Catalonia: the stateless nation of the Mediterranean

I have just come back from a week’s holiday in Poland. What a beautiful country and how friendly its people are! During my holidays I have learnt more about the tragic history of Poland, and I have come to the conclusion that we (Catalonia) share with the Poles one unlucky fact: our neighbours have tried for centuries (and still continue to do so in our case) to wipe us off from the map and the history books.

This surely must the reason why Spaniards refer to Catalans as “polacos” (Polish) in their football stadiums and other public demonstrations? Yes, my dear readers. In case you are not aware, let me inform you about this particular facet of Spanish life.

If you attend a football game in many stadiums in Spain or watch on TV, you may identify the following chant:
“Es polaco el que no bote, eh, eh, eh!” (Jump if you are not a Pole). People jump vivaciously during this chant to prove that they are not ‘polacos’ which, bizarrely, is meant as if it were an insult.

Why they call us ‘polacos’ I never understood. Our language has no Slavic roots, neither there has never been any traceable migration movement between our two nations. (Excluding the fact that many [Sephardite] Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula during the period known as the Reconquista moved to Central Europe areas, including nowadays Poland and were victims of the Nazi Holocaust).

This week however, while visiting Poland and learning about its history, I understood why: Like Poland, our neighbours have tried to annihilate our culture, language and identity. For what Poland had to endure from Prussia/Germany and Russia during centuries, we have had to suffer from Spain and France. And, in my view, that’s why they call us ‘polacos’.

Let’s hope that when push comes to shove we get the same help from the international community as Poland did after WWII and one day we can be a free nation in Europe.

Estatut, Spain and the ceasefire

Well, surely nobody can complain about Spanish politics being boring?

Against the backdrop of a Catalan Estatut (an updated framework for a devolved Catalan administration) being chopped, curtailed and cut back to ridiculously embarrassing levels, ETA has announced a ceasefire. This has happened the very next day that the scaled-back Catalan Estatut was approved by the Spanish Parliament specially set up committee, prior to being sent to Parliament for a vote and then to be voted in a referendum in Catalonia.

Sadly, I have not had time to write about this humiliating "bending down" of “our” politicians of the PSC-PSOE, CiU and the neo-communists of IC-EV. Only one party has stood firm in defending the draft text approved by the four political parties representing 90% of the electorate. I wish that one day, ERC will become again the majority political party in Catalonia. It will take time, but it is inevitable.

In summary, what happened can be explained thus:

- The four main political parties in Catalonia, representing about 90% of the electorate (as ever, the right-wingers of the PP excluded themselves from this process) approved a draft text on 30 September 2005.

- Whatever the Spanish press says, this draft text is nothing more than an update of the 1979 Estatut (or Chapter of Autonomy). Needless to say, the Basques and the Navarrese have many more devolved powers, including fiscal policy. The draft approved by the Catalan Parliament on 30th September 2005 was nothing more than an overdue update of a text that has always fallen short of our aspirations.

- Because Spain is a pseudo-democracy, unable and unwilling to respect the will of its constituents nations and peoples, this text has to be approved by the Spanish Parliament in Madrid. With all the Spanish press against it, what should have been a mere administrative process (i.e: the Spanish parliament approves what has been approved by the Catalan representatives), turns out to be a trimming exercise. Right or left, the Spanish press has always provided a united front against any advancement, social or economical, of Catalonia. This created the context for the vengeful and antidemocratic amendment of the text approved in Barcelona.

- As ever, the Spaniards get more than a little hand from our worst enemies: ourselves and the cowards and traitors we elect. Once again, the so-called ‘moderate nationalists’ of CiU manoeuvred a secret pact in the back-room instead of presenting a united front with the other 2 parties. And I say 2, because the PSC-PSOE, the local branch of the Spanish Labour party, had already capitulated as soon as they were told off by their Spanish masters. Shame on them both. In Catalonia, over the last couple of centuries we have had our fair share of traitors and collaborationists; we even have our own word for this despicable scum: “botifler”. History is never kind to traitors. When history books are rewritten in a free Catalonia, we will refer to the scum that sold out to Spain as traitors, cowardly scumbags.

