Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

To me, it seems your characterization of "true point" adds layers of abstractions such as "nationalists" and "right-wing movements". Sure, you're writing text that can be considered "correct" but it actually doesn't help people understand it better.

Would it be clearer for outsiders to look at it as a mostly economic independence? For example ... to use a (tortured) analogy, imagine that California wants to secede from the USA because citizens (especially the wealthy ones in Silicon Valley) feel too much of California tax dollars prop up poorer non-performing states like Mississippi and Alabama. Also, the corrupt USA federal government is spending too much $$ on unneeded military expenses like tanks and bailing out Wall Street. Therefore, California feels its unfair and wants independence to run their own affairs. To parallel a similar confusion of the "true point"... if we simply describe the independence movement as "State Secessionists fighting the Feds", it adds abstract labels to the opposing sides but doesn't really explain the situation.

Is there a more primary undercurrent to the Catalonia independence movement than the economic analogy above?

(One example of a Catalan pro-independence answer talking about economic grievances and corruption: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-many-Catalans-want-to-secede-fr...)

Most people in Spain are not nationalists of any kind. That's just a lie. Nationalist votes are, being most generous under 10% of national grand total. People opposing to nationalism are just refusing the tribal bs.

Whoever the winner of this fight is, it will be a sad day for Europe, because nationalism and national borders will have prevailed and this goes against everything we need to build a stronger and better EU.

This nonsense we've been hearing for years: let them do whatever they want to do or else they win. WHAT?

And I think it is very hard to discuss something, by starting with telling everybody else that they are wrong. Now while it is true, that the conflict is also a clash of different nationalist, it is simply oversimplification and plainly wrong to reduce it to that. And also missleading. As the catalan nationalism is of a very different kind, than the spanish one.

From my experience, the spanish nationalism is classical chauvinism - or plain open fascism. Spain is superior. Period. Spain also never had a denazification since Franco. There simply are still many people in spain who still refer positiv to fascism. Also in positions of power. And the catalans simply want to live their culture, free from spanish interference.

The catalan language was allmost forbidden for quite some time! And many died, were tortured or disappeared who did not bow their head low enough to the fascists. So one should not forget that long episode.

But yes, recently things were a lot different - thats why most catalans would have voted no - if spain would have granted them a referendum. But since spain did not talked to them, but acted again like a empire to their peasants - it seems to many, that spain once again has dropped their masks and showed how they really are and think - so now they want to leave.

And yes, I think it is very sad for europe indeed, if this kind of empire-thinking and chauvinism gets the support of the EU. And the right of self-determination only gets taken seriously if it is some geopolitical interest, like in Kosovo.

In this case, though, these politicians do so at great personal risk. Many are already imprisoned. Even if Cataluña gains sovereignty, chances are that they will be held for high treason by the Spanish authorities.

The Spanish authorities are taking basically no personal risk. If they screw the country, they can just leave on a plane, move to Switzerland or some other nice place.

> Whoever the winner of this fight is, it will be a sad day for Europe, because nationalism and national borders will have prevailed and this goes against everything we need to build a stronger and better EU.

I look at the secessionist movements across Europe and wonder if that's really necessarily the case.

Historically, the benefit for ethnic nations like Croatia, Slovakia, Scotland, and Catalonia to remained within larger states is largely in order to enjoy the benefits of common markets and open borders, and partially to enjoy the benefits of common defense. Doesn't the EU make those motivations less compelling rather than more compelling? The EU already provides common markets and open borders and NATO provides common defense; why can't Catalonia be their own EU member state just like Croatia, Czechia, Ireland, Malta, Slovakia, or Slovenia--all of which separated from larger states in the past?

I could not disagree more. I think the subtext here, is that you believe is that you believe everyone favoring a nation state is some form of Trump supporter or right wing Brexiter. Being in favor of your own independent state does not make you anti other people.

There is something fundamentally undemocratic about world government style of thinking. If everybody lived under the same rule, there would be no choice in how you would like your society organized.

To just put an extreme example. As a Norwegian I like my universal health care, long paternity leave, long vacation, generous welfare benefits, humane prison policy, nice work life balance etc. If we were to become an American state in the name of erasing oh those horrible borders, we Norwegians would suddenly have to adapt to American values and ways of organizing society. Values we don't share.

I think the analysis of the worlds problems is fundamentally wrong. Wars don't start over too many borders but over too few borders. So many wars are caused by civil wars, because people who don't function well together are made to share a country.

