Catalonia Megathread: Should Catalonia Separate From Spain?

[Imperium Corturnix Representative]

When people say, "catalonia leaving Spain is unconstitutional and illegal therefore wrong", there are a number of problems:

1. Catalonia aren't leaving Spain - they can't. That's just like france leaving Portugal - France isn't in Portugal, so it cant leave
2. The constituion of Spain states that the Spanish nation is 'indivisible'. It says nothing about Catalonia or the Basque Country, just Spain. When Catalans wrre votingbfor that consitituion, they were voting for Spain, not Catalonia.
3. Do Spain have the right to impose their laws on a country that (possibly) doesn't want to be in it? The only way to find out is to let the vote...
4. "Don't forget everything Hitler did was legal" ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
The EU are saying that they support Spain in this because the Catalans are breaking the law. Thats like Churchill saying he won't declare war on Germany because what they are doing is perfectly legal.

Whether you're for or against Independence, we should all agree that Catalonia should be allowed vote for their own future

1. Uhh, no. It is very clear that Catalonia is an autonomous zone of Spain, yet still is apart of it.
2. No. If you look up what you claim it is very clear that after Franco's death, the constitution was agreed upon by all regions of Spain including Catalonia.
3. Read the two previous points. Catalonia is not a country and it was agreed upon by Catalonia itself.
4. No, it wasn't. He just ignored the constitution like you are doing know. Even though he had emergency powers he had no right to disband the senate. Also the extermination of races wasn't in the original German constitution.

Not because it was agreed previously that a vote would have to be agreed upon by all regions first.

[Tombradya]

Saw that Felipe figure criticizing the Catalans, makes me wonder whoever elected this Felipe dude anyway? How did he get to be head of state? Because his daddy was buddy buddy with the caudillo? People should always be able to both a) vote for head of state and b) have a theoretical chance to be head of state. Monarchy is obsolete and a discriminatory concept.

[SD_Film Artists]

When people say, "catalonia leaving Spain is unconstitutional and illegal therefore wrong", there are a number of problems:

1. Catalonia aren't leaving Spain - they can't. That's just like france leaving Portugal - France isn't in Portugal, so it cant leave
2. The constituion of Spain states that the Spanish nation is 'indivisible'. It says nothing about Catalonia or the Basque Country, just Spain. When Catalans wrre votingbfor that consitituion, they were voting for Spain, not Catalonia.
3. Do Spain have the right to impose their laws on a country that (possibly) doesn't want to be in it? The only way to find out is to let the vote...
4. "Don't forget everything Hitler did was legal" ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
The EU are saying that they support Spain in this because the Catalans are breaking the law. Thats like Churchill saying he won't declare war on Germany because what they are doing is perfectly legal.

Whether you're for or against Independence, we should all agree that Catalonia should be allowed vote for their own future

That and Spain's idea of "legality" is very much a Catch-22. They say that they want democracy and referendums to follow the rule of law, but Spain has made little or no moves to create a legal referendum which means that they've criminalised separatist politics.

I don't like referendums but banning them is what dictators do. At most I'd support a restricting agreement to stop the 'referendums every Tuesday until the Correct™ awnser is chosen' mentality. I'm looking at you SNP...

[Old Tyrannia]

but principally because Catalonia is legally a part of Spain, has been for centuries, and has not followed a legal path to separation,

Well that's part of the problem, isn't it? The Spanish constitution has no legal path for separation for the Catalonians to follow.

There is a legal path they could follow- they could first campaign for an amendment to the Spanish constitution that would permit secession, then hold their referendum.

besides which it has no solid rationale for doing so insofar as I can see. Just a bunch of radical leftists who want to be free of the rest of Spain so they can be free to pursue their left-wing utopia without interference.

They're not particularly leftist though. The two largest parties in the sovereigntist coalition are centre-right and centre-leftists, with very minor support from smaller leftist parties. Which is one of the interesting things about the Catalonian independence movement, IMO - I can't really think of another separatist movement that is this broadly intersectional.