- To cut a long story short, the text that will be voted in a referendum is a joke. This is the kind of text that should have been approved in 1979, not in 2006. Yet, this shameful episode has shown up again how weak some of our compatriots are, and also how powerful is our enemy. They have everything going for them: they have the vast resources of the State, the media, the international alliances, the police, the military and the whole civil service. And if that was not enough, they also enjoy the help of some of our coward representatives.


With all this happening, ETA declares a “permanent ceasefire”. Once again, like in the late 1970s, the Basques play their own game and they don’t give two monkeys about us. Good luck to them, they deserve it. At least their politicians are not cowards who would sell their mothers for a handful of spare cash.

What will happen next is anyone’s guess but one thing is certain: a prospective peace process will highlight the deficiencies of Spain’s democracy. Once again, the FT editorialist is spot on, if a bit conservative and prudent, as one would expect from such organ:
- It calls for the PP to stop acting like a neo-fascist party.
- It denounces the terrorist activities of the Spanish state in the 1980s and even now with the treatment of ETA prisoners contravening the Declaration of Human Rights.
- It points out to the fact that, unlike the UK, Spain is not prepare yet to concede ground on the issues of self-determination and territoriality.

And this last third point is in my view the biggest obstacle to a peaceful solution: until Spain does not amend its 1978 Constitution to bring it to the 21 Century there will be no solution to this conflict.

An international campaign should start to force the Spanish governement to drop Article 8 of the Constitution, which grants the Armed Forces the right to attach the people of the Basque Country and Catalonia.

I attach below the FT editorial from the 24th March 2006. Will Spain listen? I don’t hold my breadth….

Links:
http://www.gencat.net/nouestatut/cat/links.htm (the draft text approved on 30th September 2005, in Spanish, Catalan, Aranese, French and English, plus other documents in Catalan/Spanish)
http://www.estatuto.info (a pathetic web site set up by the local branch of the Spanish labour party, PSC-PSOE, trying to explain to Spain the Estatut. Funnily enough, the draft text approved on 30th September 2005 cannot be found now...)
http://www.esquerra.org (the only political party that defends our interests, both as a nation and with socially responsible policies)

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FT editorial – 24th March 2006.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/20e347d2-badc-11da-980d-0000779e2340.html

Beginning of the end

Today's permanent ceasefire declared by ETA, the Basque separatist group, is a real chance to take the gun out of Basque and Spanish politics once and for all. Delicate but hard-nosed management will be needed if it is to become the foundation stone of peace.
Radical Basque nationalism emerged as a response to Franco's vengeful dictatorship, which tried to obliterate Basque language and culture. The political challenge now is to understand why a violent independence movement has survived for 30 years under a democracy that has seen the unique Basque identity re-emerge triumphant - and thereby avoid the mistakes that have kept Eta in business.
Both big Spanish parties, the governing Socialists and opposition Popular party, have behaved irresponsibly in the past. During Felipe Gonzalez's premiership, the Socialists licensed death squads against the Eta milieu. Under José María Aznar's government, the right saw electoral profit in deliberately polarising Basque politics in order to boost votes elsewhere in Spain. Such tactics gave a morally bankrupt terrorist rump a new lease of life and a fig-leaf of legitimacy.
Against this background, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain's prime minister, courageously offered Eta talks if they laid down their arms. He judged the moment well. After 9/11, and the Madrid and London bombings, tolerance for terror as a tactic evaporated. The IRA gave up the armed struggle last summer and Eta was reeling from infiltration that has cost it 400 arrests.
Mr Zapatero has a mandate from parliament to pursue talks. But his anything but loyal opposition - still unreconciled to losing the 2004 elections - is conjuring up the spectre of Spain's disintegration, especially as this government is open to more home rule for both Catalans and Basques.
While Spain's asymmetric federalism does raise legitimate concerns, these are mostly to do with equity between rich and poor regions. The Popular party is playing a dangerous game of reviving the inflammatory political idiom of Francoism, of "the two Spains" and the civil war. If it cannot be bipartisan on a matter of state it should at least be responsible.
Difficult decisions lie ahead. If the ceasefire becomes a formal end to hostilities there will, for example, eventually have to be a phased release of Eta prisoners in Spain and France. That will enrage the opposition and families of Eta victims. Mr Zapatero cannot constitutionally offer a democratic route to Basque secession, moreover, in the way that Tony Blair could hold out to Irish republicans the eventual prospect of an Ireland united by democratic consent.
The most plausible way forward is through expanded powers of self-government that would probably satisfy most Basques. Those who will only be satisfied by independence must have the right to pursue it - but only by peaceful and democratic means.
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Another publication reveals the truth about latent fascism of the Spanish Conservative party

Another publication, Eurotribune.net has published an editorial attacking the “revisionism” of the Spanish Partido Popular.