Even bigger wars such as WWI and WWII is fundamentally about this. If Germany and Italy had not been united but had stayed as a collection of smaller countries, then these wars would never have been started.

Catalonia has as much right to independence as my home country Norway. Just like Catalonia we had autonomy and democracy. But that did not change the desire to be our own country. I think it would be nutty in retrospect to claim we would have been so much better off with Sweden.

There is a reason we never became full EU members. I do believe in the EU project but it is increasingly taking away too much sovereignty from individual nations. Had we been EU members we would have lost control over our natural resources such as fishing. The EU has proved itself utterly incapable of managing its fish stock in a responsible manner. As fishing is an important livelihood for many Norwegians along the coast it would have been detrimental to the country with EU rules.

It is just one of many examples of how, while countries should cooperate, it is naive to think it is a benefit for everybody that we all share the same rules and government.

Smaller states have fewer levels of hierarchy and are usually more efficient at what they're doing and less corrupt.

Also, people have it easier to exert pressure on their representatives, be it by throwing stones in their windows, not serving the prime minister at the local bakery or just voting with their feet.

Decentralization is often an improvement.

On the other hand, the Spanish/pro-union politicians are untouchable and the risks they take, much lower.

Do you have the same opinion about Kosovo?

Catalan independence movement is highly diverse, with people from extremely different political views.

The core question here, and I haven't seen it exposed, is when and under which circumstances can a certain region of a current state be allowed to become independent. Spain defends that once a majority of Spanish people decides they can, while most catalans (according to polls) want to have that sovereignty. Up until now sovereignty has been decided by force; if you are strong enough you have it. Catalonia is pushing for changes on that respect, trying to execute that sovereignty even though Catalonia does not have currently the strength to defend it.

Whether the reasons for independence are or not legitimated, the real question is when and how a certain territory can execute self determination without the need of a war. As far as I know there are no cases where the independence has been accepted from the country where the territory wanted to split from. Spain has multiple examples where they didn't accept independence (their former colonies, for instance, or Kosovo more recently).

If by "used" you meant that the rich parties jumped on the independence train while it was running, then I have no objection. On the other hand if you mean they fabricated the independence movement just for their own glory and profit, IMHO you are misunderstanding the movement. The separatist movement has existed for an arguably long time, and I'd say the demographics have leaned to the worker-class, lefty ideology (ERC and CUP).

>The love of the flag and the dishonest approach to history and current socio-economics of the region are strategies followed by every other wannabe-patriot in the world.

How has the approach to history been dishonest? And what would have been the honest/objective approach to it? I'm frankly curious, you seem to be quite certain about this.

In my experience, many Catalan pro-independence supporters are hardly nationalist or patriotic. Probably due to the fact that they have close family ties to other parts of the Peninsula(eg. Andalucía, Galiza...). However they are all strongly souverainists, which I think is the key point of the Catalan pro-independence movement. A proof of this is that, had the Catalan parliament true power to make laws on most aspects of society, the independence movement would have a really small % support.

> Whoever the winner of this fight is, it will be a sad day for Europe, because nationalism and national borders will have prevailed and this goes against everything we need to build a stronger and better EU.

I believe this is a challenge for EU, and challenges are good to build resilience. Think of it as a "Chaos Monkey" approach to the Union. IMHO the EU is not reacting accordingly to the challenge, it's not even facing it tbh. This, as a European, it's disappointing to witness. Also, why is it sad for Europe that a region self-determines as a sovereign state within Europe? Why are re-arrangements within Europe sad? And alternatively, why is an arguably unstable territory(Spain, politically) better as "one", than as "two"(or three or four) nation states within Europe? If we're all sharing the same EU umbrella...

Bigger states inside EU do not imply stronger and better EU. I'd actually argue that bigger too-powerful states(see Germany, France) can have an uncomfortable power over other smaller states.

EU is still re-defining itself. I recommend you to read some Ulrike Guérot's work[1]. Europeans should be open to rethinking/re-designing.

EU it's starting to look like an elite bureaucrats club where only "richer statements of _EU_ society grab power and 'make history'" ;).

