this is what separatist parties promised when they won regional elections two years ago.

And of course no one is an angel in this hardcore power play. The PDeCaT (the Democratic Party of Catalonia), the main force behind the referendum, has also been mired in corruption.

Catalonia in itself is as economically powerful as Denmark; 7.5 million people, around 16% of Spain’s population, but responsible for 20% of gross domestic product, attracting one-third of foreign investment and producing one-third of exports. In a country where unemployment is at a horribly high 30%, losing Catalonia would be the ultimate disaster.

The demophobia of Brussels elites knows no bounds; the historical record shows EU citizens are not allowed to express themselves freely, especially by using democratic practices in questions related to self-determination.

Madrid in effect subscribes to only two priorities: dutifully obey EU austerity diktats, and crush by all means any regional push for autonomy.

Catalan historian Josep Fontana, in a wide-ranging, enlightening interview<http://www.eldiario.es/politica/batalla-buenos-malos-posiblemente-perdamos_0_689431120.html>, has identified the heart of the matter: “What, for me, is scandalous is that the PP is whipping up public opinion by saying that holding the referendum means the secession of Catalonia afterwards, when it knows that secession is impossible. It is impossible because it would mean that the Generalitat would have to ask the Madrid government to be so kind as to withdraw its army, Guardia Civil and National Police from Catalonia, and to meekly renounce a territory that provides 20% of its GDP … so why are they using this excuse to stir up a climate reminiscent of a civil war?”

Beyond the specter of civil war, the Big Picture is even more incandescent.

The Scottish National Party is sort of blood cousins with Catalan separatists in its rejection of a perceived illegitimate central authority, with all the accompanying negative litany. SNP members complain they are forced to cope with different languages; political diktats from above; unfair taxes; and what is felt as outright economic exploitation. This phenomenon has absolutely nothing to do with the EU-wide rise of extreme right-wing nationalism, populism and xenophobia – as Madrid insists.

And then there’s the silence of the wolves. It would be easy to picture the EU’s reaction if the drama in Catalonia were happening in distant, “barbarian” Eurasian lands. The peaceful referendum in Crimea was condemned as “illegal” and dictatorial while a violent attack against freedom of expression of millions of people living inside the EU gets a pass.

The demophobia of Brussels elites knows no bounds; the historical record shows EU citizens are not allowed to express themselves freely, especially by using democratic practices in questions related to self-determination. Whatever torrent of spin may come ahead, the silence of the EU betrays the fact Brussels is puling the strings behind Madrid. After all the Brave New Euroland project implies the destruction of European nations to the profit of a centralized Brussels eurocracy.

Referenda are untamable animals. Kosovo was a by-product of the amputation/bombing into democracy of Serbia by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; a gangster/narco mini-state useful as the host of Camp Bondsteel, the largest Pentagon base outside of the US.

Crimea was part of a legitimate reunification drive to rectify Nikita Khrushchev’s idiocy of separating it from Russia. London did not send goons to prevent the referendum in Scotland; an amicable negotiation is in effect. No set rules apply. Neocons screamed in vain when Crimea was reunited with Russia after shedding tears of joy when Kosovo was carved out of Serbia.

As for Madrid, a lesson should be learned from Ireland in 1916. In the beginning the majority of the population was against an uprising. But brutal British repression led to the war of independence – and the rest is history.

After this historic, (relatively) bloody Sunday, more and more Catalans will be asking: If Slovenia and Croatia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the tiny Baltic republics, not to mention even tinier Luxembourg, Cyprus and Malta, can be EU members, why not us? And a stampede might be ahead; Flanders and Wallonia, the Basque country and Galicia, Wales and Northern Ireland.

All across the EU, the centralized Eurocrat dream is splintering. It’s Catalonia that may be pointing toward a not so brave, but more  realistic, new world.

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On Oct 2, 2017, at 07:00, David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com<mailto:davegreen84 at yahoo.com>> wrote:

Points well-taken; I had not understood the background of the Catalan/Spanish relationship to the extent that the article explains, and I wouldn't (nor is it my place) to "support" independence. It hasn't seemed to me that independence/secessionist movements leave most questions unanswered in and of themselves.

On ‎Monday‎, ‎October‎ ‎2‎, ‎2017‎ ‎08‎:‎19‎:‎46‎ ‎AM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com<mailto:karenaram at hotmail.com>> wrote:


David

An excellent article. I certainly support Catalonian independence as I did Irish independence from England, and reunification with Northern Ireland. Both are based upon culture, and history.

However, I’ve been to both nations, Barcelona in 2014, pre referendum at that time, and heard both sides of the argument from Catalonians.

Going forward I question the economic and political consequences of independent movements and look for guidelines, given so many nations are now looking to secede. Rather like Brexit from the EU.