As far as I can tell, the "centre-right" faction within the pro-independence coalition are centrist at best. They're all republicans, anyway, which in my view makes them left-wing in a monarchical country.

[SD_Film Artists]

As far as I can tell, the "centre-right" faction within the pro-independence coalition are centrist at best. They're all republicans, anyway, which in my view makes them left-wing in a monarchical country.

They could have followed the Scottish route by making King Felipe VI king of Catalonia "for as long as that is what the Catalonian people wish", effectively taking a neutral stand on it. Or is King Felipe VI's recent pro-Madrid speech typical of why the independence movement is republican?

[Farnhamia]

As far as I can tell, the "centre-right" faction within the pro-independence coalition are centrist at best. They're all republicans, anyway, which in my view makes them left-wing in a monarchical country.

They could have followed the Scottish route by making King Felipe VI king of Catalonia "for as long as that is what the Catalonian people wish", effectively taking a neutral stand on it. Or is King Felipe VI's recent pro-Madrid speech typical of why the independence movement is republican?

Felipe is already King of Aragon, which includes the County of Barcelona, which is Catalonia. The personal and dynastic union of the Crown of Aragon and the County goes back to the 13th century.

[SD_Film Artists]

They could have followed the Scottish route by making King Felipe VI king of Catalonia "for as long as that is what the Catalonian people wish", effectively taking a neutral stand on it. Or is King Felipe VI's recent pro-Madrid speech typical of why the independence movement is republican?

Felipe is already King of Aragon, which includes the County of Barcelona, which is Catalonia. The personal and dynastic union of the Crown of Aragon and the County goes back to the 13th century.

All the more reason why he shouldn't alienate the populice with stances which could be seen as Castile-biased. Or maybe he's already seen the republicans coming and has chosen to gain support where he still can.

[Lord of The Rings]

Spanish court suspends Catalan parliament session in attempt to block independence

Looks like Madrid really doesn't want Catalonia to stay part of Spain for much longer. Madrid has already lost, now it's just a matter of how big of a victory they are going to give to the separatist movements.

[Saint-Thor]

@Old Tyrannia

Didn't you knew that at 1977 (1 year before of Spanish Constitution) all the spanish people were traumatized for a franqoist massacre in Madrid (meanwhile the politicians were writing the Constitution)?

The Audiencia Nacional, a Spanish high court, condemned the convicted to a total of 464 years of prison. José Fernández Cerdá and Carlos García Juliá each received sentences of 196 years, while Albadalejo Corredera received 63 years for orchestrating the attack (he died in prison in 1985). However, the escape of Lerdo de Tejada, while freed on bail in 1979, reinforced the victims' lawyers' convictions that the attackers had received aid from well-connected sources. Lerdo de Tejada escaped to France, then Chile and Brazil — the period of prescription for his crime expired in 1997.[4] Jaime Sartorius, lawyer for the plaintiffs, believes the people behind the attack have never been brought to justice: "...They did not let us investigate. For us, the investigations were pointing towards the secret services, but only pointing towards them. By this I do not want to imply anything"

Source: Massacre of Atocha, 1977 (Madrid)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Massacre_of_Atocha

Video
La matanza de Atocha

So, if you had needed to vote "pro" to change the francoist regime (with the new Constitution) or "cons" for continue with the killers regime. What would you voted?

Believe me... the catalans we could'nt voted anything more then!

This is basically what I've been saying in this thread. After the end of the Franoist regime, it sounds to me that Spain quickly needed to sign any paper that would trigger the democratic transition. Same for Catalunya. When you sign such important document in a context like that, you tend to put aside any form of disagreement. It's understandable that they had to sign it rather hastily before another despicable fuck shows up. I've read somewhere that the constitution was subject to further négociations but the central governement kinda told the rest of the country :"You signed, now stfu". More recently, Catalunya tried to play it fair at first for a few years after 2010. It's funny because before that, the independentist movement there was pretty weak, with what, 10 or 15%? The intransigence of Madrid is what's causing so much trouble now. I followed this story from here because it reminds me the constitutional talks we had in Canada. Trudeau (the father) and the other 9 provinces had arranged the constitution to their liking while the Québec premier was not even present. No wonder Québec never signed the constitution and even our most fervently federalist premiers refused to do so since. But we had the "luxury" to say no. Unlike Catalunya, we didn't suffer from almost 40 years of francoism.

