Police and would-be voters have clashed during a Catalan independence referendum held on Sunday:
Scenes of chaos and violence unfolded in Catalonia as an independence referendum deemed illegal by Madrid devolved quickly on Sunday. As police followed orders from the central government to put a stop to the vote, they fired rubber bullets at unarmed protesters and smashed through the glass at polling places, reports The Associated Press. Three hundred and thirty-seven people were injured, some seriously, according to Catalonia's government spokesman.
Spain's Interior Ministry said a dozen police officers were injured. NPR's Lauren Frayer reports from Barcelona that some people were throwing rocks down at officers from balconies. Yet the violence came from all directions.
"Horrible scenes," Lauren reports. "Police dragging voters out of polling stations, some by the hair."
Scuffles erupted as riot police forcefully removed hundreds of would-be voters from polling places across Barcelona, the Catalan capitol, reports AP. Nevertheless, many people, managed to successfully cast their ballots across the region after waiting in lines hundreds-of-people-deep, including the elderly and families with small children, says Reuters.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said that he did not acknowledge the vote and called it "illegal".
Also at NYT, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, and BBC:
Catalan emergency officials say 761 people have been injured as police used force to try to block voting in Catalonia's independence referendum.
Update: Catalan referendum: Catalonia has 'won right to statehood'
Spain Vows to Enforce the Law in Rebel Catalonia
Catalonia Leaders Seek to Make Independence Referendum Binding
Previously: Spain Trying to Stop Catalonia Independence Referendum
Related Stories
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41191327
Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy says he will ask the courts to revoke a law passed by the Catalan regional government to hold a referendum on independence. He described the vote, planned for 1 October, as illegal.
Earlier, state prosecutors said they would bring criminal charges against Catalan leaders for their endorsement of the referendum.
The pro-independence majority in Catalonia's parliament passed the referendum law on Wednesday. Spain's wealthy north-eastern region already has autonomous powers but the regional government says it has popular support for full secession.
See also:
- Will Catalonia try to secede from Spain this year? [Jan 2017]
- Catalan independence: Plan for quick split from Spain after vote [Jul 2017]
- Catalonia's push for independence from Spain [Nov 2015]
After Catalonia's leader missed a deadline to clarify the government's stance on an independence referendum, and missed another deadline (Thursday calling for an unambiguous renouncement of the independence referendum, the Spanish government plans to strip Catalonia of its autonomous status:
Spain was preparing to impose direct rule over semi-autonomous Catalonia after the region's leader Carles Puigdemont declined to categorically renounce an independence referendum, the prime minister's office announced Thursday.
Spain's government said it would hold a special Cabinet meeting and "approve the measures that will be sent to the Senate to protect the general interest of all Spaniards."
At the Cabinet meeting, the government would invoke Article 155 of Spain's constitution allowing it to strip Catalonia of its self-governance. That would take effect on Saturday, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's office said in a statement.
Madrid had given Puigdemont a 10 a.m. (4 a.m. ET) deadline to clarify his government's stance on a non-binding declaration of independence passed by the regional legislature following a successful referendum on secession. But the Catalan leader insisted on keeping his options open, but that wasn't good enough for Spain's government, which had insisted on an unambiguous "no."
Bloomberg reports "Merkel and Macron Have Spain's Back as Catalan Crisis Escalates":
European Union leaders offered their support for Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as he prepares to suspend the powers of the Catalan administration to clamp down on its push for independence. EU chiefs arriving for a summit in Brussels on Thursday said they backed Madrid and stressed that the issue of Catalonia's independence was a domestic one for Spain.
"We're looking at this very closely and support the position of the Spanish government, which is also a position that's been adopted across parties," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "Of course this preoccupies us, and we hope that there can be a resolution on the basis of the Spanish constitution." Asked whether he supported the Spanish government, French President Emmanuel Macron said "always," adding that "this summit will be marked by a message of unity of its members in regards to Spain."
Also at BBC, The Guardian, and EUObserver (opinion).
Previously: Spain Trying to Stop Catalonia Independence Referendum
Police and Voters Clash During Catalan Independence Referendum
Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was tracked by Spain through fitting his group's car with a surveillance device as well as following the mobile phones of his companions. He was eventually captured in Germany on his way to Belgium from Finland.
Spanish intelligence agents had been tracking the movements of the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont using the geolocation service on his friend's mobile phone before he was detained in Germany at the weekend, according to reports.
Puigdemont was detained under a European arrest warrant in the northern German province of Schleswig-Holstein on Sunday morning as he journeyed by car from Helsinki to Brussels, where he has been living in self-imposed exile since Catalonia's unilateral declaration of independence last October.
From The Guardian: Spanish spies 'tracked Carles Puigdemont via friend's phone'
An international warrant for Puigdemont's arrest had been rescinded back in December but was revived for this occasion. Already back in September, the Internet Society issued a statement about the Spanish government's great efforts to outright censor online activities promoting or discussing the bid for Catalonian independence.
See also earlier SN stories:
Spain Moves Forward With Plan to Suspend Catalonia's Autonomy
Police and Voters Clash During Catalan Independence Referendum
Spain Trying to Stop Catalonia Independence Referendum
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Bot on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:20PM (29 children)
If the state does not recognize a referendum, it should not block it either. If people want to write on colored sheets of paper, it's not the police biz to stop them. Too bad the cat is out the bag now.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:28PM (1 child)
Weak people use violence.
(Score: 4, Funny) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:38PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:47PM (4 children)
Politically, a US style approach would have been "cleaner" - no promises of violence, no statements except to the venture's illegality beforehand. The day after the referendum, have the FBI raid the governor's office, arresting the governor and any state politician who participated in organizing the referendum, followed by trial in federal court on charges of misappropriating funds, followed by a 20 year stretch in prison.
Life goes on as usual, and it will be a long while until a politician tries to pull that stunt again.
(Score: 4, Informative) by FakeBeldin on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:34PM (3 children)
The Spanish government did go for a US style response - the style that is in vogue since late November 2016.
(Score: 5, Touché) by linkdude64 on Tuesday October 03 2017, @05:27PM (2 children)
You're so right, police violence wasn't an issue at all under Obama.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @05:55PM (1 child)
The person you are replying to said it was a US style approach. Of which NO ONE has made the claim that Obama was not the leader of the US recently. Therefore your response was off the mark. Perhaps your knee-jerk defense of our small handed overlord is a bit too touchy. Slugger.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @05:22AM
>> The person you are replying to said it was a US style approach.
Indeed, but you left out the part implying that it was not as frequent (i.e. "in vogue") prior to late November.
Here is the full quote of the GGP again, with emphasis placed on the section that you had conveniently omitted any mention of.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Unixnut on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:58PM (21 children)
> If the state does not recognize a referendum, it should not block it either. If people want to write on colored sheets of paper, it's not the police biz to stop them. Too bad the cat is out the bag now.
Yeah, but then the local politicians can claim that the referendum shows the will of the people, and then they can declare unilateral independence "with the peoples mandate". Then Spain has the choice of recognizing them, or sending in the army to crush them and retake control. Neither of which is a good outcome (and I suspect they would send the army in before recognising unilateral independence).
Spain had a shit sandwich really. They declared the referendum unconstitutional, that is given.
However if they did nothing when the Catalans basically gave the constitution the middle finger, then other regions (like the Basques) might say "why should we follow the constitution, if others can break it without punishment". It could be crack to end up in the dissolution of Spain, or at least a period of instability.
But if they actually tried to enforce constitutional law, by sending in the police to prevent lawbreaking, you get images of police officers beating old ladies etc... on the news.
Fucked either way, tbh.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:09PM (19 children)
Canada showed exactly how to handle this kind of situation: you go ahead and have the referendum, and make it legal and official (i.e., it's done by the government the way any normal election is, so you don't have problems with people double-voting, people trying to elude the police, etc., so that the vote really does reflect the will of the people). But make the vote non-binding, as *many* referendum votes are (I'm not sure if Canada did this part, I'm adding it in). Anyway, have the vote, and let the people have their say. Most likely, the secessionists will lose; that's what happened in Quebec. The secessionists got their vote, they lost, and now everything's died down, and there was no violence whatsoever.
That's the way you handle a secession movement.
Another example is Scotland in the last year or so. They had a referendum, it lost, and that was that. Of course, it might be coming back soon because of Brexit, but Spain doesn't have that issue to worry about as Spain isn't about to leave the EU.
So no, I don't buy this idea that they were fucked either way. They did this to themselves. Both Quebec and Scotland showed that you can handle secessionist movements peacefully and non-violently without losing your territorial integrity. As for their crappy constitution, they should be able to get around that by making the vote non-binding because they "really want to understand the true position of the Catalans on the issue."
(Score: 2) by tekk on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:57PM
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:39PM (4 children)
In the 1995 Quebec referendum the secessionists only barely lost (less than one percentage difference) in the highest voter turnout ever in Quebec even to this date (more than 93% of registered electors cast ballots).