[1]: Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUpVcJvE3UE

Spain is clinging to the designed "lawlessness" that arises from any region wanting to leave it. Catalonia not being a part of Spain would substantially hurt Spain. Look at the numbers. 16% of the Spanish people live in Catalonia but they account for 19% of GDP. That 3% may not seem like a lot but when you do the math it comes out to mean that they are (((19/16)/(81/84))-1)*100=23.14% more productive than the rest of Spain in terms of GDP. That's massive. They also account for >25% of exports and 20% of foreign investment. Catalonia acts as a monetary boost to the rest of Spain. And they believe they are being taken advantage of in this regard by Spain.

Think about it this way - what options did the Spanish government have even once the court declared the original vote a few weeks ago to be unlawful? They could have allowed the vote to go on, and simply declared the results invalid/non-official/meaningless. Or they could have done what they chose to do - apply violence. Why did they make this choice? Simple - they didn't want to see the results of the vote because then the entire world would know, with certainty, what % of the Catalan people actually voted "yes". With the numbers we do have, it's a hefty percentage, certainly not some small minority that is somehow manipulating parliament.

Spain doesn't want to lose the economic boost, nor does it want to lose the land and resources. However, one must ask themselves whether or not a people have the right to choose their own government. Shouldn't people have the right to decide that their current government simply isn't working for them and they choose a new one? We already have this in democratic nations when you look at the country as a whole - the country can decide that there is change needed and take action. Why should anything change when you are simply talking about a region of the country that no longer wants to be part of the whole? Don't they still have the right to self-determination, for better or worse? This isn't really about nationalists, right wingers, left wingers, or anything like that. This is about a simple concept that has deliberately been ignored by both historical and modern governments. If a process were in place, this could be non-violent and remove much of the uncertainty.

I presume it was also a 'sad day for Europe' when 'nationalism prevailed' and the Baltic states gained independence from the Soviet Union?

Catalonia, more so than Estonia, has a distinct culture, including a language which has, at points, been illegal to write, teach, or even speak publicly on their own land. Their ties to Spain are a result of a fascist dictator who managed to largely avoid WWII and continue his reign until he died of natural causes, with his formed empire still intact.

Why is their desire for independence some negative form of nationalism that must be stomped out? If they want to join the EU in the future, shouldn't it be on their own terms, or should they be forced to partake?

Your comments are otherwise accurate and unbiased on some points, but I don't see the problem with the whole of Europe not yearning for the same dream of a globalized, economically united continent void of national identity.

This seems like an iconic example of what NOT to do when faced with an independence referendum. Compare the situation in Scotland or Canada, where AIUI the central government grudgingly permitted the referendum, campaigned on the issue locally, and offered symbolic concessions to local autonomy while focusing heavily on the pragmatic risks and costs of independence. In Catalonia by contrast we have plenty of images of the police violently disrupting the referendum and independence protesters, then pledging to end local autonomy altogether.

Did they? The EU doesn't support Catalan independence, the US doesn't support the movement, the Catalan independence has 0 backing from any outside source, while most countries see this as an internal affair within Spain. Madrid even loosened rules on Spanish companies, allowing them to easily move their headquarters to Madrid, triggering an exodus out of Barcelona. The response was certainly heavy-handed, but the table is definitely in Madrid's favor.

>Here we are as Catalan declares independence, which it seems can either turn into a civil war, a flat-out failure with everyone arrested, Spain eating some humble pie to get them back to the table, or Spain just accepting Catalan is gone.

Catalan has 0 outside support and the support within the region is fractured as well, with Barcelona split on opinion. Many major companies have already moved their headquarters from Barcelona to Madrid. Spain has constitutional powers vis-a-vis Article 155 to impose authority. All signs point to this independence movement being a flop.

In any case -- I think the ruling party in Spain wanted this to flare up so they could consolidate political support during the next election, since most of Spain is adamantly opposed to Catalan independence.

The UK government thought like you.

It allowed the people to vote for Brexit, thinking it would never pass.

And here we are today.

When only one of the sides have weapons, there can not be a civil war, only a genocide. I am convinced that there is a limit on the violations of Human Rights that Europe will be able to tolerate from a state member.

They could have also lost in that case. There has been a huge for-independance campaign spanning 20+ years and including indoctrination of former children that now can vote.

The last governments should not have ignored the problem, making instead an effort to provide objective information on what an independence entails. This is not something that you can level with a couple of months of "No" campaign.

My take on this is that we end up having to open a process to change the Constitution with an ensemble of unprepared politicians (on all sides of the table) that blocks the country for a couple of years (for reference, we have recently spent 18 months with a government in functions because we could not manage to vote the new president).