[SD_Film Artists]

Spanish court suspends Catalan parliament session in attempt to block independence

Damn, why didn't we think of doing that move in 1776?

"We hold these truths to be self-evide-" "NOPE"

[The Widening Gyre]

There is a legal path they could follow- they could first campaign for an amendment to the Spanish constitution that would permit secession, then hold their referendum.

The power to amend the Constitution lies in the hands of the central government, which as has been noted has a vested interest in keeping Catalonia a part of Spain. Hence why this whole shitstorm kicked off in the first place - the Catalonians launched a process to amend their Statute of Autonomy back in the early 2000's and got the approval of the Cortes, a referendum of Catalonians and the Catalonian Parliament, but the People's Party launched a legal challenge that spend five years in the courts and ended up unilaterally amending the Statute.

As far as I can tell, the "centre-right" faction within the pro-independence coalition are centrist at best. They're all republicans, anyway, which in my view makes them left-wing in a monarchical country.

I think that's a pretty silly definition of 'left wing', but you're of course in your right to hold it.

As far as I can tell, the "centre-right" faction within the pro-independence coalition are centrist at best. They're all republicans, anyway, which in my view makes them left-wing in a monarchical country.

They could have followed the Scottish route by making King Felipe VI king of Catalonia "for as long as that is what the Catalonian people wish", effectively taking a neutral stand on it. Or is King Felipe VI's recent pro-Madrid speech typical of why the independence movement is republican?

Part of the problem with Spain as far as I can tell is that they're technically a unitary state but that over the course of the last few decades the central government has devolved powers to local regions, under the aegis of granted constitutions called Statutes of Autonomy. The federal or confederal system you're proposing is what the Catalan and Spanish branches of the socialist party want, but conservative parties have continually opposed it.

[Tananat]

Spanish court suspends Catalan parliament session in attempt to block independence

Looks like Madrid really doesn't want Catalonia to stay part of Spain for much longer. Madrid has already lost, now it's just a matter of how big of a victory they are going to give to the separatist movements.

I mean, it was a Catalan party that asked for the order so...?

[Tananat]

@Old Tyrannia

Didn't you knew that at 1977 (1 year before of Spanish Constitution) all the spanish people were traumatized for a franqoist massacre in Madrid (meanwhile the politicians were writing the Constitution)?



Source: Massacre of Atocha, 1977 (Madrid)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Massacre_of_Atocha

Video
La matanza de Atocha

So, if you had needed to vote "pro" to change the francoist regime (with the new Constitution) or "cons" for continue with the killers regime. What would you voted?

Believe me... the catalans we could'nt voted anything more then!

This is basically what I've been saying in this thread. After the end of the Franoist regime, it sounds to me that Spain quickly needed to sign any paper that would trigger the democratic transition. Same for Catalunya. When you sign such important document in a context like that, you tend to put aside any form of disagreement. It's understandable that they had to sign it rather hastily before another despicable fuck shows up. I've read somewhere that the constitution was subject to further négociations but the central governement kinda told the rest of the country :"You signed, now stfu". More recently, Catalunya tried to play it fair at first for a few years after 2010. It's funny because before that, the independentist movement there was pretty weak, with what, 10 or 15%? The intransigence of Madrid is what's causing so much trouble now. I followed this story from here because it reminds me the constitutional talks we had in Canada. Trudeau (the father) and the other 9 provinces had arranged the constitution to their liking while the Québec premier was not even present. No wonder Québec never signed the constitution and even our most fervently federalist premiers refused to do so since. But we had the "luxury" to say no. Unlike Catalunya, we didn't suffer from almost 40 years of francoism.

I mean they had a vote where 95% of the voters voted in favour of it in Catalonia, so I'm not sure how quick you're imagining the almost three year process from Franco's death to the referendum was?

