I agree that "not voting is also democracy".
However I cannot agree about not allowing to vote, which is the case. It's a political issue, which should be solved like it was in Scotland.
In the name of what, a group can decide over another on what is it allowed to do? Because of the frontiers made after conquering when using force?
"In the name of what, a group can decide over another on what is it allowed to do?"
Of course that a group can decide over another group which is a subset of the former. Otherwise, any city of any country, or any group of individuals, could decide to vote and set their own rules for whatever they want.
Pure rule of the majority is a perversion of democracy (this holds both on the Spanish and the Catalonian level). Taking minorities into account and giving them appropriate rights is just as integral a part of democracy.
"decide over another group which is a subset of the former"
A subset of the former in the name of the frontiers set by a centralist monarch who won a war and forbid language and institutions in Catalonia in 1714. Check the law that supports my comment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nueva_Planta_decrees
"Otherwise, any city of any country, or any group of individuals, could decide to vote and set their own rules for whatever they want." --> And do you think this is wrong? I think self-governance is the future. Not to go against anyone, but to decide more about everything. Not to put a paper in a ballot every 4 years.
Tyranny is a group not allowing another group to decide what to do.
Hear yourself: "the referendum is not legal".
Such a nice view of what democracy is.
So willing to vote and say goodbye to this bla-bla-bla-this is not legal, that is not legal.
Good bye opressors. My deceased family in the war the dicator won will be really happy if we can finally separate. Too many open wounds you have never tried to heal.
> Tyranny is a group not allowing another group to decide what to do.
It's easier to separate Communists from non-Communists, because each of us gets to vote to only one party, than Catalans from non-Catalans. And even though Communists are a clear minority in Spain, you'd be hard pressed to find one that equates "not having a majority in Congress" with "being victims of a tyranny".
If your family lived under the dictatorship, you should be sensitive to what they (and many others) suffered and fought, to not use lightly words like oppression and tyranny.
The problem here is that all the inheritants of the Franco dictatorship and their mentailty are still in the power, thanks to the Spanish transition in which the Dictator passed the power to the King. Then promoted a bi-party politics where the minorities would never be able to change anything.
It is not fair and Catalonia is fighting (again) to change it.
After Franco, Spain has been governed for 6 years by centrists, 21 years by socialists, and 14 years by the PP.
The fantasy of "the Transición didn't take the francoists off the power" would need the likes of Felipe Gonzalez be "mentally francoist". It's no more than a feel-good fantasy.
The fact that you need to convince the majority to change something, while individuals are constitutionally protected, is really how democracies work. If anything, nationalist minorities have wielded much more power in the Spanish Congress than other minorities with more voters, due to quirks of our electoral law.
So if they succeed to split would you call it tyranny not to let pockets of Castilian speaking minority areas in Catalonia claim independence? Maybe joining Spain? Where would this end (maybe there are pockets within the pockets within the pockets)? It is a practical shitty situation. Do not make it sound SIMPLE. Do not use the word tyranny when it does not apply.
And the rich leaving the poor seems like a right wing thing to do. Maybe Franco would agree that the smaller "upper class" need protection from the tyranny of the poor. Or maybe money is not the biggest part of the equation, maybe it is just a nationalistic disgrace of the same kind that forced Castilian as language onto Basques and Catalans during Franco. Maybe we will get a Franco like situation in Catalonia where minorities are not allowed to teach/speak Castilian. I think that would be a disgrace for every decent person killed by the butchers of Franco and other "nationalists".
And what is the lesson to learn from all this, should all nations start to force minorities to speak the national language just because if we give minorities relative freedom and power they will claim independence? And possibly treat our minorities left bad?
What's wrong with independence of small groups? The more governments - the more competition. Why are we against big monopolies in every area, except the state services?
There is nothing wrong with extinction of a government and replacement by more successful government, if it happens amicably - it's competition.
Just like with corporations, surely you are not worried about extinction of small firms, and sometimes that small firms outcompete the big corporations.
Then, let us Catalans be stupid and go to extintion ourselves. We will probably be fine. If you want us to be in Spain, please seduce us instead of forbid us everything.
I haven't heard of any new independent country asking to be part again of the former one.
Yeah, the tiresome "seduce us (with mo' fresh money)" argument again.