EDIT: It seems that some people didn't like "indoctrination". Ignore the word, my comment remains the same: education has been strongly focused on building a Catalan identity. It is not something that you level in a short term campaign. In Rajoy's shoes, this is something against his position.

1) a lot of young men,

2) who have little to lose, and

3) who are used to living a life with not much more comfort than that of a soldier (maybe even less)

The young generation in Catalonia is small, they have a lot to lose, and they live very comfortable lives.

I don't see them taking up arms. Maybe they will take to the streets for a few days, but they are not willing to fight in great numbers, or give up studies or jobs.

In the last civil war in Spain or the one in America or the ones in the Middle East, those conditions were present.

Not, this is a lie. Was not the government that declared it illegal. Were the judges of the hightest spanish tribunal, because in their opinion this is a disguised coup against constitution.

> Once they had the massive yes vote the only way out to the evil government is to surrender and negociate...

Another thousand times repeated lie. Because 2 million of votes (including X people voting n>1 times) is now the 90% of 46 million of people (including 7,5 million of catalonian people).

Lets suppose, for example, that some people would want to reinstall the slavery to Louisiana, or to bring comunism to Nebraska. "Would be good for the economy" they say. So they require to ask people for "blah blah blah democracy". Let suppose that they declare that if the referendum is positive, all black people will lose their properties and be slaves again, "because blah blah blah, pacifism". And they want you to pay this circus with your tax money, because their shamelessness is infinite.

And then some people ask that government should allow this, because voting is good.

Should the government "embrace" this spoiled children acts and let them to steal millions of dollars in their face?.

Everybody can promote a referendum to ask people their opinion about anything, but with their money, without using public buildings and resources and without shamelessly declaring that the results from the poll will trigger a chain of illegal abuses and changes for most of the people in the zone.

Actually, that is one of the central demands by catalans: money should not "flow" to Catalonia via Spain.

They are perfectly fine with open borders, being a part of the European Union, using the Euro as currency, and even with keeping their Spanish passports (i.e. double nationality).

> very good and valid reasons to separate from Canada, mostly because of prejudice against their language and culture

It's rare to see this acknowledged outside of Quebec, so, thanks.

> increased the use of French within the English speaking part of the country

It's important to note for the comparison that this has been eroded extremely quickly. Supreme court judges don't have to speak French, and the Supreme Court ruled (6-3) two years ago that provinces are not obliged to translate laws into French. The lesson here is don't take things for granted that aren't in the constitution. (I don't know how much language is an issue for Catalonia but I can only assume it's a part of it.)

> The Quebecois culture changed becoming more cosmopolitan and less Catholic (we call it "The Quiet Revolution").

I don't think you meant to misdirect here, but the Quiet Revolution happened in the 60s, and is therefore not a consequence of the modern sovereigntist movements which lead up to the first referendum in 1980.

> After these changes, separatism is today a political liability in Quebec. Their separatist party only succeeds when they disguise their separatism.

It is still an issue, in the sense that some people will vote for the party most "likely" to hold a referendum. In practice, we all know the status quo is too profitable for any powerful party to attempt real change.

It is also important to note that Quebec still very much feels like a different nation, to me at least, and we often diverge strongly on political issues related to culture. See this map from 2011: https://imgur.com/gallery/w3uoK9W

As long as this "two solitudes" phenomenon persists, the separatist movement will continue to exist. It is doubtful to me that there are any concessions on the part of Canada that could bridge this gap, but I'm certain that Spain is different, in that it could effectively have killed the whole affair with simple financial negotiations. In hindsight, the lack of openness to compromise was quite obviously a shortsighted decision.

Within a decade of the Canadian real estate bubble pop, Quebec will be an independent nation. Mark my words.

I don't speak Spanish and I can't find any primary sources on it, but this is what all the news sources that I have seen are saying. If you have more information or citations, I'd love to see them.

Here are some sources saying it was a declaration of independence:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/27/spanish-governmen...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-day-of-fireworks-in-c...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41771294

Also, (sigh), the twitter-based declaration from the government of Catalan itself:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/923908635520053248

> CONSTITUÏM la República catalana, com a Estat independent i sobirà, de dret, democràtic i social.

Which Google translates as

> WE CONSTITUTE THE Catalan Republic, as an independent and sovereign State, of social and democratic law.