If Yes had carried the result would not have been so good. It was revealed later that the federal government intended to simply ignore any vote to separate. The Supreme Court of Canada later ruled that unilateral separation by Quebec is illegal. There definitely would have been violence (remember the October Crisis?)
Federal meddling in the vote (whether real or perceived) severely strained relations between Quebec for a long time afterwards.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 03 2017, @07:12PM (2 children)
It does make me wonder why Canada would want them to stay. Most Canadians I have known were Westerners who didn't have much use for Quebec or French. They resented everybody having to bend over backward in many ways to appease the francophones. Likewise the few Quebecois I have known didn't have much use for the anglophones either. Does everything hinge on the residual francophone Acadians in the maritime provinces not wanting to feel totally abandoned?
Why not amicably separate in cases like these? Negotiate free passage if it's a matter of territorial continuity.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 03 2017, @08:39PM (1 child)
It does make me wonder why Canada would want them to stay.
I'm guessing resources, and territorial integrity/continuity.
However, consider this: if you break Quebec up into smaller regions, and look at how the vote went, you'll probably find that it was only the urban population that wanted to leave. Much of Quebec is actually inhabited by First Nations (indigenous people), who probably don't speak French, and would much rather stay part of Canada. So an argument can be made there that if the Francophones want to leave, they shouldn't be able to take all that resource-rich but underpopulated land to the north with them. The people there should have the right to also secede, from Quebec, from their own province, and remain with Canada.
Anyway, I think I read that Quebec is a really huge hydropower producer. Every time I've read about a secession fight, it seems that usually the main, true reason the nation doesn't want to let the region break away is because they're sitting on valuable resources, or they have a militarily strategic location. The Iraqi Kurds, for instance, have a lot of oil (the Sunni parts of Iraq don't). I think Catalonia has a valuable port. Crimea has a valuable port, esp. for military use. There are exceptions I'm sure; Taiwan, for instance, doesn't seem to have anything of value except their economy, so that appears to be entirely nationalistic on China's part for them to want to reclaim it. The Falkland Islands don't seem to have any significant value other than a bit of (very inconveniently-located) farmland, so again it seemed to be nothing more than stupid nationalism that drove Argentina to try to seize them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @09:31PM
They legally succeeded with this latest Argentina UNICLOS extension: They now have a 400(?) mile EEZ which means their EEZ extends to and surrounds the Falkland Islands. I don't remember reading how the conflict of existing zones will affect the Falklands, but that was the first step in the previous global extension to 200 mile EEZ (I may be incorrectly stating the numbers here, but they were double the past time), with economic control over the resources stretching many miles from shore.
The war over sea resource access is heating up, and UN is simply acting as a way for influential member states to fuck over the little states.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 03 2017, @08:29PM
Any secession referendum really should carry the requirement that a 60% supermajority vote is needed for success. 50% isn't workable: you could have the same election the next day and get a different result because there's a margin of error, people change their minds, etc. You can't truthfully argue that a majority wants secession (or anything else really) when you only have 50.002% voting for it. That's why many elections do in fact carry the 60% requirement: if over 60% of people vote for something, then it's clear that they really do want it.
So there's your answer: have an official election, require a 60% vote for any action to occur, and let the people have their voices heard. Most likely, a majority do not want secession. If they do, then ignoring the problem isn't going to make it go away.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Tuesday October 03 2017, @07:19PM (12 children)
What if the secessionists win? Unless you are going to go so far as to quietly rig the referendum in your favour, there is always the risk of that method backfiring.
Also, if that was wanted, in this case the other side would have to follow the rules and procedures, in this case alter the constitution to allow said referendum in the first place. You don't violate the laws, and then act annoyed if the police intervene to stop the rulebreaking.
And the world is full of secessionist movements that started off with an unsanctioned/unofficial referendum, which the secessionists won, and then ended up having a civil war because the main body of the country tried to wriggle out of it by saying it was "non binding" or just ignored the results, while the other side claimed they had "the people" with them, and would mobilise. First with protests, then strikes, then roadblocks, then ignoring the main government, and eventually armed insurrection, and usually some sort of de-facto partition and semi recognised territory. Just because you cherry picked two examples where it didn't happen doesn't mean those examples represent how things usually go down.
Another example is Brexit, which the referendum results went against what the core government wanted, and despite being "non binding", if they ignored the results they would have serious problems with unrest (as now people can clearly see they have a decent number of people behind their cause). So now we watch the government somehow balance on two stools, doing the "Brexit" in while placating everyone else and not ruining the economy. . We wait to see the results of it, but something will probably give.
As for Spain. There was no good option for them. The Catalans already said that if the referendum was in favour, they would declare independence within 48 hours, even if it was a "non binding" unofficial referendum. So in your eyes Spain should have rigged the referendum instead? Not very democratic is it? And what if they were caught rigging said referendum (which the secessionist politicians would be out in force looking out for), all hell would break loose anyway.
So I stand by my assertion that they were fucked either way, quite frankly.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 03 2017, @08:04PM (11 children)
n this case the other side would have to follow the rules and procedures, in this case alter the constitution to allow said referendum in the first place. You don't violate the laws, and then act annoyed if the police intervene to stop the rulebreaking.
The other side had no way of altering the constitution all by themselves; they'd have to get the rest of the country to agree, which they won't. They had every right to have a simple election, regardless of what some stupid constitution says. Does the constitution even forbid a non-binding vote? It's nothing more than an officially-sanctioned opinion poll, after all. If your constitution explicitly forbids an opinion poll, it's a piece of trash.
As for "rulebreaking", the Germans who worked against Hitler's government were "lawbreakers" too.
And the world is full of secessionist movements that started off with an unsanctioned/unofficial referendum, which the secessionists won, and then ended up having a civil war
Examples? Citation needed.
Just because you cherry picked two examples where it didn't happen doesn't mean those examples represent how things usually go down.
I didn't cherry pick anything, and my examples were of official, sanctioned referenda. Do you have examples of official referenda which resulted in a victory for the secessionists, and then resulted in war?
So in your eyes Spain should have rigged the referendum instead? Not very democratic is it?
No, they should have had an official, fair referendum, just like Scotland and Quebec did. The polling beforehand didn't show majority support for independence; the secessionists most likely would have lost. The central government could have preceded the vote with plenty of PSAs about why unity is the better choice.
As for "democratic", it's not democratic to refuse to allow secession when a clear majority of that region's population wants to leave. Self-determination is one of the very fundamentals of democracy.
What if the secessionists win?
That's the risk you take. If you lose, then you either try to negotiate to appease the secessionists so they won't leave, or you figure out how to make the split as clean as possible. No good can possibly come of forcing a minority region to stay in your country when they want to leave, unless perhaps you don't mind being a brutal dictator a la Saddam Hussein.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Unixnut on Tuesday October 03 2017, @09:51PM (10 children)
> The other side had no way of altering the constitution all by themselves; they'd have to get the rest of the country to agree, which they won't. They had every right to have a simple election, regardless of what some stupid constitution says. Does the constitution even forbid a non-binding vote? It's nothing more than an officially-sanctioned opinion poll, after all. If your constitution explicitly forbids an opinion poll, it's a piece of trash.
The constitution stated that any referendum on secession would have to be given to the whole of Spain, not just the Catalonians. I suspect the majority of the rest of Spain would vote "No". The total population of Catalonia is 7.5 million, for Spain: 30.5 million.
That means if every single person in Catalonia voted "yes", at max they would get 24% of the referendum. They would need at least 26% of the rest of Spain to vote with them to even have a chance, and ideally 56% of Spain to vote for them to leave in order to leave no doubt about it.
Surely the entire country should have a say whether a territory is carved out of it, or not? However if the Secessionists agreed to this, they would never ever had a chance of winning, so they didn't, and decided to violate the constitution.
If a people vote on a constitution, and accept it (which the Catalans did do), then you are bound to follow it, or you get punished. You don't get to vote in a new constiution, accept it, then unilaterally ignore or change bits of it.
I mean, I would love to unilaterally change some laws of my country, but guess what, if I did that, I would get arrested, and my arguments on why I ignored certain laws would not spare me prison time. They would rightly say that you can try to change the laws, but you need the majority of society to agree with the changes before we can legalise it. So I would still suffer the consequences of my actions.
Same applies here, except that on the level of nation states, you don't have a prison, but you do have a monopoly of violence to coerce compliance.
A constitution is a piece of paper. Unless (a) all parties agree to abide by it, or (b) it is backed up by violence, it is worthless. Spain (all regions) voted and agreed on it, then Catalonia decided to violate it. Spain initially tried to get all parties to abide by it peacefully. As the Catalans made that seems less and less likely to happen, they brought out the violence.
It is a standard procedure, because if Spain says something is unconstitutional, and people go do it anyway, and there is no punishment, then other people may think they can violate the constitution as well, so some sort of punishment is required. The Catalans, for what it is worth, can try peaceful resistance, but in the face of violence, I am not sure it will go very far.