I have a better idea, why you don't try to seduce me instead to call me thief (Spain stole us) and abuser (Spain oppress us and do not let us be free) and hit me all the time with a new surrealist occurrence (don't buy spanish products, here are a list of the evil companies that you must avoid if you want to be a good citizen)?
In the last 60 years, you have been offered a lot of gifs and privileges (that by the way, I don't enjoy), and is never enough. You are never, ever, happy. Always creating drama around, like an old crazy theater lady past her prime, always demanding to be loved, but giving in return dry sarcasm and a single uncaring kiss by christmas (when there are cameras around).
So thanks, but not thanks. I will pass this time. You are not so irresistible as you think and not so beautiful as you were 20 years ago. I deserve something better.
> I haven't heard of any new independent country asking to be part again of the former one.
This does not bother me, but there is always a first time for everything.
Correct. And because there are no tanks yet, the vote is moving ahead.
There has certainly been some disruption, but the people are mostly still forging ahead on all fronts.
The police have open fired on some of the pro independence people, sending a couple hundred to the hospital, but that is very minor in the vast scheme of things.
A couple hundred pro independence people in the hospital isn't that big of a barrier.
This is only the beginning. Every video of the Spanish military beating up an 80 year old lady with a ballot in hand is a propaganda Victor for the independence movement. They stop 1 person from voting, via their rubber bullets, and they create a hundred more pro independence people who were previously neutral.
Well played. You can exprime a lot of pro-independentist juice if you put a 80 years old lady in the position of being beaten and videotape all instead to try to defend her. Another point for the good guys.
Another possibility could be separatists thinking last week or yesterday "this is stupid, some people could be hurt!, for nothing!, why we don't stop this farce before... dunno... a 80yo lady is beaten or so?
I bet that the lady, or the child crying, would have appreciated that line of reasoning, but it seems that for separatists the more people hurt, the better. Curious if we think about it.
798 of then fortunately with minor or moderate injuries including more than 30 policemen (updated, it seems that were more than 400 policemen in fact, but there is not still an impartial count), and sadly 2 people with serious injuries.
2 seriously injured == millions murdered?
If you want to bang your head repeatedly against the walls and trow chairs against policemen, please don't tell me that is my fault if you end the day with some scratches, a headache, a panic attack or something worst.
There is a great solution for this, avoid being deliberately (with your little kids not less!) in a place where something illegal is happening and was publicly announced. Avoid to participate in the scam and specially to mock and challenge the police in their faces (with the obvious goal to elicit a violent reaction for advertising purposes), and you will be OK. Take care of yourself and think twice before to act.
Independentists are irresponsably scalating their constant provocation and salivating since years with the idea of a militar intervention with shiny tanks and hundreds of people murdered (preferibly non-indepentendist people). Thus they could finally justify having their much dreamed war of secession, doing a little clean of the zone, and feeling like warfare heros in their neighborhood. This is not what happened yesterday, thanks to all deities.
And today the basques had also asked for a referendum to be recognised as nation. As expected. Great.
I don't need to, neither feel particularly inclined this afternoon to teach you about how VAT is spent, exemption of taxes since 1518, or tricks of our democracy to allow some parties to have one deputy by each 50.000 votes whereas other parties need to be supported by 500.000 voters to obtain the same results in the same election
Just google it, spend a few hours reading legal documents and history of the country and will find the answer by yourself.
Surely Catalonia should accept independence of Spaniards pockets, though I realize that in practice they probably won't. Why do you think there should be a forced limit for recursion?
Can your neighborhood struck trade deals with India? Then maybe your neighborhood wants to team up with others around to do that... See where I'm going?
It already meets all the requirements to be a member, EU law is ingrained in Catalan law, it has the ability to negotiate and state structures. It just needs to be an independent country.
It would be better to be in the EU, but meanwhile that happens some bilateral trade deals with the EU should be relatively easy to accomplish.
If you're referring to recognition as a country, that's a separate and huge discussion. If Catalonia is not recognised it can't take its part of Spanish debt with it (might be up to 20% of the total) while being a rebel region not paying taxes and maybe under military occupation. How is Spain, which is still in critical condition with a debt of the size of its GDP, going to fare? This month Spain had to get a loan to pay pensions. This month!