[Lady Scylla]

Hitler stopped being the boogyman and doesnt scares anymore. He has been so often used as a meme of the ultimative evil that it became inflationary.

Tell us rather how things down there, I would be actually interested in that rather than some meme.

They think that continued cries of fascism and calling those opposed fascists will help them. Instead it's done the exact opposite. Instead of people not wanting to be fascist a bunch of people have decided what the hell we are already called Nazis and fascists on the daily, even though we aren't either of them, so why not just join the far right.

It's amazing when the far left destroys their own goals by insulting the moderates

Is that what you've done?

[Lady Scylla]

Spanish court suspends Catalan parliament session in attempt to block independence

Looks like Madrid really doesn't want Catalonia to stay part of Spain for much longer. Madrid has already lost, now it's just a matter of how big of a victory they are going to give to the separatist movements.

Pretty empty at this point. Parliament could still meet in defiance, and with Mossos backing, I doubt this move will do much to stop them trying.

[Larin]

Spanish court suspends Catalan parliament session in attempt to block independence

Good job Spain

Saw that Felipe figure criticizing the Catalans, makes me wonder whoever elected this Felipe dude anyway? How did he get to be head of state? Because his daddy was buddy buddy with the caudillo? People should always be able to both a) vote for head of state and b) have a theoretical chance to be head of state. Monarchy is obsolete and a discriminatory concept.

He is a King, so he is not elected, and i agree with King Felipe

[Torrocca]

Hitler stopped being the boogyman and doesnt scares anymore. He has been so often used as a meme of the ultimative evil that it became inflationary.

Tell us rather how things down there, I would be actually interested in that rather than some meme.

They think that continued cries of fascism and calling those opposed fascists will help them. Instead it's done the exact opposite. Instead of people not wanting to be fascist a bunch of people have decided what the hell we are already called Nazis and fascists on the daily, even though we aren't either of them, so why not just join the far right.

It's amazing when the far left destroys their own goals by insulting the moderates

If you're being called a Nazi and your first thought is, "hmm, well, if they're calling me one... might as well join them!" instead of, "y'know, maybe some self-reflections on my political and social views would be a good thing to do," then the problem doesn't lie with the ones calling you a Nazi.

[Trumptonium]

They think that continued cries of fascism and calling those opposed fascists will help them. Instead it's done the exact opposite. Instead of people not wanting to be fascist a bunch of people have decided what the hell we are already called Nazis and fascists on the daily, even though we aren't either of them, so why not just join the far right.

It's amazing when the far left destroys their own goals by insulting the moderates

If you're being called a Nazi and your first thought is, "hmm, well, if they're calling me one... might as well join them!" instead of, "y'know, maybe some self-reflections on my political and social views would be a good thing to do," then the problem doesn't lie with the ones calling you a Nazi.

the problem probably lies in those who are unintelligent enough to brush everyone further right than lenin as a nazi. no need for any self-reflection, other than your reflection of society having a few more stupid people than you previously thought.

[Pasong Tirad]

Al Jazeera: "Barcelona vs Madrid. Not the football match, it's the media in competition over the Catalan independence story."

tl;dw: Catalan public TV is biased towards independence (for example, talk show where one pro-unionist has to debate with 5 pro-independentists), Spanish public TV is biased towards Spanish unionism (for example, images of a rally are on-the-ground and not on top of a truck or higher to give the illusion that the number of people in a rally is questionable).

[Lady Scylla]

Al Jazeera: "Barcelona vs Madrid. Not the football match, it's the media in competition over the Catalan independence story."

tl;dw: Catalan public TV is biased towards independence (for example, talk show where one pro-unionist has to debate with 5 pro-independentists), Spanish public TV is biased towards Spanish unionism (for example, images of a rally are on-the-ground and not on top of a truck or higher to give the illusion that the number of people in a rally is questionable).

That's pretty much a given, however.

