THE Catalan independence movement celebrated the sixth anniversary of the self-determination referendum of October 1 2017 with multiple activities. Catalonia had offered to agree on a referendum with the Spanish state many times, but in the face of its repeated refusal it decided to organise the referendum itself and, as the UN Human Rights Committee has written, 90% voted in favour of independence.
Catalonia has not fit into the Spanish state for three centuries. Catalonia’s integration, in 1714, into today’s Spain ruled from Madrid, was by force. After a 14-month siege, Barcelona fell. Catalonia lost its sovereignty, its institutions and the Catalan language was banned. In 1842, General Espartero bombarded Barcelona to put down a rebellion and stated: “For Spain to do well, it is necessary to bombard Barcelona every 50 years”. And Barcelona has been bombed or subdued by force more or less every 50 years (1842, 1899, 1923, 1936-39 in the Spanish Civil War and 2017 in the police attack on the referendum).
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Today, Catalonia is not subject to an authoritarian regime (as with the Bourbons from 1714 and General Franco until 1975) because Spain became a “democratic” state overnight, without fascism being defeated. But the plundering of Catalonia continues. Catalonia is a very dynamic territory economically, but it also attracts a lot of immigration and this generates many social needs that require resources. It is the European area with the highest fiscal deficit (€21,982 million per year, 9.6% of GDP). For comparison, Germany, with 84 million inhabitants, is the country that contributes the most to the EU: €25 billion a year. Catalonia, with eight million inhabitants, pays €21.982bn net annually to Spain. It is a veritable regime of economic colonisation. Madrid’s political obsession is to keep Catalonia under subjugation because, in reality, Spain has no project of its own, its only raison d’etre is to prevent the independence of Catalonia and the Basque Country.
In 2006 Catalonia approved a Statute of Autonomy seeking to fit into Spain with a minimum recognition as a nation. The text was approved in the Catalan Parliament and then quite modified in the Spanish Congress, but was still approved by the Catalans in a referendum. Then, undemocratically, in 2010 the Constitutional Court further modified the text in fundamental aspects. This meant the total loss of hope for a possible minimally dignified fit. Since then, the independence movement has held massive demonstrations year after year and in 2017 unilaterally organised a referendum on self-determination. The Spanish government sent 10,000 police to Catalonia to try to prevent the referendum. Despite police violence, which was seen on television around the world, 2,286,217 people voted, with 90% in favour of independence.
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Since then, Spanish repression has imprisoned social and political activists, tried to extradite politicians in exile in Belgium and repressed 4400 activists. After imprisoning nine people for four years, the Spanish state pardoned them on June 22 2021. It did so because it knew that on June 23 the Council of Europe would publish a report criticising Spain for holding political prisoners.
Now that the EU Court of Justice rulings are about to come out, which are expected to be extremely harsh against Spain, the acting president, Pedro Sanchez of the PSOE, wants to offer a general amnesty (for independence supporters but also for police and judges) in exchange for the pro-independence parties voting for him and allowing him to govern the country. Although Spain does not want to overturn the vindictive convictions against the Catalans, it realises that it is in its interest to eliminate the illegal judicial persecution of the pro-independence movement in order to try to clean up its image. But the Catalans have not gone to all that trouble to be pardoned by Spain, and 75% of Catalans want to resolve the conflict with a referendum.
Europe should lose its henpecked fears: “other parts of Europe could also ask for independence...” (the same with the proposal for the official status of the Catalan language in the EU: “other languages could also ask for it...”). They should appreciate that other peoples have not demanded to become independent for such a long time and with such a large number of people (nor do other peoples have a language spoken by 10 million people that wants to be official in the EU). Each nation goes its own way and Catalonia definitely does not want to be under Madrid’s rule because we have diametrically opposed social and political models.
Jordi Oriola Folch
Barcelona, Catalonia
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