So if Spain loses 20% of its GDP while keeping all the debt, how is it going to survive? And if Spain can't pay and falls, what's going to happen to the EU? You thought Brexit was bad? This is much worse!
A situation were the outcome of a YES vote is negotiated and Catalonia pays his dues is a win-win for every stakeholder: Catalans, Catalonia, Spaniards, Spain and the EU. Striking trade deals after that is pure pragmatism.
Just go through old papers about Slovenia or even the Baltics. It's all about realpolitik at the end and Catalonia has to be able to show its value to the world.
Which makes think about the ramifications for the future of the EU with a yes vote in the referendum.
A relatively prosperous region in on the European subcontinent that agrees to succeed will embroil the EU with more political and economic turmoil than it already has, and open the subcontinent up to more non EU influence.
Might be a boon for multinational corporations and some governments who have something to gain from a weaker EU.
At least something tells me that the recent former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the US State Dept words from a leaked phone conversation on the EU a couple years ago probably stands true today of the perspective some powerful people have in the world on the EU…
Is that relevant when we talk about GDP ? Even if little money flows from Barcelona to the central government (I don't know if this is or is not the case, since I don't live in Spain), that shouldn't make a difference, since "GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is, those that are bought by the final user - produced in a country in a given period of time (say a quarter or a year)."[1]
There are 16 billion per year going from Catalonia to Spain without return.
But not only that, the centralisation of government powers and agencies have created a problem where many big companies have to be in Madrid even if most their operations are in other parts of the country. That makes their taxes to be paid in Madrid instead of e.g. Valencia, Bilbao or Barcelona. The amount of taxes lost because of this is HUGE and much worse than the 16 billion per year above.
An independence would bring back 100% of the former and a good chunk of the latter. Hopefully that would help Catalonia grow at the pace its economy can and then it should be able to contribute back to Europe much more than now.
Contributions have to be sustainable.
Edit: This comment is now at -1. Please argue instead of downvoting. You're acting against HN's rules.
CNI (Centro Nacional de Inteligencia), like CIA in Spain, is working a lot to hide this comments and arguments. You can see a lot of comments which are the same speech as Partido Popular.
In the Catalan media they appear in waves, polluting all the comments and making the discussion unbearable.
They are also holding cyberatacks to the Catalan News Agency so we cannot inform outside.
They have also closed aerial space, so drones cannot fly and take pictures of massive demonstrations tomorrow if we cannot vote.
Think out of the box.
Is moral a law that forbids people speaking? Self-determination is in the human rights and Catalonia has more than 1000 years of history, culture and language.
Democracy cannot be illegal, so this banning must be disobbeyed.
Without disobbeying, woman and black people would not vote nowadays, so history proves it is a good way to take down immoral legal laws.
EDIT: UN experts say that Spain must respect fundamental rights in Catalonia. Freedom of expression, freedom of press and power separation is at stake.
I've heard pro-independence people twisting facts for over 20 years... Not surprised anymore.
Democracy is deciding new law based on current law following people's desires... Like it or not, every day meter of Catalan soil belongs as much to a Catalan woman as to an Andalusian man...
Nobody in his right mind would say that Catalonia is an oppressed region by Spain's government... Quite the opposite actually.
> Democracy is deciding new law based on current law following people's desires
This does not seem like the correct definition to me.
Suppose that a country is an absolute dictatorship, with the exception that the citizens may vote on the color of a bikeshed, and their word goes for the color of the bikeshed regardless of the dictator's preference for the color of the bikeshed, and that this is all enshrined in law.
This would not be a democratic country.
Democracy is based on people voting on the decisions being made.
"deciding the new law based on the current law" is not a fundamental part of democracy?
That is not to say that I don't think that "deciding the new law based on the current law" is valuable. I strongly agree that it is valuable. But it is not, I think, an essential part of what democracy is.
You are right in that just voting does not a democracy make. But in the same vein, restricting communication and organization of groups does not immediately a dictatorship make.
The current status is complicated and a failure of politicians' ability to do their job, but the fact is that trying to split the country unilaterally is currently illegal and wrong from at least some very sound points of view (another comment put it very well: Catalonia is as much of the Andalusians as of the Catalans).