> As for "rulebreaking", the Germans who worked against Hitler's government were "lawbreakers" too.
Indeed, one mans "Terrorist" is anothers "Freedom fighter", but what is your poiint? Those who were in the resistance were constantly met with violence, and death (if not worse fates), and in return they dispensed brutal violence on Hitlers government.
> Examples? Citation needed.
Here are some examples:
1) Nagorno-Karabakh: Officially part of Azerbaijan, but with majority Armenians. Held a referendum on independence in 1988 which was declared illegal by Azerbaijan and boycotted by non-Armenians in the region. Result: Majority for independence. First attempts at secession were peaceful, but as Azerbaijan cracked down, it went from protests, to strikes, to blokades, to riots, to eventually full on war.
In this case, there was outside support from Armenia itself, which eventually resulted in Azerbaijan-Armenia engaging each other unofficially.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakh_War [wikipedia.org]
2) Croatia: Referendum was held, boycotted by non croats. Result: Majority for independence. Declaration was unilateral, but sizable majority of Serbs living in the new country did not recognise it. They held their own referendum, boycotted by local Croats. result: Majority for independence (Republic of Krajna). The newly created state of Croatia was having none of it, and result was war, with Croatia on one side, and the rebels supported unofficially by Serbs in the rest of Yugoslavia.
Result: Victory for Croatia, secessionists were crushed. Mass deportations of non-croats from area. Croatia itself became fully recognised by the UN.
3) Bosnia, pretty much as above, but 3 way between Croats, Bosnians and Serbs. NATO intervened to prevent the secession movements. citing that "sovereignty trumps self-determination".
Result: Dayton accords prevented any secession movement from gaining independence, result is a federated country of Bosnia. Issues still unresolved and could reignite at any moment. Republic of Bosnia as a hole is recognised by the UN.
4) Kosovo. An autonomous region of Serbia, populated by Serbs and Albanians. In the 1990s Albanians held a referendum of independence. Declared unconstitutional by the Republic of Serbia, it was boycotted by Serbs and the result ("yes" for independence) was ignored. Albanians felt they had the majority behind them, so started peaceful desire for secession, but this was ignored or rejected. Then protests/riots/blockades started. along with driving out of non Albanians from the area. Central government first responded with riot police like in Spain, but the protests grew more violent. until the KLA was formed (Kosovo Liberation Army), primarily with support from Albania. Their attacks on state functions (like police stations) resulted in an escalation that came to a head when the Serb army was sent to "pacify" the region.
NATO intervened in 1999 on the KLA/Albanian side, citing the right of "self determination trumps sovereignty"
Result: Unilateral declaration of independence, majority recognised by the EU and world countries for the "Republic of Kosovo" (Although Spain never recognised it, presumably because of Basques and Catalonian issues). UN Resoluation 1244 affirms sovereignty of Serbia, but de-facto it is an independent state, as Serbia has limited/no control over the land or borders.
Indeed, I suspect that one of the main reasons for the EU dithering is because they supported Kosovo's independence, citing the right of self-determination, but now can't support the same situation with Catalonia (because unlike Serbia, Spain is a NATO and EU member, and a bigger and more powerful country to boot). However coming up and supporting Spains right to crush Catalonias secession movement could not only look really anti-democractic and against "European values", it could trigger another round of unrest in the Balkans.
There is an overview of all of the above (and more) here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars [wikipedia.org] with links to detailed articles about specific parts.
5) Crimea: Crimeans held a referendum in 1994, it was declared against the constitution by Ukraine. Result: A win for "yes" vote. Crimean supreme council declared independence, but it was ignored by Ukraine and the rest of the world. In 2014, amongst the coup in Ukraine, Crimea ended up with "Security" being provided by Russians from the local bases, and voted again for independence. Result; a win for "yes". Russia recognised the unilateral independence, and then allowed Crimea to join the Russian federation as a sovereign state.
Interestingly, very little bloodletting here, but the result was disputed by the western powers and Ukraine. Had Crimea not been recognised by the RF, it would have been yet another quasi state in the list.
6) South Ossetia: Part of Georgia officially. Held referendum in 1992 for independence. Declared illegal by Georgia. Result: War between South ossetia and Georgia. Result: ceasefire between both sides,
Then, another referendum in 2006, which triggered more fighting in 2008, and resulted in South Ossetia declaring independence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia [wikipedia.org]
I will be honest, I can sit here all day and research every single secession movement (more come to mind, like: Abkhazia, Artsakh, Transnistria, Chechnya, ... ), and I am sure somewhere you will find a "referendum" held in some form. It is the first base of legimacy a new state needs. However I have run out of comment space, Continued in response...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Unixnut on Tuesday October 03 2017, @10:02PM (5 children)
[ continuation ]
Here is a full list of quasi statelets:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_limited_recognition [wikipedia.org]
In all cases, you ended up with skirmishes (or worse), as the parent country tried to use violence to prevent secession, and/or the secessionists used violence to carve out the land they claimed as their own. Sometimes the secessionist movements are crushed, other times they is enough critical mass to carve out some land, and other times there is the support of secessionists by a third party, which provides arms, money, or sometimes intervenes for them.
> I didn't cherry pick anything, and my examples were of official, sanctioned referenda. Do you have examples of official referenda which resulted in a victory for the secessionists, and then resulted in war?
You cherry picked referendums that were blessed by all parties. That is really rare and paints a biased view of secession movements. The only time a referendum is "official" is when the parent country is sure of success for what they want, or they don't really care (or they rig it). Sudan/South Sudan comes to mind, as North Sudan wanted rid of the South (and even then, they had a war before the referendum). The Serbia / Montenegro referendum of independence in 2003 comes to mind (but those were federated republics, not regions), along with Czech/Slovakia referendum in 1993 (again a federal state).
The only "good" outcome is if both sides are not that fussed about it. One side wants to leave, and the other doesn't care that much. So both sides have a referendum, and if it is yes, then "Adios". Spain isn't like that, it isn't a federation, with republics. It is a unitary kingdom, with a central authority and limited autonomy for regions. A kingdom/state that does not want to see another part leave, at least without the rest of the state having a say.
> No, they should have had an official, fair referendum, just like Scotland and Quebec did. The polling beforehand didn't show majority support for independence; the secessionists most likely would have lost. The central government could have preceded the vote with plenty of PSAs about why unity is the better choice.
Well, ignoring the outcry of the Scotland referendum being rigged (I have no idea if anyone claimed that with Quebec), Catalonia has had a desire for independence for decades, if not longer. They had 3 votes in the post millennium alone (2014, 2015 and 2017), all of which were for "yes" to independence, or support for independence parties.
> As for "democratic", it's not democratic to refuse to allow secession when a clear majority of that region's population wants to leave. Self-determination is one of the very fundamentals of democracy.
I agree, but that rule is not applied in this modern world of nation states. Taken to its logical conclusion, should individual households be able to declare independence? What about people? Realistically, you could go down to tribal/kingdom/city state type setups, but that is not how this world works. You would have to completely rewrite the world order, and basically abolish the nation state.
In reality, it is limited to republics in a federation, an officially (at least) doesn't apply to regions within a unitary nation state. Fact is, to be sovereign state, you have to have the military means to force your reality on others against their wishes. Power comes from the barrel of a gun, at the end of it all. If Catalonia has the power to resist any attempts at forceful (re)integration with Spain, they will become independent.
> That's the risk you take. If you lose, then you either try to negotiate to appease the secessionists so they won't leave, or you figure out how to make the split as clean as possible. No good can possibly come of forcing a minority region to stay in your country when they want to leave, unless perhaps you don't mind being a brutal dictator a la Saddam Hussein.
If you do that, what is to stop others from wanting the same? What if a bunch of people immigrate to an area, have kids there, and in 2-3 generations want independence. Ok, so you give it to them. Right of self-determination and all that. Then some of those people immigrate back to the main country, settle, have kids, and 2-3 generations another chunk of the country wants independence. What then? You give it to them again? Surely you can see that is a form of demographic warfare?
What are the alternatives? You try to get "your" population to out breed the others? that is a recipe for poverty, social collapse and eventual war. It is literally the tragedy of the commons, as you breed people just so out breed the others, and it won't end well.
You even the odds by killing as many of the other side as you can? Or mass deportation? You get labelled as a Hitler wannabe if you do that, and you probably end up having a war anyway (nobody likes someone trying to kill them)
If you try to prevent immigration by race/origin/whatever, you are seen as discriminatory and/or anti-democratic, so you can't really do that either. People bring out the comparison with the Nazis again.
I still don't see a good answer out of it. Spain is in a bind, and I suspect it will get worse before it gets better. We shall see if cooler heads prevail, and if they can do an amicable divorce or kiss and make up again.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday October 04 2017, @01:40AM (4 children)
(continued...)
The only time a referendum is "official" is when the parent country is sure of success for what they want, or they don't really care (or they rig it)
This isn't what happened in Canada (Quebec) or UK (Scotland).