Ex: Venetians in Italy, and the many nations of Europe as well as the UK. It’s their peoples decision of course, but if we are to support such movements, questions need to be answered. Most especially with a very aggressive Nato on the borders of so many nations across Europe and looking to be strengthened rather than weakened. It begs the question how do small vulnerable nations deal with divisions, that only unification is likely to address.

I also use Crimea as an example of a nation located within the Ukraine, with a majority of its peoples culturally Russian, thus the “takeover” by Russia, as viewed by the west, has saved them from the fascist government of Kiev. It has also preserved the most important Russian seaport and military base, from Nato.

An example of independence movements based upon culture and history could also be used by Texas, New Mexico, and California……..Silicon Valley alone brings in more tax revenue than all the other states put together, or at least it would if our tax structure was just.






On Oct 1, 2017, at 18:47, David Green via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:

September 29, 2017
When Fascism Won’t Die: Why We Need to Support Catalonia<https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/29/when-fascism-wont-die-why-we-need-to-support-catalonia/>

by Anna M. Hennessey<https://www.counterpunch.org/author/anna-m-hennessey/>

by

Facebook<https://www.counterpunch.org/#facebook> Twitter<https://www.counterpunch.org/#twitter> Google+<https://www.counterpunch.org/#google_plus> Reddit<https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/reddit?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.counterpunch.org%2F2017%2F09%2F29%2Fwhen-fascism-wont-die-why-we-need-to-support-catalonia%2F&linkname=When%20Fascism%20Won%E2%80%99t%20Die%3A%20Why%20We%20Need%20to%20Support%20Catalonia&linknote=People%20in%20the%20United%20States%2C%20especially%20those%20from%20the%201980s%20onward%2C%20know%20little%20of%20Spain%E2%80%99s%20Civil%20War%20(1936-1939)%20and%20the%20long%20dictatorship%20that%20followed> Email<https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/email?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.counterpunch.org%2F2017%2F09%2F29%2Fwhen-fascism-wont-die-why-we-need-to-support-catalonia%2F&linkname=When%20Fascism%20Won%E2%80%99t%20Die%3A%20Why%20We%20Need%20to%20Support%20Catalonia&linknote=People%20in%20the%20United%20States%2C%20especially%20those%20from%20the%201980s%20onward%2C%20know%20little%20of%20Spain%E2%80%99s%20Civil%20War%20(1936-1939)%20and%20the%20long%20dictatorship%20that%20followed> [https://uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/dropzone/2017/09/atoa-print-icon.png] <https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/29/when-fascism-wont-die-why-we-need-to-support-catalonia/print/>

People in the United States, especially those from the 1980s onward, know little of Spain’s Civil War (1936-1939) and the long dictatorship that followed. This knowledge is helpful in understanding the situation in Spain and Catalonia right now. The judge<http://catalannews.com/news/item/spain-takes-control-of-catalan-police> (Ismael Moreno) who is set to decide on sedition charges against Catalan activists for attempting to hold a democratic referendum on October 1st, for example, has roots that are deeply connected to Francisco Franco (1892-1975), the military leader who initiated the Civil War, won it, and then went on to rule as Head of State and dictator in Spain for almost forty years. Franco is a major figure of twentieth-century fascism in Europe. A purge of Francoist government officials never took place when the dictatorship ended in the 1970s, and this leadership has had a lasting impact on how Spain’s government makes its decisions about Catalonia, a region traumatized during and after the war due to its resistance to Franco’s regime. The lingering effects of Franco’s legacy<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/28/spain-lingering-legacy-franco> are at this point well-documented and need to be a part of the discourse that surrounds what is quickly unraveling in Barcelona.

Over the past week, Spain’s military body, the Guardia Civil, has forcibly taken control of the Mossos d’Esquadra, Catalonia’s own police force. It has also detained government officials, closed multiple websites, and ordered seven hundred Catalan mayors to appear in court. Ominously, Spanish police from all over the country have traveled up to Barcelona or are en route to the Catalan capital, holing up in three giant cruise ships, two anchored in the city’s port, one in the port of nearby Tarragona. They are doing this at a time when Spain is on high alert for terrorist attacks, removing their police forces from numerous regions that could be in danger of attack, including Madrid, in preparation to stop Catalan people from putting pieces of paper into voting boxes.

Like the Spanish government, the Spanish police force was never purged of its Francoist ties following the dictatorship. It is a deeply corrupt institution, a point revealed brilliantly in the recent documentary, Las Cloacas de Interior<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXrYBUAcYUo> (The State’s Secret Cesspit), which includes numerous interviews with Spanish police, officials, and politicians who describe the corruption in detail. After a media blackout of the film in Spain this summer, the creators made it available through various online outlets.

Manuel Fraga Iribarne, one of Franco’s ministers during the dictatorship, founded Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party. The party is currently enmeshed in a corruption scandal of its own. Spain’s royal family is similarly linked to Franco and has also been brought to trial for its own set of corruption charges.