So the government is now forced to stop this - they would otherwise be letting Andalusians be robbed. It is their job to block the referendum. It was also their job to avoid this situation by creating avenues of dialogue though... So in my opinion their next task in their job is to resign.
Democracy is listening the majority of a group, without forgetting and respecting the minorities.
You don't argument why Catalonia is not opressed. Banning all the laws emerging from its parliament is not respecting.
Sorry Spaniards, we will vote. It's not about you, it's about us. It's not about us feeling superior or supremacist. It's about deciding our way, as we think too different in too many things. We can be good neighbours.
> [Catalonia is oppressed:] Banning all the laws emerging from its parliament is not respecting.
Not all laws emerging from its parliament are ruled unconstitutional by the courts. And unconstitutional laws enacted by any parliament in Spain are banned by the courts, Catalonia or not. It's not really a matter of respect.
That's why Spanish Constitutional Court tore down articles of the Catalan Estatut (sort of regional constitution) that are accepted in exactly the same terms for others and are even covered in the Spanish Constitution.
E.g. "Catalonia is a nation". The Spanish Constitution says "Catalonia is a nationality" while the Andalusian Estatuto says "Andalusia is a nation".
TÍTULO PRELIMINAR
Artículo 1. Andalucía.
1. Andalucía, como nacionalidad histórica y en el ejercicio del derecho de autogobierno
que reconoce la Constitución, se constituye en Comunidad Autónoma
en el marco de la unidad de la nación española y conforme al artículo 2 de la
Constitución.
I'm a native speaker, yes. You say "The Spanish Constitution says Catalonia is a nationality". It does indeed (emphasis mine):
La Constitución se fundamenta en la indisoluble unidad de la
Nación española, patria común e indivisible de todos los españoles, y
reconoce y garantiza el derecho a la autonomía de las nacionalidades
y regiones que la integran y la solidaridad entre todas ellas.
The Andalusian estatuto almost uses the exact same words, "nacionalidad historica" in the "unidad de la nación española". Can hardly be considered against the Constitution. Agreed?
One can argue that "Cataluña es una nación" is a valid interpretation of the Constitution (I won't, because I'm not a constitutional lawyer and I don't think you are either), but you can't really use the Andalusian estatuto to support that the Tribunal Constitucional gives inconsistent rulings. (And has the Andalusian one even been challenged? I don't think the Tribunal Constitucional can strike down laws that haven't been brought to them).
That's the thing: The Andalusian hasn't been challenged, while the Catalan is scrutinized to the detail and the party that's now in government gathers 4 million signatures against it: https://elpais.com/elpais/2006/04/25/actualidad/1145953019_8... (They wanted all Spain to vote on the Catalan Estatut!!! Would they do that for all regions???)
Again, neither of us are constitutional lawyers, but for an argument like that you have to present and challenge the arguments used in the actual sentence. Conspiracy theories without backing are only useful to those who gain political capital out of them.
And for the record, I read that, back in the day, Ciudadanos asked the Defensor del Pueblo to bring the Andalusian estatuto to the Tribunal Constitucional. Not sure if he did, or who can and cannot bring laws to their court.
> Like it or not, every day meter of Catalan soil belongs as much to a Catalan woman as to an Andalusian man
Like it or not, Catalonia will break away from Spain if it wants to and there's nothing Spain can do to stop it short of murdering thousands of people. That's the choice Spain will have to make when it comes down to it.
> there's nothing Spain can do except murdering lots of people
That would be horrible, for sure, but don't worry. Using my disheveled imagination I think that asking the people responsible of breaking the laws to explain their behaviour in front of a jury could be one (very obvious) thing that Spain could do. It seems that they are doing it yet, in fact.
> Spain must respect fundamental rights in Catalonia. Freedom of expression, freedom of press and power separation
Spain respects fundamental rights in Catalonia and anywhere else in the country; respecting them is the supreme law of the land. Anyone who violates those rights will have the courts after them the exact same way as the courts are acting against this referendum.
Censorship in internet. Opening private letters. Political detentions and raids to political parties offices, searching for posters and ballots. Bringing 10000 policeman by boat to avoid a vote.
I was actually quoting from your link. "The measures we are witnessing are worrying because they appear to violate fundamental individual rights". They are worrying because they appear to violate those rights. Of course, any such actual violation can be brought to court.