It is good to see that more and more people are finally becoming aware of the fascist threat represented by the Spanish Conservative party. Another respected publication telling it just like it is: the Spanish Conservatives are engaged in a campaign of hate against the people of Catalonia.

Our time will come and we will need all the help we can gather from our European neighbours and our friends around the world.

Links:
http://www.eurotribune.net (Catalan, English, French and Spanish).


The Franco’s language
The leader of the Spanish Popular Party, Mariano Rajoy, affirmed yesterday with solemnity in Barcelona that "it is doing with the Castilian what at the time of Franco it was done with the Catalan". The affirmation done by Rajoy has been responded of forceful way by the totality of the Catalan political class: from Catalan prime minister, Josep Bargalló, who affirmed that "it was radically false" until the leader of the opposition, Artur Mas, that described as "disgusting" the attitude of the conservative. All it, a strategy that only goes directed to urge on the hatred of the Spanish State against Catalonia.In Catalonia, the two coofficial languages are the Castilian - being the only official language in all the Estate- and the Catalan of being the own language of the country, along with the aranese variant of the Occitan in the Valley of Aran.

In spite of being an imposed foreign language militarily, legally and politically, the Castilian in Catalonia never has been persecuted, on the contrary: the State has dictated more of a hundred of laws at democratic time where it eliminated and it vetoed the Catalan language in many legal scopes and public. Not for too many days, our readers will remember, we informed the arrest of a man by the Spanish police for the simple fact to speak their Catalan language (something too habitual in the Spanish police bodies). But it is not necessary know a lot of history to see like, indeed, the only language that still is persecuted in Europe continues being the Catalan, is only necessary to verify some aspects of the daily life in Barcelona: 99% of consumption products are labeled only and exclusively in the language of Franco; the immense majority of the press that is published and received in Catalonia is in the language of Franco; almost all the films project in the language of Franco; the justice administration practically only works in the language of Franco; the majority of the media are done in the language of Franco; in the Spanish Parliament just can be spoken the Franco’s language; the administrations of the State respond that "they do not understand" if does not go in the language of Franco and hundreds of legal normative dispositions could be enumerated that leave in clear disadvantage the Catalan language favoring the language of Franc.

To say that the Castilian in Catalonia is like the Catalan at the time of Franco is a revisionist attitude like which somebody try to do before the Nazi holocaust denying the barbarism of Hitler. These declarations leave to Mr. Rajoy in a stumbling block very difficult to leave to international level if it is not with a formal excuse. Europe would have to reprobate attitudes and declarations of these types and not only in these scopes. To force to rectify to Rajoy is not to put itself in favour of the Catalans, but on side to the truth.
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Madrid Against Spain

This is an article extracted from the Raco Català, a Catalan news and participation portal.
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Madrid Against Spain

Madrid has risen up in arms against the Spain of the Autonomies. How matters have changed, not in 25 years but in a century! When Angel Guimera won the elections to the Ateneu Barcelones in 1895, he spoke Catalan in public for the first time, provoking a scandal among the anti-Catalan members of the Ateneu. Anti-Catalanism, so much alive in Madrid and Valencia, has practically disappeared from Catalonia. Only a handful of reconverted Marxists, the most poisonous Jimenez Losantos who foams his daily racism from Cope radio in Madrid. Francesc de Carreras has the freedom of the Anti-Catalan press in Barcelona, but he keeps failing in his repeated attempts to create a pro Madrid party in Catalonia. Joan Maragall, secretary of the winning list, warned: "I will not read any Madrid paper nor any paper inspired in its outlook by Madrid. It is not necessary to read them, so insubstantial and ridiculous are they in their stereotypes the Madrid and pro Madrid press. The day Catalonia frees itself from the Madrid press (and the local press done in the same style) our intellectual independence will be complete and the rest does not matter because we shall be part of Europe."