It certainly sounds like a declaration of independence. Since the very act of making the declaration is de jure illegal, it's not clear to me that there's a formality that must be observed for this to be made more "official".

[1] http://www.elpuntavui.cat/politica/article/17-politica/12696...

http://khanism.org/security/legality/

It was also once legal to own slaves and legal for merchants to deny sales and service to blacks. Homosexuality was once illegal. If there is enough moral outrage and enough of the population backing a movement, the legality can change since it is a pure social construct based the belief of the people.

For example, people in Texas who want a succession movement. It will never happen because although there are some very loud people for it, less than 2% of the entire population actually supports such an idea. If it one day changes to 60% ~ 70% .. or even up to 80%, what's legal at the Federal level simply won't matter. At that point we'll see the David Graeber argument play out; namely that States work because of their monopoly on violence.

We see this today when it comes to American states with recreational cannibals, illegal at the Federal level, yet socially and morally accepted within the states that have legalized it (Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado, etc.)

Personally, I hope I see Cascadia succeeded in my lifetime. I think that would be awesome.

Tech people working for the regional government to promote the independence of Catalonia were basically fired a few hours ago by the president Rajoy. They have a problem now (but are available again).

Our startup has been selected to start NUMA winter batch next week, and the last thing we want to have is blood on the street.

Since October 1st, 2017, more than 800 companies have moved their official address to outside of Catalunya. They tend to be larger firms. To be fair, a few have moved TO Catalunya during that same period.

Tourism bookings are down 20% on this time last year. Tourism is a significant part of the Catalan economy.

Real estate - too soo to tell. I think real estate prices probably trail events by some months.

The Catalan Parliament didn't even have the votes to change their own Statutes of Autonomy!

Or said differently, what would you do? You campaigned for it, organized a referendum, won it and now you do not follow through? What would your voters say?

They gain autonomy, and they function the same way they have been. I don't see the issue at all. Let people be free. Smaller governing/sovereign regions can have huge benefits, especially in Europe since they sill have the solidarity of EU backing.

It's not like they're separating because they want to keep slavery.

The EU acting as a leveller and lowest common denominator between states weakens the divisions between nation states, deliberately - precisely because of the dangers of nationalism. And with a weakened nation state, regionalism is relatively more important.

As for tax, defence, etc.; IMO these will sooner or later migrate to the EU level. I don't think regionalism is either unexpected or avoidable the way the EU has been going.

For union - Centralization means more bargaining power in international negotiations because your economy is just physically larger. More tax revenue means the central government can do more ambitious things. Centralization is good for business because trade barriers are lower between providences and states than between countries.

By far, however, the greatest historic argument for large countries has been for militaristic purposes. Having a nation of a hundred million men spanning half a continent could historically walk all over smaller neighbors. This historic basis for centralization of power has fallen way by the wayside in the modern era of global communication and more importantly nuclear arms. It doesn't matter if France is smaller than Germany when France has hundreds of nukes and could remove humanity from the Earth a dozen times over.

For division - Minority cultures, groups, and people who simply do not agree with the majority opinions in a country but have solidarity in their region / culture are oppressed by the central government.

The arguments basically come down to an economic rationale for big centralization or a social desire for self determination and liberty. Now of course dissidents could want secession for good or ill - Indian independence from Britain was by almost any account a moral good, but the desire to secede from the US by confederates just to persist their industry of owning human beings was not. But fundamentally we should all be able to at least agree that righteous revolutions we agree with are justified and worth the economic cost to obtain liberty.

The debate over Catalonia shouldn't be along the lines of economic consequences from seceding because if Catalan is justified in what they are doing the freedom of its citizens has to supersede economic arguments to stay without liberty. Freedom has to come first before profit, and the debate should be if the Spanish governments has been legitimately oppressive of Catalan, and if you agree they have been, and you believe in liberty and self determination, you have to support their secession no matter the economic cost.Hygiene works by attaching an invisible "syntax context" value to all identifiers. When two identifiers are compared, both the identifiers' textural names and syntax contexts must be identical for the two to be considered equal.

It is probably very romantic an ideology, but democracy has always been rooted in romanticism.