And all violations that have happened have been brought to the Spanish and European court. In some years I am sure Spain(or the rest of it) will have to pay for it.
Threats to the press, threats to polititians. Closing websites, chasing teenagers who fork a repo in github, opening mail, spying communications.
It could be argued that this platonic view is not very factual. If you look at how corruption is dealt with and the reticence to apply the same constitutional laws you can get a sense of how things work. There were numerous members of the royal house we could talk about, or politicians...
I mean, yeah. And a while ago a president pardoned a guy from the other party that had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for kidnapping.
I think there's still a stretch from "there are corrupt politicians and the monarchy and president have a lot of undue influence over the judiciary" to "Catalans don't have freedom of expressions or are oppressed".
"Catalans don't have freedom of expressions or are oppressed" -> Catalans don't have the right to express themselves about independence? Is this taboo?
Even the US has precedent on banning speech that will "incite imminent lawless action". And compared to countries like the UK or Germany they are a bastion of free speech.
I agree free speech laws in pretty much every country are unethical because they are arrayed in a way to ban speech that might risk the dissolution of the nation, but every single country has those laws because its governments trying to protect themselves.
"And compared to countries like the UK or Germany they are a bastion of free speech."
Care to elucidate me on what basis that statement lies? I am a UKoGBnNI citizen who has also lived in DE for a few years in the West Germany part in the 70's and 80's and have friends who are native to DE.
In the UK we have laws banning inflammatory speech of various types that are clearly categorised and so does Deutschland. Both countries also, I think, have citizens who pride themselves on being able to pretty much speak their mind freely. I think both are very liberal states in this regard.
I do feel that some of my civil liberties have been eroded over the years but I in no way feel that my right to freedom of speech has been compromised in any way. I may live in a country that (worryingly) has more CCTV cameras pointing at me than you can shake a stick at but I do not believe that my right to express myself coherently and freely is damaged in any way. I'm not happy about say RIPA and co but we have a formal, legalised right to freedom of speech in the UK.
You are obviously not a US citizen because you seem to believe the US is one "thing" or a single country. It isn't and yet it is. It is a federation of states with a few odd bits tacked on (just like the UK -
not) which means that there are federal laws, state laws, county laws, city laws, bye laws and made up by someone laws. This is also how most "normal" countries work.
No, you do not have as much freedom of speech in the UK or Germany. If you tweet something offensive about e.g. Muslims, or anything else that the police deem to be "hate speech", you will be arrested. And British police have in fact been aggressively enforcing this. In Germany, the restrictions are even more severe. Both German and British governments claim and exercise the power to scrub the internet of extremism, to "protect" citizens from certain viewpoints.
You misunderstand the nature of the Bill of Rights and freedom of speech in the United States. The Bill of Rights are in the federal constitution and are enforceable in the federal courts, against any level of government (federal, state, or local).[1]
One of the central free speech doctrines in the United States is the prohibition on viewpoint discrimination. That means that our laws cannot treat any viewpoint differently than any other. If you are allowed to stand in front of the courthouse and scream anti-racist slogans, then you must be allowed to stand in front of the courthouse and spew all the racist hatred that your heart desires. Communists, fascists, anarchists, democrats, republicans, racists, reverse-racists, white supremacists, black supremacists, holocaust deniers, and even people calling for the overthrow of the US government, they can all speak their minds in America. There is no jurisdiction in the world that guarantees free speech as totally and absolutely as the United States does.
Americans are self-governing people. We don't need someone to tell us what we're allowed to think.
[1] This wasn't always the case, but the Supreme Court has held since the 1920s that the 14th Amendment "incorporated" the Bill of Rights to the states. Before this, most or all states had free speech provisions in their own constitutions anyway, but enforcement was not uniform. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...
The UK's libel laws are rather regressive (although they improved a bit recently for the GB bit the NI bit of the UK still has the old laws). There are books and documentaries which are available everywhere except the UK for this reason.
On a government level the UK regularly imprisons people for facebook/twitter posts (that would be protected by US first amendment).
> ... you seem to believe the US is one "thing" or a single country. It isn't and yet it is. It is a federation of states with a few odd bits tacked on ... which means that there are federal laws, state laws, county laws, city laws, bye laws and made up by someone laws.