Now that we are part of Europe, the civilised world looks with growing alarm at Madrid anti-Catalanism with its threats of a new coup d'Etat and the wild racism which is destroying in a few months all the good credit gained since the death of Franco. The PP has fallen to 4% in the Barcelona poll, the only Catalan region where they hold representation and will be eliminated by the 5% barrier. The fall into disrepute of the PP extends to the world at large which sees a neofascist party with a liberalism as fake as the one promoted by the Goebbels of the regime, Fraga Iribarne, founder of the PP. It is not just Jose Maria Aznar's moustache which looks like the Great Dictator, but the racism promoted by the PP, with yellow paint on Catalan stores in Madrid, boycott of Catalan products and support for a coup d'Etat. Lawyer Joan de Gispert says: "Once a week I travel to Valencia where I explain that Catalonia has suffered dozens of dead through huge Eta bombs without ever boycotting the Basques." Whereas the PP chiefs of Madrid and Valencia boycott us not because of terrorism but for the crime of freedom of speech. Freixenet has sold this Christmas 800,000 cava bottles less in the "National Zone", more than compensated by growth in Catalonia and the world. Shameful! Like the PP mayor of Salamanca Julian Lanzarote qualifying the papers stolen at gunpoint and being returned to Catalonia as "a plunder by blood and fire." Plunder of whom? Blood and fire to whom? A townsman from Salamanca murmured: "They are taking them abroad, I cry in shame."

The grandfather of Catalan president Pasqual Maragall couldn't be more outspoken: "The Flamenco Madrid insolence are backward steps of a decrepit race. Spanish thought is dead. Spain has no significance nor efficiency in the general movement of ideas in the civilised world. Madrid has realised that Catalonia has awoken with an European, living, spontaneous and young intellectual movement. Long Live Spain means that Spain should live, that its peoples arise and move forward, speak out and act for themselves, govern themselves and the country. Spain is not a holdall patriotism covering up all sorts of weakness and greed. They are the separatists. How can Spain move forward? Not dragging along through provincial byways with strongmen frozen like until now by the ties of uniformity which is against its nature, nor through the emptiness of aged parties nor in the corrupt air of a closed centralism. Instead it must progress open to the four winds of the seas surrounding Spain, in the freedom of its peoples. What will you do? Raise the army against us, against Spain?" Catalonia is recovering its place in the world, and the Salamanca papers, against the Spain of the PP.

Josep C. Vergés, 12.2.06

Links:
http://www.racocatala.com/articles/9995 (Original article in Catalan and English)

Freedom of expression: solidarity with Denmark

I am fed up with this story about the cartoons of Mohamed

First it is the cowardice of the British government to stand up for the right to freedom of expression and its pandering to the fanatics who gathered near the Danish embassy in London.

We also have the usual set of apologetics and the odious PC brigade, criticising those papers who published the cartoons. Shame on the BBC for not having the balls to show the cartoons, but give plenty of airtime to the criminals in London calling for jihad against Europe.

We now have seen what the Muslim reaction is: torching the Danish embassy in Damascus and ramsacking EU offices in Palestine. Well, I will never give any aid to any Palestinian or pro-arab organisation or charity in my life.

If we surrender on this issue, what will be next? Equality of men and women? Women’s right to have a job or to vote? Perhaps supermarkets will stop selling pork or alcohol in supermarkets as it offends Muslims?

There is one way to finish this stupid row: all European newspapers should stand up for our right to freedom of expression. They (newspaper editors) should get together and agree to publish the cartoons on the same day.

This would send a powerful message to the fanatics: we are not going to surrender our right to freedom of expression and would express solidarity with our Denmark and Norwegian neighbours.

Links to the cartoons:
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/698 (in English)
http://www.courrierinternational.com/dessins/galeriedessin.asp?dos_id=2295&provenance=europe (in French)

http://www.welt.de/data/2006/02/01/839671.html (in German)

Spain and this shambles of Franco's democracy

Just when you think you have seen it all, that this so-called democracy could not sink any lower, we have had to witness a call to arms by a top Army officer and a slap in the face of the Spanish nationalists (the right-wing Partido Popular) by The Economist and The Financial Times. Needles to say, the editorials of these two respected publications have been widely ignored by the Madrid-based Spanish media. It would be too humiliating for the narrow-minded Spanish media to report on them.

