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Comment by yeukhon | Hacker News Reader

Why would the Spanish government let the Catalans declare independence regardless of the outcome of the illegal referendum?

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Because the alternative is forcible oppression and denial of the right of self-determination.

Read more about the right of self-determination here: http://www.unpo.org/article/4957

That right is only for colonies or genocide, not the case of Catalonia at all. They're one of the richest spanish regions.

Edit: they've neve been independent, that's more of the bs that we're hearing these days.

What is the fundamental difference between a colony and any other patch of territory?

Are you serious?

Yes, I am. While people displaced by a colony are obviously disadvantaged, the colony itself and its residents are not.

> While people displaced by a colony are obviously disadvantaged, the colony itself and its residents are not.

I think you may be confusing the pattern of colonization in British North America with colonization more generally; the pattern elsewhere was more often of subordination to an imported elite rather than displacement.

Good answer, but you’ve made me realise I made an even deeper error — I was thinking like Civilization: cities as the fundamental unit, not the productive capacity of the nearby land they control.

I believe that's a common misconception. UN charter makes no mention of colonies Art 1.2(http://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-i/index.htm...). Although a UN-charter-based document is applied to colonies, which is what you might be referring to.

There's no definition there, it's just mentioned and of course there's a complete definition elsewhere.

Would self-determination have argued in favor of the secession of the south?

> Would self-determination have argued in favor of the secession of the south?

Perhaps, if that is what the people in the South (and not just those in positions of relative legal privilege) wanted.

But I doubt that, for example, the 55% of Mississippi's population that was in slavery was particularly energized about secession to preserve the right of their masters to keep them in slavery, though.

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