I agree, but that rule is not applied in this modern world of nation states.
Why not? The current thinking seems to be "we must maintain the borders at their status quo no matter what, for no good reason other than we just don't like change", even when the circumstances under which the borders were drawn were very much not ideal or in accordance with the best interests of the people. Just look at the borders in the Middle East: they were drawn by the British, seemingly to cause strife by sticking ethnic groups together who hate each other. But somehow people don't want to change these borders, even though there's absolutely no rational basis to why they were drawn that way in the first place.
Taken to its logical conclusion, should individual households be able to declare independence?
Reductio ad absurdum. But at a higher level, if for instance the eastern shore counties of Virginia held a vote and wanted to secede, and join Maryland next door, I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed. Or if both the MD and VA counties wanted to secede, join Delaware, and have the entire Delmarva peninsula as a separate state, again I don't see the problem. Remember, here we're not even talking about completely sovereign nations, we're talking about EU members. Why should it matter that much whether a region is part of some EU nation, or becomes independent and a new EU nation on its own? Similarly, does it really matter that much if the eastern shore counties maintain their current state memberships? It would be much better from an administrative point of view if they left their states and had their own "Delmarva" state. And upstate New Yorkers would probably be happier if they had their own state separate from NYC too. Here in VA where I live (the non-eastern shore part), I know a lot of the state would be happy to see the northern VA counties leave.
You would have to completely rewrite the world order, and basically abolish the nation state.
That's already happening with the EU. Africa has a little bit of this too with the AU.
Fact is, to be sovereign state, you have to have the military means to force your reality on others against their wishes.
OK, but then you can't claim to be democratic, or support democratic ideals. Self-determination is the core of a democratic society, not military oppression. That's the mark of a dictatorship, or an empire.
If you do that, what is to stop others from wanting the same?
Nothing, besides the fact that there's real benefits to being part of some nation or union. Why do you think the Quebecoi voted (narrowly) against independence, as did the Scottish? Just because some people in a region want independence doesn't mean that everyone there does. People really do recognize the value in the current arrangement, not only because of economic issues, but also the value of stability; they want independence when they decide those things aren't worth the price they're paying, and are willing to risk it. Generally speaking, when things are good, and there's not too much to complain about, and you're not feeling like you're being shit on by some other group in power, then there's little reason to bother leaving. If people are really feeling like that, then violently putting them down isn't going to solve the problem. You could resort to genocide I suppose, but I thought that was frowned on these days.
What if a bunch of people immigrate to an area, have kids there, and in 2-3 generations want independence. Ok, so you give it to them. Right of self-determination and all that. Then some of those people immigrate back to the main country, settle, have kids, and 2-3 generations another chunk of the country wants independence. What then? You give it to them again? Surely you can see that is a form of demographic warfare?
Immigration isn't a right; if you don't want this, then it's your responsibility to limit immigration. Once those people are there and citizens, they have the right of self-determination. You can't complain 3 generations later; you should have had different policies in the past.
The function of nation-states is to serve the people living in them, not to be an end unto themselves. If people are emi/immigrating around and popular opinions are changing, then it's only correct for the political borders to change to suit them.
What are the alternatives? You try to get "your" population to out breed the others?
If you're worried about demographic changes from immigration, then you strictly limit immigration. That's what Japan does. You don't *need* constant growth in population. There's drawbacks to this approach too, so there's no way to really say what's "correct". I guess it depends on what you value more: cultural homogeneity and preservation, economic success, cultural vibrancy (/lack of stagnation), etc.
If you try to prevent immigration by race/origin/whatever, you are seen as discriminatory and/or anti-democratic
WTF? No. Discriminatory, perhaps; anti-democratic, definitely not. People outside your nation don't get a say in your internal policies, including immigration. "Democratic" doesn't mean giving an equal vote to everyone on the planet; that's ridiculous.
People bring out the comparison with the Nazis again.
I've read criticism of Japan's immigration policies, but never comparisons with Nazis. Japan is rather isolationist with immigration; the Nazis were expansionist, and even conscripted non-Germans into their army. Modern Japan isn't expansionist in the slightest.
I still don't see a good answer out of it.
I do, but I don't expect the Spaniards to agree with me: the answer is simple: hold a serious referendum, allowing both sides to make their case beforehand as they did in Scotland. Then see what happens. And make a 60% requirement too, as I've said before. If they really want to leave, then let them leave, and let them join the EU. As you said, they've had secessionist feelings for decades. Spain hasn't even been a singular nation for *that* long. Catalonia was an independent principality up until 1714, when they lost a war to Spain. Many European nations are like this: Italy and Germany weren't countries until the 1800s.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Thursday October 05 2017, @01:02AM (3 children)
>> The only time a referendum is "official" is when the parent country is sure of success for what they want, or they don't really care (or they rig it)
> This isn't what happened in Canada (Quebec) or UK (Scotland).
No idea about Quebec, but complaints about rigging the Scotland vote abound in the UK, in fact some people use that as a reason for re-running the independence vote, along with Brexit being a reason. However that is neither here or there, as those two are outliers in a system where the majority don't have such setups.
>>I agree, but that rule is not applied in this modern world of nation states.
> Why not? The current thinking seems to be "we must maintain the borders at their status quo no matter what, for no good reason other than we just don't like change", ....
It isn't applied because ... well tbh I don't know. I guess it would add a lot of instability, countries would form, reform, split up really often. I guess the cartographers would get tired of it all? :-P
In seriousness, I suspect it is because of WWII. I seem to remember that the borders of all nations were "fixed" after WWII, because they didn't want a repeat of annexations, merging, etc... to be used as a pretext for empire building. Basically, the alternative is worse, at least according to the people who run the world and past history.
Also, power tends to concentrate. Those who seek power do not want their power diminished by the splintering of their domain. So the people most likely to be in positions of power are most likely to be the ones most against their power being splintered off in the first place.
> Reductio ad absurdum. But at a higher level ...
Well yes, but the USA is different to the EU, in that the USA is far more united. The US "States" are not that independent really. They can make some laws, but pretty much everything is dictated by the federal government. The EU is nowhere near as united. It isn't a federation, so EU states have far more power, they are still "sovereign". Also, my American history is rusty, but it was the refusal to hand over this Sovereignty which was one of the reasons of the unionist vs confederate war? The unionists won, and that case is settled. The EU never had such a war, the states are still sovereign countries, with their own seats at the UN. Having one part split off, join another country, or form a new country is a far bigger deal.
Now you can argue whether it should be a big deal or not, but in this world we inhabit, it is a big deal.
>> You would have to completely rewrite the world order, and basically abolish the nation state.
>That's already happening with the EU. Africa has a little bit of this too with the AU.
Not sure about the AU, but with the EU, as mentioned above we are a long way from abolishing the nation state. The USA is far closer to it, as its "states" do not have individual seats at the UN, and are not recognised as independent countries. I doubt the EU countries would be willing to abolish themselves, we shall see if the EU survives, and whether we have our own unionist/confederate crisis in future.
> Fact is, to be sovereign state, you have to have the military means to force your reality on others against their wishes.
>> OK, but then you can't claim to be democratic, or support democratic ideals. Self-determination is the core of a democratic society, not military oppression. That's the mark of a dictatorship, or an empire.
By your definition then, every single country on this planet is not democratic. That really makes it a useless definition, because it doesn't define anything in this reality we live in. Sure, we can define a theoretical "ideal" democratic state, but it would have little relevance to this world. I mean, even North Korea claims to be democratic ( Real name PDRK = Peoples democratic republic of Korea) ,so really, everyone can claim to be democratic, and in really nobody is. That is the reality we live in.
>> If you do that, what is to stop others from wanting the same?
> Nothing, besides the fact that there's real benefits to being part of some nation or union. Why do you think the Quebecoi voted (narrowly) against independence, as did the Scottish? Just because some people in a region want independence doesn't mean that everyone there does. People really do recognize the value in the current arrangement, not only because of economic issues, but also the value of stability; they want independence when they decide those things aren't worth the price they're paying, and are willing to risk it. Generally speaking, when things are good, and there's not too much to complain about, and you're not feeling like you're being shit on by some other group in power, then there's little reason to bother leaving.
But you only need a minority to demand it, and attempt to achieve it by violent means. If we take Catalonia. If roughly 2.3 million people voted "yes" as they are saying (roughly 30% of Catalonia) for whatever reason, including feeling disenfranchised by the current setup, that is quite a large pool of people to cause all kinds of problems, and even if only 10% were willing to form an army and use violence, that would be 230,000 soldiers. More than enough for a prolonged, bloody conflict.
My point is you don't need everyone to be a separatist in a region for it to happen. There may be many people who do will under the current system, or just want stability, their pension, whatever. Those people could even be in the majority. You just need to have a strong enough "core" radicals, and a "mandate" of some kind, and off you go. Even if you end up worse off otherwise.