If you are not aware of the latest outbursts of our Spanish oppressors, just keep on reading.

On January 6th, the man in charge of 50,000 soldiers, made a speech in Seville warning that the Army may have to intervene in Catalonia. Sounds familiar? It does to us! The Spanish army has attacked Catalonia at least twice every century so I guess they don’t want to wait any longer…

This comes at the time that a new Charter of Autonomy for Catalonia is being discussed in the Spanish parliament in Madrid. This new Charter has been approved by 90% of the regional Catalan parliament in Barcelona. Only the Spanish nationalists of Partido Popular (yes they only have about 10% of the vote in Catalonia, despite their control of mass media) voted against it.

Primer Minister Zapatero, of the Spanish Labour party, promised during his campaign that his government would approve “the Charter approved the the Catalan Parliament in its integrity”. The fact that the Charter approved in Barcelona has been watered down in Madrid says it all about the integrity of the Spanish Labour party (PSOE). Again, this proves that no matter if they are from the left or the right, Spaniards are on a mission to suppress Catalonia’s wishes for more self-government, persecute its language and culture and squeeze the fiscal robbery for as long as the EU allows them. Oppression with a ‘Labour party’ smile, but oppression nevertheless. We will keep subsidizing Spain to the tune of 10% of our GDP. Robbery in a major scale, again.

Anyway, I digress. The rebellious General, and all the Spanish nationalists (whether left or right) are always quick to quote Article 8 of the 1978 Constitution.
This article reads “The Army has the duty to defend the sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Spain”.

This, my dear readers, is nothing else but a article institutionalising a ‘coup d’etat’ whenever the Army feels like it, granting the Army autonomy to decide when the “territorial integrity” of Spain is in danger. Forget any notion of the Army being ruled by an elected government or Parliament. This shameful article allows the Army to take matters into their own hands and suppress any attempts of self-determination by the Basque or Catalan nations through their elected representatives. That a so-called democracy has this veiled threat against its own citizens should not be allowed in the EU. Sadly, this is the state of affairs in Spain.

The anti-democratic general was arrested for 8 days (well short of the maximum penalty of 30 days) and dismissed from his post. Since then, other Army officers have come out in support of their colleague. Yet the labour party and its governement stay silent, overwhelmed by the indiscipline of the Army. But is anyone surprised? We are not. Defence Minister is Mr Jose Bono, whose father was a local fascist, a member of Franco’s Falange. There is a blurring line between left and right when it comes to democracy: as long as they hail from Spain, they can only be themselves if the attack Catalonia.

This is another example of how Spain is sleepwalking into another Balcans-like scenario. A Conservative Party (Partido Popular) spreading hate against the Catalans, with the invaluable help of the Church-controlled radio network (COPE, shame on the Vatican for allowing this most un-Christian radio station to broadcast such vile), the TV networks under their control, and the right-wing Spanish nationalist media. A recipe for disaster.

Franco could not defeat the Catalans or the Basques. Now modern Spain has other tools at its disposal (new technologies, the overwhelming power of the State) but we will keep on fighting for our rights. The going is getting very tough and we have to cope with attitudes, remarks and threats that woud be illegal in a true democracy (think of Canada or Belgium). But we will keep on fighting for our time will come. One day our time will come.

I attach below the two editorials by the FT and The Economist supporting our case for an update of Article 8, thus preventing the Army from threatening civil society.


Editorial of the Financial Times, 10th January 2006:

Hostage to Catalonia - But a rattled sabre fails to rattle a democratic Spain.