[Saint-Thor]

This is basically what I've been saying in this thread. After the end of the Franoist regime, it sounds to me that Spain quickly needed to sign any paper that would trigger the democratic transition. Same for Catalunya. When you sign such important document in a context like that, you tend to put aside any form of disagreement. It's understandable that they had to sign it rather hastily before another despicable fuck shows up. I've read somewhere that the constitution was subject to further négociations but the central governement kinda told the rest of the country :"You signed, now stfu". More recently, Catalunya tried to play it fair at first for a few years after 2010. It's funny because before that, the independentist movement there was pretty weak, with what, 10 or 15%? The intransigence of Madrid is what's causing so much trouble now. I followed this story from here because it reminds me the constitutional talks we had in Canada. Trudeau (the father) and the other 9 provinces had arranged the constitution to their liking while the Québec premier was not even present. No wonder Québec never signed the constitution and even our most fervently federalist premiers refused to do so since. But we had the "luxury" to say no. Unlike Catalunya, we didn't suffer from almost 40 years of francoism.

I mean they had a vote where 95% of the voters voted in favour of it in Catalonia, so I'm not sure how quick you're imagining the almost three year process from Franco's death to the referendum was?

Have you read the question they were asked? "Do you approve of the Constitution Bill". Yes or No. It's not like you can negotiate right there in the voting booth. It's a package deal. The constitution itself was drafted in a relatively short period of time. Less than a year. They had a shit-ton of unclear points about juridictions between the autonomous regions and the central governement (of course their Tribunal Constitucional would favor Madrid most of the time, big surprise). So yes it was rather done quickly. In Canada, we had constitutional talks and negociations many after its adoption in 1982, until 1992.

[Pasong Tirad]

Al Jazeera: "Barcelona vs Madrid. Not the football match, it's the media in competition over the Catalan independence story."

tl;dw: Catalan public TV is biased towards independence (for example, talk show where one pro-unionist has to debate with 5 pro-independentists), Spanish public TV is biased towards Spanish unionism (for example, images of a rally are on-the-ground and not on top of a truck or higher to give the illusion that the number of people in a rally is questionable).

That's pretty much a given, however.

Well if you did watch it, there's a great point that a journalist who was interviewed made by the end of the video. Puidgemont and the pro-independence camp have a very good advantage over Spain in that Pudgemont speaks both French and English and he used to be a journalist. The pro-independence camp was able to reach out to foreign media outlets (which, honestly, helps explain why a lot of the articles I've been reading [I can't read Spanish] are subtly [or not-so-subtly] pro-independence). Foreign journalists, as well, are said to fall to the trap of sensationalism and historical cliches, seeing the Spanish Civil War everywhere they go in their coverage of the Catalan independence struggle and lacking the nuance that Spanish and Catalan journalists would be able to give us in their coverage - but unfortunately, we don't hear a lot about Catalan or Spanish journalists and their pieces on the matter.

[Saint-Thor]

That's pretty much a given, however.

Well if you did watch it, there's a great point that a journalist who was interviewed made by the end of the video. Puidgemont and the pro-independence camp have a very good advantage over Spain in that Pudgemont speaks both French and English and he used to be a journalist.

Yeah I heard that a couple of days ago. His mastery of the French language is quite impressive. I was like, holy shit!

[Pasong Tirad]

Well if you did watch it, there's a great point that a journalist who was interviewed made by the end of the video. Puidgemont and the pro-independence camp have a very good advantage over Spain in that Pudgemont speaks both French and English and he used to be a journalist.

Yeah I heard that a couple of days ago. His mastery of the French language is quite impressive. I was like, holy shit?

He can also speak Romanian, apparently, since he's married to a Romanian journalist. Even more impressive, dude's pentalingual (Catalan, Spanish, English, French, Romanian).

[Lord of The Rings]

Yeah I heard that a couple of days ago. His mastery of the French language is quite impressive. I was like, holy shit?

He can also speak Romanian, apparently, since he's married to a Romanian journalist. Even more impressive, dude's pentalingual (Catalan, Spanish, English, French, Romanian).

Not bad, but not exceptional either.