> If people are really feeling like that, then violently putting them down isn't going to solve the problem. You could resort to genocide I suppose, but I thought that was frowned on these days.
Agreed.
> Immigration isn't a right; if you don't want this, then it's your responsibility to limit immigration. Once those people are there and citizens, they have the right of self-determination. You can't complain 3 generations later; you should have had different policies in the past.
I guess, but what if it is beyond your ability to do so? e.g. your government is a dictatorship and they decided to let the immigrants in. Nobody ever asked you, and if you protested you were "silenced" in any myriad of ways. It is a really tough question for me, because there seems to be no right answer.
People talk about it now in the EU with Angela Merkals "Refugees welcome" policy that has well, welcomed loads of refugees. People protest, but are relatively impotent as to what they can do about it. If in future the descendents of refugees all congregate in a region and demand independence, I can't see the parent countries people being happy about it. Arguably they would say it isn't the best thank you to being welcomed in the first place.
> The function of nation-states is to serve the people living in them, not to be an end unto themselves. If people are emi/immigrating around and popular opinions are changing, then it's only correct for the political borders to change to suit them.
I am not sure about it being "correct", but it is a lot easier to change the borders, rather than forcably deport the population ( a bit like the events between Greece and Turkey after WWII). However by and large, forced deportations are the method used.
[ Continued (Seriously, screw this lameness filter) ]
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Thursday October 05 2017, @01:07AM (1 child)
[ Contd...]
>> If you try to prevent immigration by race/origin/whatever, you are seen as discriminatory and/or anti-democratic
> WTF? No. Discriminatory, perhaps; anti-democratic, definitely not. People outside your nation don't get a say in your internal policies, including immigration. "Democratic" doesn't mean giving an equal vote to everyone on the planet; that's ridiculous.
I agree, but within the EU, the majority have agreed to accept migrant quotas, but a minority of countries have refused to do so, so are violating the democratic choice, which is the majority decision has to be applied by all, hence they are called anti-democratic. Even if said countries that are rejecting the quotas had democratic votes on whether to accept the quotas or not. I don't agree with that view, but I can understand their train of logic.
> I've read criticism of Japan's immigration policies, but never comparisons with Nazis. Japan is rather isolationist with immigration; the Nazis were expansionist, and even conscripted non-Germans into their army. Modern Japan isn't expansionist in the slightest
I've heard them referred to as Nazis countless times here in the EU, or racists, or all kinds of insults pertaning to their immigration policy, and their "inward looking, non progressive culture", usually by those most welcoming to refugees and immigrants here. I guess the Japanese don't have that specific political thread running in their systems, nor do they care much about others opinions, especially as they are a core industrial power in the world and nobody is going to sanction them for it.
I have also heard the east european countries that are rejecting the "migrant quotas" being labelled Nazis, racists, etc... it is pretty common round these parts as a slur. They are not Japan though, hence are being threatened with fines, or suspensions or other sanctions. We have to wait and see what happens there.
>> I still don't see a good answer out of it.
> I do, but I don't expect the Spaniards to agree with me: the answer is simple: hold a serious referendum, allowing both sides to make their case beforehand as they did in Scotland. Then see what happens. And make a 60% requirement too, as I've said before. If they really want to leave, then let them leave, and let them join the EU. As you said, they've had secessionist feelings for decades. Spain hasn't even been a singular nation for *that* long. Catalonia was an independent principality up until 1714, when they lost a war to Spain. Many European nations are like this: Italy and Germany weren't countries until the 1800s.
I actually agree with you. I believe you should let people who want to secede do so, and try to be good neighbours. Those who leave peacefully are more likely to reintegrate peacefully in future if they change their mind, and if not you end up with mutual benefit and trade/growth, etc... While a bloody war burns bridges and the time taken to heal could take centuries, and you end up with neighbours who would rather see each other dead than work together for everyones benefit.
However the reason I say I don't see a good answer out of it, is because your "good answer" has about as much chance of happening as me seeing Unicorns fly across the sky as I look through the window. A world where everyone is just free to split, or merge, etc... based on a vote just isn't going to happen, so that idea is non valid in this reality. It ignores those hungry for power and empire building, who just happen to be the ones in control of such centralised power structures in the first place.
I guess I should have been more clear "I see no good answer out of it, that has a realistic chance of happening". Not that there are not better ways to handle the situation.
Also, I still don't know where to draw the line. Ok it is absurd to think about the individual as a sovereign nation, but what about towns? How about city-states? How do you define a minimum size that is "allowed" to secede? There are states out there that are smaller than an average size city, have little to no army and are completely unsustainable on their own, so you can't use sustainability or population to define a cut off point. Where would you draw the line?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday October 05 2017, @02:31AM
I agree, but within the EU, the majority have agreed to accept migrant quotas, but a minority of countries have refused to do so, so are violating the democratic choice, which is the majority decision has to be applied by all, hence they are called anti-democratic.
Yeah, that's a complicated issue there. After all, those countries do still have a high level of sovereignty they haven't completely relinquished. Also, the "democratic" thing can be argued many ways: should Germany, for instance, get more votes than Lithuania, because it has FAR more population? Or should countries each get equal votes, even though borders are somewhat arbitrary? We have this question in the US, where in the Senate (upper chamber of legislature) each state has two senators, but the states vary in population dramatically between Wyoming (500k) and California (30+M I think). Why should someone in Wyoming get more power in the federal government than someone in California? There's reasons it was designed that way, but there is an element of non-democraticness to it, where citizens should all be equal. But no democratic system is perfect, and they all have mechanisms built in to try to make them work better since a pure democracy (Athenian-style) is unworkable and democracies can devolve into mob rule easily.
I've heard them referred to as Nazis countless times here in the EU, or racists
Interesting. I've heard them called racist here in the US, but we don't toss around the word Nazi in the same way. The Japanese are isolationist; they don't have Nazi Germany's history of mass genocide.
and their "inward looking, non progressive culture"
If they want to believe that, that's fine. But there's a lot of countries in the world that are far more "non-progressive" than Japan: also all of Africa and the Middle East for starters. Japan has its problems to be sure (namely its workaholic culture IMO), but they're no less "progressive" than the US overall, and in some ways more so I think. They certainly don't have the problems with religious nuttery that we have. No one there thinks the Earth is 6500 years old, or that vaccines are bad because of their religion, etc. And I'm pretty sure not many there buy into that homeopathy nonsense that's so popular in Germany. Also, I remember a flap about a decade ago where German automakers had problems because their German male customers complained about the navigation systems because "they wouldn't take directions from a woman", referring to the female voices used. I'm quite sure the Japanese don't have this backwards, sexist hang-up. Europeans should look at themselves first before calling anyone "non-progressive". Germany still has the government taking money out of people's paychecks to give to churches! WTF is that?
A world where everyone is just free to split, or merge, etc... based on a vote just isn't going to happen
Remember also that I don't advocate making it extremely easy. I think a serious referendum, or even series of them, should happen, with each side getting time to make their case, and I think any secession referendum should need a bare minimum of 60% to qualify as a success for the secessionists. Raise the bar so that only really serious and determined secession movements succeed and I think you'll avoid having too many happen for more frivolous reasons. Many democratic bodies and elections require a 60% vote to do really significant things for a good reason, so this isn't without precedent. I really do think the secessionist fears are overblown: if you really let people vote on it, you'll find that usually the majority doesn't want it, unless there's really serious, long-standing issues at work (where having them be united really was never a great idea in the first place).
Ok it is absurd to think about the individual as a sovereign nation, but what about towns? How about city-states? How do you define a minimum size that is "allowed" to secede?
Well one idea is: how viable is a geographical region as a political entity (whether you're talking about a state/province, or a nation)? In the US, a town can't become a state for many reasons, but one really good one is they just aren't viable as one. They don't have the size needed to have a government capable of doing all the things a state government does these days. Even moreso for nations.
There are states out there that are smaller than an average size city, have little to no army and are completely unsustainable on their own, so you can't use sustainability or population to define a cut off point. Where would you draw the line?
You're probably referring to micronations like Andorra. You have a point there; those were established long ago, and honestly only work because their neighbors allow them to exist that way due to history, and more recently, the way Europe works politically. But going forward, I'd say that you'd have to make the determination on a case-by-case basis, and by comparing to other similar places. With Catalonia, as I pointed out before, they're actually larger by themselves than 16 other full-fledged EU members (which doesn't include the microstates, they have some weird special status according to Wikipedia and are not full-fledged members). If Lithuania, Denmark, and Ireland are large enough to be viable EU nations, then Catalonia certainly is too. But one little region with Andorra's population really isn't.