However it came about, that's a really political situation to be in. It sounds to me like Spain has set up a legal framework in which war is the only way to leave a democracy. I'm not familiar enough with Catalonia's motive's here to judge their decision, but that's a shitty situation in which to make that decision. And to be clear, I think that's a problem with a lot democracies. You end up with tyranny of the majority, and you either "pay the price for living in a civilized society" or you end up in an armed battle. There's no, "oh okay - I'll stop using nationally-funded roads and you can stop taking my money to start wars elsewhere." I think this is subconsciously part of why the 2 parties in the US seem so irrational to each other - there's only a need to get 51% (or in very few cases 67%) and then protect your existing supporters - there's no need to make a system that works for almost everyone. So people feel alienated and defensive, but basically do the same thing that was done to them the second they get their foot in the door.

>> the votes were not supported by any international body and were not conducted in a public or transparent manner >> Only 38% of Cataluá citizens voted, the remaining 62% did not participate in this vote.

Huh - sounds like elections in the US too. #twins

That is true if we want to analyze the question of whether or not Catalan "should" be independent from Spain, a question so murky and shot through with political philosophy, theory, and pragmatics that even two sides that stipulate all the same facts can come to different conclusions.

But for what johnnyfaehell was really getting at, which is a tactical and/or strategic analysis of the effectiveness of the moves the various sides have been making, we don't really need all that, we just need an understanding of human nature, with at best some slight elaborations for the slight deviations in local conditions.

I personally have no great opinion about whether Catalan should or should not be independent. Distinctly from that, though, it is fair to observe that Spain has handled this quite badly. While there is probably no solution in which they completely smooth things over, they have certainly taken multiple moves that are very clearly the simple, intuitive things that our genetically-imposed tribal political sense tells us to take when people challenge our rule, and which work (to some degree) in a tribal context of 100-ish people [1], but which at this scale were basically guaranteed to massively inflame the situation.

[1]: Albeit in a way that many people here would probably find generally unjust. The Big Man in the Tribe basically just telling a couple of rabble-rousers to shut up, and if necessary, getting some of his supporters to rough them up a bit to remind them who is in charge, "works", but a lot of us would find that fairly distasteful, because while our genetics tell us to do that, civilization requires other tactics in order to hold together. Scaling up that Big Man's action to a region breaks in multiple ways; for instance, if Catalan perceives itself as a separate tribe, then the "rough them up a bit" phase doesn't register as an internal tribe spat with our genetically-programmed politics, but warfare between two tribes, and that prompts a radically different response.

Except that Euskadi had a pro-independence armed group that killed 829 people from 1975 to 2011. Other than that, doesn't Euskadi have its own tax system, distinct from the Spanish one? I think it's not fair to compare both situations.

> The world cannot understand their will, as they have been executed outside the democratic framework.

So they need permission from other countries to make decisions about their own country? I don't get what you're saying here other than they "messed with the status quo and should get in line". Which is a questionable basis to make such an argument.

Of course other countries are not going to risk destroying their relationship with Spain to back some independence movement. There will never be initial international "support" unless they were clearly being repressed and there were human rights violations.

But not all democratic movements depend on repression to be right, nor should they require that to determine the direction of their own political futures.

I am NOT saying Catalonians are oppressed the way blacks were in the American south or South Africa. Please don’t misunderstand. I’m purposefully using a more extreme example to illustrate that this is a moral, not legal question.

Self-determination is a fundamental human right, by the philosophy of the Enlightenment at least. And this remains true whether or not it happens to be codified in law. If the Spanish constitution blocks reasonable paths to self determination, then the constitution is wrong—morally, not legally, of course.

And why should we support an immoral law? There are good reasons for doing so in fact — preventing anarchy in the pejorative sense — but only if a constructive alternative is provided to fixing the law within the system in a reasonable amount of time. Surely there is a process for modifying or amending the constitution? Spain didn’t try.

It may all tie back to money, but painting it as "rich Catalonia wants to not pay to support the rest of Spain" is a 1-sided view of the subject. It's also possible to see it as "powerful Madrid trying to protect its golden goose by actively trying to stamp out Catalan culture." Both have some merit.

What's interesting is that my relatives believed there was very little support for independence before the response from Madrid. But now with their heavy-handed tactics (they witnessed the violence first-hand...I saw their cell phone videos), more people support the idea. Before the violence, as a non-Catalan Spaniard and an American she married who both chose to live in Barcelona for work, they both thought independence was a stupid idea. But now, as she put it, "I now feel that the government in Catalonia is incompetent and the government in Madrid is evil. If I have to choose between the two, I choose incompetence."