Most future historians will note with satisfaction that when Spain, three decades after the death of Franco and the supplanting of his dictatorship by democracy, was told by the commander of the Spanish army that the military might intervene if Catalonia was to get more self-governing powers, Spain was mildly shaken but far from stirred. General Jose Mena Aguado will go down in history as an anachronism.
The days of the military pronunciamiento are over. Spain is a confident and prosperous democracy inside the European Union, a cultural and economic powerhouse and an international citizen of standing. Its federal political system - despite tensions with the Basques and Catalans - must be accounted a success.
Yet in a speech last Friday Gen Mena referred to the Catalan regional government's plans to expand its powers as a repetition of pre-civil war history (he referred to the May 1932 debates on the Catalan autonomy statute). This is reactionary blackmail. Unhappily, the general is not entirely wrong when he claims Article 8 of the constitution empowers the army with defending the "territorial integrity" of Spain. Spain's democratic charter, passed in December 1978, contains flaws, recognised by many at the time. Article 8 was used by Francoist officers to justify their failed putsch of February 1981.
That era is over. But perhaps Spain's government(s) and people could usefully remind themselves of this. The government in Madrid, currently under Socialist management, is right to arrest Gen Mena. It intends to fire him, with the full support of the army chief of staff, and should make clear the same fate awaits any of his emulators.
The Catalan government - also currently led by Socialists - should tread with caution. It is within its rights to demand, for instance, tax-raising powers the Basques already have. Its demand that Catalonia be considered a "nation" reflects a cultural desire supported democratically by its people. This is not, per se, separatism; Article 2 of the constitution already recognises "nationalities" within Spain. Nor should its demand for greater judicial autonomy cause alarm so long as the supremacy of Spain's higher courts remains paramount.
But the Catalans, who pride themselves on being more European than the rest of Spain, should remember the principles of European Union solidarity. These include fiscal transfers from richer to less well-off regions. Why should that be right within Europe but wrong within Spain?
Spain's constitution should also be amended to spell out the supremacy of civil over military power. Unfortunately, the opposition Popular Party, still unreconciled to its ejection from power after the Madrid bombings of March 2004, seems to think Gen Mena has a point. That could represent a greater threat to Spanish unity than Catalonia's autonomy ambitions.

A Catalan kerfuffle - Spain and its regions
14 January 2006 - The Economist

The row over Catalonia's constitutional statute

It is better to talk about rather than just reject demands for more autonomy
WHEN a general talks of the army stepping in to uphold a country's territorial integrity, any democrat should worry. When the country is Spain, which emerged from Franco's dictatorship only 30 years ago and saw off an attempted coup as recently as 1981, the worries should multiply.
That is why Spain's government was right to arrest General José Mena Algado, head of the Spanish army, last weekend, after he said publicly that Catalonia's new constitutional statute, which gives it both more autonomy and recognition as a “nation”, might necessitate military intervention. He cited article 8 of the Spanish constitution, which gives the army a mission to guarantee the country's “integrity and constitutional order”. The Catalan statute, overwhelmingly approved by the regional parliament last September, is now being debated by the Spanish parliament in Madrid ()see page 40.
Spain's 1978 constitution devolved many powers that were centralised under Franco to the 17 “autonomous regions”, though it did so unevenly. The Basque country and Catalonia, which have the most autonomy, have long agitated for more; a sizeable minority in both regions wants to move towards independence. In the Basque case, debate has been disfigured by the violence of ETA, though solid police work has weakened this terrorist group. Yet most governments in Madrid have intransigently refused to consider any more autonomy for the regions, let alone to contemplate eventual independence. The willingness of the Socialist government under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, elected in March 2004, to negotiate with the Basque country and Catalonia was a welcome change.
There are respectable arguments against Mr Zapatero's flexibility, even so. Nationalists will never be satisfied by concessions such as a separate judiciary or tax-raising powers; because they always ask for more, it might be better tactically to rule out even limited concessions. Besides, Mr Zapatero's negotiating position is undermined because, in Madrid, his government depends on the votes of left-wing Catalan nationalists; while in Barcelona, the Socialist-led regional government is in coalition with the same nationalist party. Moreover, there is a big financial problem. The Basque country and, especially, Catalonia are among Spain's wealthiest regions. Give them too much fiscal autonomy and they may pull out of the desirable process of transferring money from rich to poor parts of the country. Indeed, a wish to limit net transfers to Madrid has been a driving force behind the new Catalan statute.
Yet Mr Zapatero is still right to favour negotiations. The high-handed refusal of the previous People's Party government, under José María Aznar, even to talk to Basque and Catalan nationalists has merely served to stoke secessionist fervour in both regions. Other countries have discovered that the best way to defuse demands for independence may be to concede more autonomy and even, if need be, to recognise claims to nationhood. Now that they have their own parliament, fewer people in Scotland want a complete break from London. Quebec's demands for independence have to some degree been defanged by Canada's Clarity Act of 2000, which sets out a procedure under which Ottawa would negotiate with any province that votes for independence by a clear majority.