(As an aside: personally I think it'd be better if Catalonia got independence, then got the Catalan-speaking regions of France to join it, and also Andorra which I believe also speaks Catalan. This would eliminate one pesky microstate and bring them under a more viable government, while uniting Catalan people in a full-fledged EU member, and making things in the EU a bit more equitable by reducing the size of two of its largest members, Spain and France. It'd also make the border situation a lot more sane: there's a Catalan-speaking exclave of Spain inside France close to the Catalan/Spain border.)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday October 05 2017, @01:55AM
Also, power tends to concentrate. Those who seek power do not want their power diminished by the splintering of their domain. So the people most likely to be in positions of power are most likely to be the ones most against their power being splintered off in the first place.
Exactly: this is why various powers poo-poo the idea of independence and secession, even when their own country was formed that way. Extremely hypocritical, and not a justification for opposing the concept of self-determination.
They can make some laws, but pretty much everything is dictated by the federal government. The EU is nowhere near as united.
This isn't really true, despite how much the "states' rights" advocates would have you believe. So many legal things in a person's life are extremely variable by state: marriage laws (e.g. community property vs. non), gun laws, vehicle code, employment law, etc. Many things don't even make sense to be state-based, like vehicle code (why should it be legal to have X% tint on your windows in state A, then drive over the border to state B and get a ticket because your tint is illegal?). And the EU seems to be moving slowly towards more unity. It's hard to have an effective union without the central government having enough power to enforce its rules; the US learned that lesson with the Articles of Confederation. I believe there's a happy medium there somewhere, and it's probably different between the EU and the US due to their extremely different histories and cultures (i.e., EU cultures vary hugely across the union, US culture does not).
The US federal government does indeed have a lot more power than the EU one, that's true. But it also tends to enforce many of its laws by controlling how some tax money is distributed to states, rather than any actual force. It's not *that* powerful. And states still have their own military units (National Guard, and also state guards).
Also, my American history is rusty, but it was the refusal to hand over this Sovereignty which was one of the reasons of the unionist vs confederate war?
The civil war was over the question of whether states could secede. It was complicated by the slavery issue, since that was the main reason they wanted to secede (there were other economic issues, but those probably traced back to the other states trying to force them to drop slavery). Personally I'm not sure the Union made the right choice there in going to full-fledged war, instead of perhaps holding off on that a bit and attempting to use economic sanctions to force their hand; at the time, the Southern economy was already doing very badly.
Having one part split off, join another country, or form a new country is a far bigger deal.
Sure, so it complicates things at the UN a bit. But surely the UN is used to that by now: lots of changes have happened since the UN was formed. The USSR broke up, several European nations changed their borders (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Germany), in recent history Sudan split in half.
I doubt the EU countries would be willing to abolish themselves
Abolish themselves? No one's asking any country to abolish itself. If Catalonia leaves Spain, Spain will still exist, it'll just be a bit smaller. Even if Basque Country and Galicia and Andalusa leave, Spain will still be a country, just a lot smaller. But probably bigger than their close neighbor Portugal, and Portugal is a full-fledged country and UN and EU member. Spain (what's left of it) can remain so also. And look at it this way: the Iberian people, collectively, will now have more votes at the UN! (They'll probably vote alike on most UN issues after all.)
By your definition then, every single country on this planet is not democratic.
You make this assertion, but you say nothing to back it up. The entire concept of democracy is that the people have the ultimate power. If they don't even have the power to decide how to organize themselves into political units, and this is instead forced on them by some elites from elsewhere, then they don't have any true power. North Korea is irrelevant. There's a big difference between someone claiming to be democratic, and the actual definition of the word.
My point is you don't need everyone to be a separatist in a region for it to happen.
No, you don't, but if the opposing power (the larger government that opposes secession) refuses to even recognize the separatists and let them air their grievances, this is what happens. The UK and Canada showed that you don't have to do that: just have a referendum to show that the separatists are actually a minority and don't have enough true popular support, and this takes the wind out of their sails.
e.g. your government is a dictatorship and they decided to let the immigrants in.
I don't see how this is relevant. We're talking about supposed democracies here (democratic republics), not dictatorships.
People talk about it now in the EU with Angela Merkals "Refugees welcome" policy that has well, welcomed loads of refugees. People protest, but are relatively impotent as to what they can do about it.
People protesting doesn't prove majority support in any way. We have actual neo-Nazis with swastikas protesting here in the US, but they're not even remotely close to a majority, just a few loons. Germany is a federal democratic republic: people there can vote for their representatives in Parliament, which then chooses a Prime Minister (if I understand their system correctly). If the people really didn't want Merkel's policy, they should be electing different representatives, or complaining to the existing ones, to change the policy. As I understand it, in parliamentary countries, the PM has much less power than our President, and can be removed quickly by Parliament through a vote of no-confidence. Honestly it seems like a much better system than ours. So if the PM is continuing a policy and Parliament isn't stepping in to stop it, then it's hard to see how it can really be that unpopular.
If in future the descendents of refugees all congregate in a region and demand independence, I can't see the parent countries people being happy about it.
As I said before, the people should have thought about that before. Maybe in the future, Germans will come to regret that they didn't object more strongly to Merkel's policy. But it's their responsibility to make sure their government serves them.
I am not sure about it being "correct", but it is a lot easier to change the borders, rather than forcably deport the population ( a bit like the events between Greece and Turkey after WWII). However by and large, forced deportations are the method used.
Historically, but after the mid-20th century that seems to have mostly become very frowned on, for good reason. Deportations are a form of genocide (though obviously not as bad as gassing them I suppose). Changing borders isn't that hard; it's been done many times even in the last 10 years.
[ Continued (Seriously, screw this lameness filter) ]
You have my complete, 100% agreement on that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:51AM
As a shithole or a hellhole?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday October 04 2017, @01:40AM (1 child)
The constitution stated that any referendum on secession would have to be given to the whole of Spain, not just the Catalonians. I suspect the majority of the rest of Spain would vote "No". The total population of Catalonia is 7.5 million, for Spain: 30.5 million.
Why should other territories get a say? That's like taking a vote among all Southerners (white and slaves) circa 1850 about whether slaves should be freed. Obviously, the oppressors are going to vote against it.
Besides, it's hard to say just how much of the rest would vote "no". The Basques would likely vote "yes". Perhaps others would too. And besides, on the internet comments, the pro-Madrid people usually put down Catalonia, saying it's corrupt, it has too much debt, etc. If Catalonia is so problematic, then why are they so desperate to hang onto it? That's like a husband insisting on not allowing his wife to divorce him, even though she cheats on him constantly and has spent him into bankruptcy, and is now pregnant with some other guy's child. If you don't like someone, why do you want to stick with them?
Surely the entire country should have a say whether a territory is carved out of it, or not?
No, where did you get this crazy idea? Just because some of their ancestors came to some deal where their territories were merged together doesn't mean it's "their" land. It's not. They don't live there. I don't live in Hawaii, for instance, so I would never presume to think that I have any right to say that Hawaiians cannot leave my country, if they wanted to secede. Their island wasn't even acquired through ethical actions.
If a people vote on a constitution, and accept it (which the Catalans did do)
Their ancestors in the 1970s voted on it, and the Catalans were always a minority. Times change, and they want a new vote. Why aren't they allowed to change things now? Just because a bunch of other people want to oppress them? And "oppression" is absolutely the right word: look at how the federal police acted.
It is a standard procedure, because if Spain says something is unconstitutional, and people go do it anyway, and there is no punishment, then other people may think they can violate the constitution as well, so some sort of punishment is required.
If that many people require violence to stifle their views and actions, then the law is unjust, and needs to be changed. When a majority (esp. in a differing region) refuse to allow a change and insist on oppressing a minority, then violence usually results, and a civil war. At that point, it's not the fault of the secessionists that violence was used.
1) Nagorno-Karabakh
Looks like the Azerbaijani should have just let them go. It didn't turn out well for them.
Result: Victory for Croatia, secessionists were crushed. Mass deportations of non-croats from area.
Didn't turn out well for secessionists, but how is mass deportation OK? Isn't that genocide? Still, shows that you're not going to have peace by ignoring the secessionists.
3) Bosnia, pretty much as above, but 3 way between Croats, Bosnians and Serbs. NATO intervened to prevent the secession movements. citing that "sovereignty trumps self-determination". Result: ... Issues still unresolved and could reignite at any moment.
Same here. Secessionists want to go, but aren't allowed to, so there's no peace and the country is worse off for it.
4) Kosovo: ... NATO intervened in 1999 on the KLA/Albanian side, citing the right of "self determination trumps sovereignty"
Interesting how they changed course there. Maybe they figured out they were wrong before. Anyway, looks like things are better off now because the secessionists won, and got away from the Serbs.
However coming up and supporting Spains right to crush Catalonias secession movement could not only look really anti-democractic
It IS anti-democratic.
5) Crimea: ... Interestingly, very little bloodletting here, but the result was disputed by the western powers and Ukraine.
Here again, the secessionists got their way and things are better. Maybe Ukraine should have allowed a proper and fully-sanctioned referendum instead, since the dispute seems (as usual) to revolve around the idea that the vote wasn't really representative of the whole population. Well if you don't allow a proper election, what do you expect?