Free speech laws in the US are strictly governed at the federal level, not at the city / state / county level. Your comment accordingly makes no sense. The states are legally unable to make any laws abridging freedom of speech. Every time a local entity has attempted such, it has ultimately been struck down by the federal government, which retains supremacy over many rights (and will ensure those rights with force against a local entity if necessary, as when ending segregation).
A Catalan here. Quite a bad description, I think.
We should remember that Catalonia had its own language forbidden to even speak in the street for 40 years during Franco's dictatorship. Language and culture was kept alive thanks of people keeping it in secrecy.
When "democracy" returned, some of the competences they had before the war were returned to the government.
After 6 years of demonstrations of 2-3 million (out of 7million) asking to hold a referendum and receiving NO to any request, it was announced and proposed one year ago in order to agree it with Spanish government, but they would not even discuss it. In the end the unilateral way is the only way to hold this referendum.
Why shouldn't it be allowed to ask people's preferences? Isn't it democracy? People who doesn't want independence can say NO. Laws should serve people's desires, not forbid participation and opinion.
Another Catalan here, a Catalan that has lived in Italy and France.
In the dictatorship Catalan was forbidden, but now Catalan in Catalonia is the only language used in schools (the teachers are told to only speak in that language even to the parents, search for "immersió lingüística"), the official buildings, hospital papers, and so on. Is this what you would call repression or not-democracy?
Now, in Spain other languages (I am using the word languages again) are official, and they are the language the teachers use at schools. Do you know what they call other languages in France or Italy? dialects! They are not official, of course, nor used as official languages in schools or public buildings.
So Spain is even more democratic than Italy and France in that issue, but people are complaining in Catalonia because of the adoctrination, and millions of euros spent by the Catalan government. Don't fool yourself. A referendum in a moment of maximum propaganda by the Catalan government is really democracy?
The conservative Catalan government, as the conservative Spanish government, have a lot of cases of corruption, and since all this irrationality nobody is talking about that. Last week Spain freed two Catalan politicians from the current governing party from going to jail because of the Pretoria case, but almost nobody mentioned that. Do you really thing this chaos is not premeditated?
> but now Catalan in Catalonia is the only language used in schools(...), the official buildings, hospital papers, and so on. Is this what you would call repression or not-democracy?
Isn't this the point of autonomy? You decide what languages to teach/use in your institutions. We can discuss whether this is a good idea or not. Or whether what you say is true in reality or not. But it's the Catalans' decision, that's what autonomy is for.
> So Spain is even more democratic than Italy and France in that issue, but people are complaining in Catalonia because of the adoctrination, and millions of euros spent by the Catalan government.
Comparisons are meaningless in this situations. Maybe Spain is more "democratic" (if you say so) than France(which is not hard to beat honestly, considering the status of non-French languages in France). But one could also say that Spain is less democratic than Switzerland wrt languages, and that would be equally meaningless.
The question is whether the autonomy Catalonia receives is enough for the Catalans. That's for the Catalans to decide.
> Do you really thing this chaos is not premeditated?
Are you saying that all the Catalan citizens collaborating and organizing together have been manipulated by the elites for all these years? When did the manipulation start exactly? Would you mind sharing sources that support this?
"We should remember that Catalonia had its own language forbidden to even speak in the street for 40 years during Franco's dictatorship."
We should remember this is a false myth. Catalan was never banned. There were many works in literature and music using Catalan as language during Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975).
For instance, you can check the full list of works that won the Lletra d'Or awards, to the best year work written in Catalan. It started in 1956. Josep Pla, one of the most importan Catalan writters won that award in 1957.
> What Franco did was to ban Catalan language from public institutions.
Like schools. An entire generation missed out on learning Catalan at school like my own mother. Call it whatever you want but that to me feels like forbidding a language.
Yes, and after last elections the majority of the Catalan parliament is pro-independence.
Instead of proclaming independence, a referendum is proposed, which has the support of 80% of the population in Catalonia.
Yeah I know that. The point I was trying to make is that the referendum wasn't deemed illegal because "the government of Catalonia isn't allowed to ask people's preferences". It is allowed and it happens all the time.
In the name of what, a group can decide over another on what is it allowed to do? Because of the frontiers made after conquering when using force?