Clarity needed
Because it is the richest part of the country, Catalonia presents more problems than Scotland or Quebec, which are net recipients from central government. Yet since only a minority of Catalan voters seem genuinely to want independence, a bit of pandering to nationalist feeling could still work wonders, even if it involved accepting most of the new Catalan statute and, if necessary, changing Spain's 1978 constitution. Indeed, article 8 of the 1978 text surely needs amendment anyway to remove even the flimsiest excuse for a military intervention. A modern democracy should be capable of accommodating regional autonomy, and even a clear wish for independence. But it should never be intimidated by a general.

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Other links:
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article340372.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1686197,00.html

The difference between democracy and imposition

If you are interested at all in Spanish/Catalan politics you will know about the new project of Estatut (the Catalan Charter of Autonomy) that regulates the devolved government of Catalonia.

The last Charter was approved by referendum in 1979 under extreme pressure from the military and the Spanish right. Thus, we find ourselves in a new century ill-equipped to compete in the global economy.

Over the last few months, the new government of Catalonia, made up of 3 left-ish parties, and the moderate nationalists of CiU (who were in power from 1980 until 2 years ago) have all agreed a new Charter. This broad coalition represents 90% of the electorate.

You would think that after such hardship (to get 4 out of 5 parties agree in such an important document) that the will of the elected representatives of Catalonia would be respected. Well, you would be wrong: remember we are talking Spanish politics here!

Why such a stooshie has been formed it is beyond me. After all, this new Charter brings or asks for nothing new, nothing not already available to the Basque Country or Navarre. Yet, we have had to suffer and put up with an incredible barrage of abuse, hate and calls for a boycott to Catalan products. It appears that Spain needs to suppress any sense of Catalan identity, however soft, to reaffirm itself. Dialog does not form part of the Spanish political vocabulary when it comes to Catalonia.

At the forefront of this crusade against Catalonia is, as ever, the Spanish right wing Partido Popular (Conservative Party) and its media allies. Most shocking of all, is that the radio network owned by the Catholic Church (and subsidised by Catholics from all over Spain via the income tax returns) is the leader player in this orgy of lies, hate and xenophobia. The Catalan Catholic Church seems powerless to act against the hardcore hierarchy based in Madrid. As a result, Catalans are voting with their feet and tax donations to the Catholic church are declining fast.

This is what I say to my Spanish friends: the Spanish parliament in Madrid better approve this Charter (a soft one) without any cutbacks before the pro-independence party (ERC) gains more seats in the Catalan Parliament and the Labour party (PSC-PSOE, an uneasy alliance of Spanish Socialists and Catalan federalists) disintegrates.

If you are interested in the Charter, you can find Spanish, Catalan and English language versions in the official site of the Catalan administration:

http://www.gencat.net/nouestatut/

The PSC-PSOE (Labour) has set up this site, trying to explain to Spain what the fuss is about:
http://www.estatuto.info/ (in Catalan and Spanish, including a superb FAQ and a priceless ‘What the fuss is about’ section)

Nonetheless, I am sceptical about any more attempts trying to ‘educate’ Spain about the different cultures and nations within its territory. Catalans have been trying for over 140 years and nothing has changed a bit –well, at least now people don’t get shot for speaking in Catalan and we even have a couple of newspapers and a broadcasting corporation…some progress being able to speak your language and not getting killed!

Some things never change

Well, it has been over a year since my last posting and so much has happened: the right-wing government in Spain was kicked out at the elections in March 2004 (a few days after the train bombs in Madrid) after lying to the public and manipulating the public broadcaster corporation in a massive scale. They tried to blame ETA while they knew fully well it was not them.

There is now a labour government (centre-left) in Spain but some things never change. The right wing press continues to incite hate of all things Catalan and Basque; their behaviour would be classified as xenophobic, fascist and incitement to hatred in any other western democracy. The conservative party, now in opposition, still shows no remorse about their disgraceful behaviour in March 2004.
Catalanophobia in the Madrid-based press is rampant and shows no signs of diminishing. Some things never change.