6) South Ossetia
Lots more fighting until the secessionists got their way.
Basically, you've proved my point: ignoring secessionist movements and stifling their referenda doesn't end up well. You end up with civil war unless some large power steps in. The best thing to do is solve it diplomatically: allow a proper referendum and go from there. If the people really don't want to be part of your country, it's not going to go well if you just forcibly shut them up. Every one of your examples proves this.
(continued...)
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Thursday October 05 2017, @01:46AM
> Why should other territories get a say? That's like taking a vote among all Southerners (white and slaves) circa 1850 about whether slaves should be freed. Obviously, the oppressors are going to vote against it.
Because people in other territories may be from Catalonia originally. Their taxes paid for the shared infrastructure, and they may have ties to the area. They are all citizens of one country, and all citizens should have a voice in whether it should go or not, not just one side surely?
This is different to slavery, because a person has rights to their own body and being, they are not (and never should have been) other peoples property. Land ownership is property, always has been, and as such all those who jointly lived, working and invested in a country as a whole, should have a say in how the country is split, if at all.
> Besides, it's hard to say just how much of the rest would vote "no". The Basques would likely vote "yes". Perhaps others would too. And besides, on the internet comments, the pro-Madrid people usually put down Catalonia, saying it's corrupt, it has too much debt, etc. If Catalonia is so problematic, then why are they so desperate to hang onto it? That's like a husband insisting on not allowing his wife to divorce him, even though she cheats on him constantly and has spent him into bankruptcy, and is now pregnant with some other guy's child. If you don't like someone, why do you want to stick with them?
Good question, who knows. Had the proper procedure been followed by the Catalans, maybe the majority of Spain would have voted for them to leave as well, but as the majority were denied a voice in this referendum, we will never know. This issue has polarised both sides, and made normal discussion on it quite a bit harder.
> No, where did you get this crazy idea? Just because some of their ancestors came to some deal where their territories were merged together doesn't mean it's "their" land. It's not. They don't live there. I don't live in Hawaii, for instance, so I would never presume to think that I have any right to say that Hawaiians cannot leave my country, if they wanted to secede. Their island wasn't even acquired through ethical actions.
It seems to be a perfectly logical idea. If you marry someone, and you both bring a piece of land to the table and merge it, then spend generations building it up, investing in it, you have interest, it ceases being one persons and becomes property of the group, because the total invested in it by all sides has exceeded what it was originally.
Your idea only works if the systems were always kept separate. Had Catalonia been a state in a federation I would agree with you. They would have raised their own taxes, handled their own residents, paid for their own infrastructure and enforcement, and sent the rest upwards. In which case it would be a clear cut case of what is theirs is theirs. I believe this is how the USA works, up to even having your own national guard and police forces on a per state basis. That isn't how Spain has ever been configured.
> Their ancestors in the 1970s voted on it, and the Catalans were always a minority. Times change, and they want a new vote. Why aren't they allowed to change things now? Just because a bunch of other people want to oppress them? And "oppression" is absolutely the right word: look at how the federal police acted.
They are allowed to change things now, by requesting changes to the constitution, and there are procedures for that. They don't go and just ignore the parts they don't like. It would be like US states ignoring different parts of the US constitution because they disagree with it (I suspect if this were to happen, it would be due to the 2nd amendment). If any US state started that, the law would be declared unconstitutional and void, and overruled. The same happened in Spain, except certain people carried on despite being told it was unconstitutional, therefore "coercion to follow the law" was administered.
> If that many people require violence to stifle their views and actions, then the law is unjust, and needs to be changed. When a majority (esp. in a differing region) refuse to allow a change and insist on oppressing a minority, then violence usually results, and a civil war. At that point, it's not the fault of the secessionists that violence was used.
That many people? It is still a minority compared to the entire population. Sure, as a number it might be large, but it has to be compared to the total. I don't like to ascribe fault to who starts a war, because that is always murky, and fingers always point at the "other" for the reason (nobody ever says "yep, I started the war").
> 1) Nagorno-Karabakh - Looks like the Azerbaijani should have just let them go. It didn't turn out well for them.
Yes, but a lot of blood was spilled
> Result: Victory for Croatia, secessionists were crushed. Mass deportations of non-croats from area.
> Didn't turn out well for secessionists, but how is mass deportation OK? Isn't that genocide? Still, shows that you're not going to have peace by ignoring the secessionists.
Yes, but a lot of blood was spilled.
>3) Bosnia, pretty much as above, but 3 way between Croats, Bosnians and Serbs. NATO intervened to prevent the secession movements. citing that "sovereignty trumps self-determination". Result: ... Issues still unresolved and could reignite at any moment.
>Same here. Secessionists want to go, but aren't allowed to, so there's no peace and the country is worse off for it.
Agreed, but still, a lot of blood was spilled
> 4) Kosovo: ... NATO intervened in 1999 on the KLA/Albanian side, citing the right of "self determination trumps sovereignty"
> Interesting how they changed course there. Maybe they figured out they were wrong before. Anyway, looks like things are better off now because the secessionists won, and got away from the Serbs.
But a lot of blood was spilled, and judging by the desperation of anyone living there to get the hell out, I suspect it didn't really work out that well.
> [ etc.. ]
>Basically, you've proved my point: ignoring secessionist movements and stifling their referenda doesn't end up well. You end up with civil war unless some large power steps in. The best thing to do is solve it
> diplomatically: allow a proper referendum and go from there. If the people really don't want to be part of your country, it's not going to go well if you just forcibly shut them up. Every one of your examples proves this.
My point of listing those was to demonstrate that unilateral actions towards independence pretty much guarantee bloodshed, even if referendums were used. Just because it was "democratic", doesn't mean things will go peacefully. It also doesn't bode well for Catalonia if they continue down this path. referendums are just excuses to get what those in power want. Of course if we just allowed everyone to declare independence the bloodshed wouldn't happen, but that is a completely unrealistic expectation.
As for figuring out they were wrong before, why are they not supporting the Catalans now?
> However coming up and supporting Spains right to crush Catalonias secession movement could not only look really anti-democractic
Interesting, as the EU came out today saying that the use of violence was "proportional". Seems that perhaps after Kosovo they realised it was a bad idea to give peoples self determination higher priority to sovereignty. It just opens a pandoras box.
You can find a disenfranchised minority in every region of the world. The amount of chaos you could spread by dismembering countries left right and centre would be quite something.
> It IS anti-democratic.
Like I responded in the previous message. You seem have a very idealistic definition of democracy. Democracy, as you define it, I don't think exists anywhere in the world, nor has it ever done.
It may exist one day in the future, but taking into account human nature (and the fact it has never really changed despite all our progress) makes me think that long after both of us are gone, it still won't exist.
So you can sit and argue what would be the true democratic way to solve such crises, but that doesn't change the fact that your democratic method of resolution has no chance in hell of happening in 99% of cases. It just isn't how centralised power structures work.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday October 05 2017, @03:25PM
Surely not. Otherwise it's a dictatorship.
(case in point: pick any colony in history. Did you think the inhabitants chose their oppressors? Do you think that the oppressors should have a say in whether the inhabitants have a right to self-government?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:17PM
fuck spain. they need to let people choose their own government. if spain is so fucking wonderful then people will choose to stay part of it. the constitution and the laws of the country only apply when you are in the country. if catalan votes to leave, then they are not part of spain anymore. if spain uses force they should be fought by anyone who believes in free humanity.
(Score: 4, Informative) by FakeBeldin on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:29PM (5 children)
What's interesting is that Rajoy's actions in this seem (to commentators) to resemble Trumpian actions.
He sent in an overwhelming police force, which acted aggressively. (you can Google yourself for the pictures of elderly folk bleeding from being beaten up by the police.) The numbers sent were so big, that they needed to put cruise ships in port cities to house the agents. These agents were sent off as if going to the war, cheered on and waved out with flags. Basically, Rajoy seems to be pandering strongly to his base, who apparently love the idea of sending police forces from one side of the nation to another side to repress those folk there, because.... erm....
There seem to be a lot of folk in Spain / a vocal few in a few places in Spain that feel that "those bloody Catalans ought to be taught a lesson."
The background is also convoluted. I do not wish to give the impression I have a full (or even a half) view of the situation. My limited understanding so far:
- Franco aggressively repressed, including the Catalans
- Following Franco, there were weak governments, that needed support
- These weak governments gave the Catalans progressively more power towards independence in exchange for support
- The last government made a deal with the Catalans to gain even more privileges.
- The current Head Honcho was in opposition, both politically and to extending more privileges
- Change of government, a court struck down the politically agreed extension, and Rajoy's base is against this sort of thing
Both sides are playing games with reporting on the situation. The Catalans seem to be winning / have won that battle in the eyes of most non-Spanish, while in the eyes of the base of support for Rajoy, apparently he is winning.
TL;DR: Spain has a strategy of polarisation and repression, which apparently sells well to sufficiently many voters in Spain. Catalan has a strategy of appearing non-confrontational and adhering to democratic principles. This seems to sell well to people in western democracies.