The trial and subsequent execution of Patrick Pearse et al for treason in 1916 was the event which turned Irish independence from controversial in Ireland to a virtual certainty.

Trial even without execution of the Catalan leaders is going to create martyrs for the movement, and their names will be invoked in the subsequent terrorist bombing campaign.

That's (very) interesting and useful information, on a certain intellectual level.

But you know, sending legions of paid goons (clad head-to-toe in black, comic-book style, no less) to randomly beat people in the streets (and in stairways, hallways... wherever they felt like it, apparently) has a way of nor only more or less completely delegitimizing your position, within the EU and on the international stage -- but in getting those affected put aside their differences, and take a stand to protect themselves, once and for all, against further abuses.

Which, as a directly result of the national government's actions, is apparently what is now happening. And the fact that you aren't even mentioning the recent violence in your 8-point summary goes a long way to explain what's increasingly driving so many people to the the pro-independence side in the first place.

And BTW on the history front, there was also this guy named Francisco Franco, and certain extremely unpleasant events in the 20th century you're also very conspicuously not mentioning. And all the bodies being dug up and forensically analyzed, in all those unmarked graves, even today.

But let's not go there.

If the people read history the way you propose, USA would never be a free country.

Is civil war (however unlikely) the only way?

1) What I understood from reading various sources is that Catalonia was completely independent between the years 987 (death of Louis V of France) and 1137 (Marriage of Ramon Berenguer IV and Petronila of Aragon) [1][2]. Although in my opinion that is not relevant for the current independence movement.

2) The act of voting is not illegal: there is no single article in the Spanish Constitution of 1978 that prohibits citizens to vote something specific. The Catalan independence referendum though was, of course, unauthorized (referendums requires the participation of the King, the PM, and the Congress [3]). I wanted to point out that this idea of voting as something "illegal because of the content of the referendum" probably originates from the Spanish newspaper El Pais, with articles like "Mitos y falsedades del independentismo" which is full of false citations of the constitution (check for instance the articles cited in the paragraph starting with "Además, la ley del referéndum es ilegal por su contenido [...]").

3) This is a valid point actually, although it would be fair also add that the Gurdia Civil, the National Police, and at some level the Mossos d'Esquadra, did everything they could (including violence in some cases) to stop people voting in this referendum.

4) Catalonia have a budget surplus [4], so I would argue that what "they" want is to contribute less.

5) Do you mean because of things like the Fueros of Pais Vasco and the Reino de Navarra? In any case, as you probably know, not everybody in Euskal Herria wanted/wants to coexist with the Spaniard state... I wouldn't be surprised if after Catalunya some other autonomic regions look for independence too.

6) True. The institutional situation in the Generalitat and Parlament is chaotic and unfortunate, and from what I heard from friends even most independentistas think so.

7) Well, this is a very opinionated point. If any generalization can be made about what "the world cannot understand" is why did the Spanish government handle this situation so poorly.

8) I personally agree with you that elections are necessary, but that will not solve the issue: the Catalans and the rest of Spain needs to know what every part wants and then start building some solution from there. And a review of the Constitution of 1978 would be useful too.

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[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Catalonia#Orig...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Catalonia#The_rise_...

[3] - http://www.congreso.es/consti/constitucion/indice/titulos/ar...

[4] - http://www.minhafp.gob.es/es-ES/CDI/Paginas/OtraInformacionE...

As of 1775, no English colony in North America had ever been independent. It had always been subject to the king of England. This was not sufficient reason for the colonists to remain loyal subjects of the crown.

The colonists took it upon their own initiative to secede from England. Any votes that may have been cast were taken mainly among those who wanted independence, and those who wished to remain loyal were likely not even informed that a vote was taking place. It isn't really there for a democratic mandate, but a means of gauging support among the uncommitted for any war that may follow.

In the ideal case, the result of the vote is strong enough that the war is a foregone conclusion, and it never actually happens. The WOPR concludes that the only way to win is not to play. Or it may be a means of the parent entity tactfully trying to shed a non-performant territory. Or it may be because people are genuinely trying to decide a course of action based on the will of the people. The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, for instance, may one day hold a referendum to determine whether the island should apply for statehood, petition for independence, or remain in the status quo. It is likely that the remainder of the U.S. would honor the results of any such vote, though probably with the U.S. retaining sovereignty over any territory the military already directly controls.