It is impossible to ignore the fascist bedrock upon which modern Spain is founded, or to ignore the reality that this foundation has to do with the way Spain treats Catalonia. And yet we on the outside continue to make excuses for Spain, often conflating its problems with Catalonia to a squabble about taxes. This week, we have watched passively as arrests, police activity and other alarming developments build in Barcelona. We refer to the Spanish Constitution, which was written in 1978, as a way of backing up Spain’s dictatorial assertion that the Catalans have no right to self-determination and that the referendum is illegal<https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/09/economist-explains-17>. The part of the Constitution that says Spain is indivisible was added not by the “fathers” of the Constitution, but by the military, as Jordi Soler Tura, one of two Catalan founders of the Constitution explained in 1985<https://josuerkoreka.com/2009/12/04/jordi-sole-tura-y-la-nota-impuesta/>. Following the creation of the Spanish 1977 Amnesty Law, a law still active today, there has been no investigation or prosecution of the massive human rights violations that took place in Spain under Franco’s fascist dictatorship, and this was the same environment of suppression and authority in which the current Constitution was written. After all the years of trauma that finally led into the tedious transition to democracy in the late 1970s following Franco’s death, many people in Spain and Catalonia are reticent to talk about these issues.

Franco died peacefully in his bed at age eighty-two after ruling over the country as dictator for almost half his life. Let’s imagine Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) dying peacefully in his bed sometime in 1971 following decades as Germany’s Nazi leader. We likely cannot imagine this scenario, but it is exactly what happened in Spain. Franco and Hitler were both fascists who engaged in the mass murder of civilians for the purpose of “cleansing” their societies of those they believed to be of an inferior race or a threat. Franco in fact wrote the novel behind the movie, Raza (Race, 1941), which promoted the idea that hispanidad, or Spain’s superior race, comprised of those who were in line with Nationalist sentiment. The big difference between Franco and Hitler is that Franco won his war and Hitler lost his.

Most of us know about Hitler’s ethnic cleansing, the horrific extermination of Jews and others not in line with fascism. Under Franco, there were concentration camps in Spain too, and many Spanish political prisoners were sent abroad to Nazi camps in Germany and Austria, or ended up in internment camps in France. Paul Preston’s book, The Spanish Holocaust<https://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Holocaust-Inquisition-Extermination-Twentieth-Century/dp/0393345912>, shows how bad the situation was inside Spain. As Adam Hochschild writes in his 2012 New York Times review<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/books/review/the-spanish-holocaust-by-paul-preston.html?mcubz=3> of the book, some atrocities included, “soldiers who flourished enemy ears and noses on their bayonets, the mass public executions carried out in bullrings or with band music and onlookers dancing in the victims’ blood…Franco’s troops practiced gang rape to frighten newly captured towns into submission…Tens of thousands of women had their heads shaved and were force-fed castor oil (a powerful laxative), then jeered as they were paraded through the streets soiling themselves.” The list goes on, mentioning the branding of women on their breasts and the shooting of pregnant women in a maternity hospital.

Thousands of the people who were tortured or sent to the camps were Catalans. During the years of Franco’s dictatorship, Catalonia was one of Spain’s strongholds of resistance, and the Catalan people suffered enormously for it. Following a military trial in 1940 that lasted less than an hour, Lluís Companys<http://www.catalangovernment.eu/pres_gov/AppJava/government/president/presidents/companys.html> (1882-1940), the president of Catalonia’s Generalitat, or its system of governance, was tortured and then executed by the Guardia Civil. Companys is a symbol for what the Catalans endured during and after the Civil War. Many were murdered, disappeared, imprisoned, sent to concentration camps, had their children stolen, or were economically disenfranchised during these periods. Catalan people were also banned from speaking their language<https://theconversation.com/the-rebirth-of-catalan-how-a-once-banned-language-is-thriving-47587> and saw other aspects of their culture suppressed by the fascist regime. Teaching and speaking of the language became legal only after Spain’s restoration to a democracy in 1978.

Rising above their past, the Catalan people have flourished in the twenty-first century and are the main contributor<https://www.oecd.org/edu/imhe/46827358.pdf> to Spain’s economy. Barcelona and the larger region are renowned for their industrious and creative workers. The Catalan language and its culture are thriving<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/22/catalan-language-survived>. The Catalan people should not be confused with the Basques, whose militant organization, the ETA, has been responsible for much bloodshed in Spain. The Catalans have a history of peaceful and communal resistance<http://www.politico.eu/interactive/catalonia-referendum-independence-spain-in-pictures-art-of-catalan-protests/> to the Spanish government, a tradition that continues today. The referendum that they seek is part of a basic democratic process, just as was the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence in the United Kingdom.

Franco was victorious and did not lose his war, as Hitler and Mussolini lost theirs, but this must not mean that we should let the dictator’s toxic ideological infrastructure persist any further into the twenty-first century. Supporting Catalonia is a necessary step in putting an end to fascism in Europe.

Anna M. Hennessey is a philosopher who has lived in Spain and in Catalonia.

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