It is not necessary for any national or international body to recognize the vote. It is purely for the secessionists, to determine if they could win a war if the parent entity invades after the split.

The secessionists don't have to pay any attention whatsoever to other regions with an equally strong or stronger case for secession.

If you are voting to secede, you don't care whether or not the vote is legal or binding. The explicit wording is regarding secession, but implicitly it is about whether people will take up arms for Catalonia, or at least not take up arms for Spain, if there is a war for independence. The percentages don't really matter, only the raw numbers. If 10000 people vote "yes", you know that there are potentially 10000 armed rebels out there, waiting for the signal to join the fight.

I think Spain is handling this in the worst possible manner, diplomatically. Viral videos of people getting beaten by police is only going to increase the number of people willing to fight to make it stop.

yeah...not sure how well informed your are...Pamplona is NOT a region, but the capital of a region.

No, that's wrong. The reason we have the current clusterf* in place has been the conflict-avoiding actitude of 40 years of spanish governments.

We have a proportional voting systems and regional parties have been the "hinge", the small parties that helped ruling parties to reach absolute majority, in national parliament. This allowed them to get away with actually enjoying unfair privileges over the rest of the country and advancing the regionalist agenda.

Did you know you can't have your children study in Spanish in Spain? Even with several Supreme Court and "supremer" Tribunal Constitutional rulings backing you. Regional government refused to apply the sentences and national government did nothing to force their hands. Public schools have been instrumental to what we have today in the streets. I'm surprised that half the population has resisted 40 years of brainwash, makes me keep my faith in Humanity.

If the article 155 had been applied months, years ago, when the first farce of referendum took place, or even a week before the vote simulation, we had not needed to see the bs that we see in the news everyday.

Fair enough. How much % census would you consider enough? Catalan pro-independence had higher % than say for instance Brexit vote. And a good chunk of the % was lost to Spanish Police "raids", quite violently boycotting the peaceful vote.

People did not vote in the referendum because it was not officially recognized as such. Because the Spanish government refused to agree on the terms.

The referendum was a sad exercise of democracy, in which the voice of lots of Catalans was not heard. But it was the only one that could be organized due to the ferocious opposition of the Central Government.

I would prefer the Referendum to be repeated, in better conditions and properly organized, with all parties exposing their arguments, and all citizens interested enough to vote having their voices heard.

Sadly, this might now never happen.

Spain is going to be left with the choice between letting Catalonia go or attempting to use force to keep them in the state. I don't think Spain is prepared to fight a civil war over this, personally, nor should it. Let them go, keep them in the EU, keep the borders open.

With the EU there, it seems like breakups like this don't need to go any worse than splitting up North and South Carolina, for example.

that is just false. They did not show up because they did not want the referedum to take place.

> Due to the many irregularities and to the actions taken by the national police and civil guard, the international observers, invited by the Generalitat, declared that the referendum results could not be considered valid as the process failed to meet the minimum international standards for elections.

IMO the Catalan government just lost any legitimacy they might have hoped to have by declaring independence prematurely.

Can we get a do-over on those?

A referendum conventionally happens country wide, surveying a % of the whole population. Not in a self-selected population subset.

Otherwise there's this icky question of what subset, what "social unit", is allowed to claim independence? Spain? Catalunya only? Barcelona only? La Rambla? Jose down the street, as an individual, in his own referendum-of-one?

This ad-absurdum may sound extreme, but there's really no fundamental difference there. The government astutely identified this as a "slippery slope", with brute power as the primary differentiator in practice.

I'm against the violence and I think that the independence of a region is something morally right, but I don't consider that the referendum 1-O legitimizes that the Govern of Catalunya declares the independence of Catalunya in an unilateral manner. I think the Catalan Govern is cheating in its own benefit.

If there's actual major popular support for independence, then yeah, I don't see how the Spanish government can defuse that grenade without major concessions, which I don't see Rajoy accepting, so it could get very messy.

(Don't take my opinion very seriously, though; while I have close ties to Spain I don't have any particular knowledge about this situation)

It was not as much as it seemed: "That woman who had all her fingers broken. She hadn’t. That six-year-old boy, paralysed by police brutality? It didn’t happen. Serious injuries on the day: just two." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/08/catalonia-demo...

Even if Catalonia somehow manages to enforce its declaration, the economic consequences will be so devastating that they will reverse course in due time.