Peaceful conclusion seems very far off currently.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:42PM (4 children)
Where is Trump using the police like this? Really, I'd like to know. Did he send more of them to beat up the pipeline protesters like Obama was doing before him (I'm guessing probably, although I wouldn't call that a Trumpian tactic considering it was an existing policy)?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:55PM
I agree, GP is ridiculously misguided at the least. And a dangerous demagogue at the worst. It's nonsense like that that leads to an asshole opening fire at a congressional softball game.
(Score: 5, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:20PM (1 child)
Jesus christ, does anyone read anymore? The Army Corps of Engineers owned the land the protesters were occupying and they were the ones who called in police to remove them. Homeland security then got involved. The protesters bought a case against the project owners and that went to federal court. The Obama administration stepped in and STOPPED the pipeline construction temporarily. This wasn't a federal case until it was escalated from the local level.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday October 03 2017, @10:25PM
They read Facebook shares from propaganda pages.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday October 05 2017, @03:30PM
The point of the commentators was that Rajoy is populistically pandering to his base, at the expense of trying to actually address the intricacies of the situation.
For some reason, these commentators likened that to Trump's behaviour.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:35PM (12 children)
It seems Madrid miscalculated. The polls showed Catalans opposing independence by a large margin, but by cracking down as they did they pushed Catalans into opposition. If Rajoy had sat on his hands , letting the referendum proceed while declaring it illegitimate, he would have won. Now the Catalan pro-independence forces have what appears to be a clear mandate for separation. The EU will be hard pressed to ignore a 90% yes vote.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:49PM (11 children)
However, Spain fucked up big time. They are one of the last western countries to be remembered (living memory, not history) having a dictatorship, and their behaviour has been heading back towards that level intollerence of dissent. However, they're not the most fucked up country in the western world (I'm looking at you whose abbreviations start with a "U"), so they might get away with it.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Touché) by Kawumpa on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:15PM
You are right, but this still won't stop politicians using it for increasingly bad policy. Look at the UK and Brexit: They had an official referendum, which was advisory only, hence the lack of measures like minimum participation, super majority etc. like they mandated for the Scottish referendum. Consequently many people didn't take it as seriously as they should have and didn't bother to vote. Now the government is using this poll and the opinion of just 37% of a part of the electorate as justification to strip citizens of their rights. One could call that a coup.
Let's see what they will do in Spain.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:46PM (3 children)
As you say though, Madrid fucked up big time; if they'd been able to achieve the same poor turnout without such heavy handed tactics then they'd have the high ground at this point, but instead they've come across as a brutal dictators with shades of Franco trampling over a peaceful protest that neither they nor they EU recognised. The latter is particularly important given that Catalonia hopes to join the EU, which would clearly be impossible without both the EU recognising them as a sovereign state and Spain not using their EU membership veto to bar Catalonia's entry.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 03 2017, @03:57PM (1 child)
Madrid is in a pickle. They screwed the pooch in Spain, but did they also screw the pooch for the EU? Does the EU sit it out and let Spain sort out its own mess, or do they side with Madrid as the official holder of that country's vote in the EU? If the EU intervenes on the side of Catalonia, how long before the Basques split off from Madrid and Paris (the Basque region straddles the border), and separatist movements pick up speed in other EU member states? Belgium would probably have split in half a while ago if Brussels weren't the host city for the EU; the Flemish and Walloons hate each other.
It's hard to imagine the Catalans taking up arms against Madrid, but I don't think mass strikes and protests are going to get them anywhere. Do they sever bridges and roads and throw officials from Madrid out of the region?
How emotionally invested are Spaniards from Valencia and Galicia in keeping the Catalans in the union, too? Do they care that much? Are they willing to forcibly repress the Catalans?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @03:31AM
How pressed are Catalans to keep on with it while companies move out, study plans to do so, or at least raise concerns? (Similar to Brexit, BTW. Let's do a drama, and once it passes, start looking for a plan because there was none before, at least none thinking about the consequences.) Factories are harder to move, but don't discard it... or maybe multinationals will take advantage of it in next job cuts round, saving many jobs in other places.
Three quick examples:
https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/10/03/catalunya/1507048764_007271.html [elpais.com] Oryzon biotech moves to Madrid.
http://www.elmundo.es/economia/2017/10/03/59d3dbf1ca474164208b45b0.html [elmundo.es] CaixaBank ties decissions to customers'.
http://www.larazon.es/espana/el-presidente-de-mercadona-asustado-y-preocupado-por-la-situacion-en-cataluna-BC16413929 [larazon.es] Owner of supermarkets covering all Spain is worried, also because new train route covering Mediterranean would be cut.
As a commenter said in a newspaper, Spain is going to suffer, but Catalonia way more.
BTW, it seems international news don't cover much detail of who is behind. A good chunk of the noise comes from self declared anticapitalists. They only have 10/135 seats in the Parlament, but are very vocal. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidatura_d%27Unitat_Popular_(CUP) [wikipedia.org] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Unity_Candidacy [wikipedia.org] and while checking those pages, the ideas look great "in paper"... but the actions of past days seem to devolve into mob rule, with no dissidence allowed. Tuesday was a strike day on Catalonia, and people that wanted to work had issues to do so.
And how does it work with getting back into EU (or, in wet dreams, not leaving at all) as the other part of separatists (the irony...) want? With 29/135 seats PDeCat is proEurope https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partido_Dem%C3%B3crata_Europeo_Catal%C3%A1n [wikipedia.org] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_European_Democratic_Party [wikipedia.org] (yes, "young" party, because the previous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Convergence_of_Catalonia [wikipedia.org] got bogged down in the 3% and Pujol corruption, so they needed a face change). CUP and JxSi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junts_pel_S%C3%AD [wikipedia.org] (CDC-PDeCat plus others, totalling 62/135) joined efforts to split from Spain, then... what?
Nationwide reporters that always were taken as pro Catalan, pro Left, or to sum up, anti Madrid, are also becoming a target for mobs. http://www.elmundo.es/television/2017/10/03/59d3c0b146163f7d528b4602.html [elmundo.es]
It's a cluster fuck even inside each side (other time I could talk about the "Madrid parties", their bad decisions, internal splits, corruption...).
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday October 05 2017, @03:38PM
This. A thousand times this. Any referendum should have an a priori turnout requirement.
Similarly, such impactful decisions should be decided with supermajority, not 50% + 1.
Note that either of these requirements would have killed Brexit, and any sensible turnout requirement would have killed the Catalan referendum.
Sure, some folks were prevented from voting - but, any sensible turnout requirement would be so far beyond the current turnout, that it's not "some folks were prevented", but "we missed 50% of the votes".
(Note that being aware that you missed another 50% of the votes is in itself more than enough reason to not accept the outcome.)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:14PM
However, they're not the most fucked up country in the western world (I'm looking at you whose abbreviations start with a "U")
Uruguay? (country code "UY")
Last I heard, it was a pretty decent place, probably one of the best in South America.
Now if you're thinking of the USA, what we just saw in Spain seems much more fucked up than the US. I can't imagine federal police (something we don't even have really, just national guard which can only be ordered in by the state governor, plus things like FBI/ATF which really don't have that much manpower) being sent in to stop an election in the US. They'd simply refuse to recognize it, possibly arrest some politicians. What Spain just did looks just like a dictatorship.
(Score: 3, Informative) by choose another one on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:19AM (3 children)
Not sure it is as simple as that. Allegedly many, perhaps a majority, of those who _didn't_ support independence actually supported having the referendum, although they quite probably didn't turn out to vote, they wanted people to be able to do so. How those people now feel about Spain I don't know...
Additionally the low-40s turnout was in the face of the well documented massed police attempt to block off polling stations and prevent voting. Note that the estimate of confiscated votes is correct, and assuming they voted same way as the others, there would I think have been a (narrow) absolute majority for independence (i.e. >50% of registered voters). Given what we saw on video I am close to astounded that they got turnout so high, it shows a lot of planning and organisation went into it, and a _lot_ of popular support. If the Catalans have planned and execute the next steps as well as they did the vote, this is going to escalate fast.
Both Spain and Catalan leaders have boxed themselves into a corner: Rajoy just looks stupid claiming the vote didn't happen, he sees no voters, no violence, he should remember that when someone saw "no ships" it didn't end well for Spain; he doesn't have anything to offer the region except more repression as he previously opposed (and rolled back I think?) greater autonomy _within_ Spain thus feeding the Catalan independence movement. Puigdemont is now obliged to declare independence and escalate on a low turnout, having pledged he would do so.
The one set of people who could mediate and de-escalate are the EU leaders, because both sides want to work with them, but they are busy looking the other way as hard as they can and mumbling about "internal matters not our problem" (never stopped them before). It'll be tanks on the streets vs. crowds of people before they do anything, and possibly not even then.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday October 05 2017, @03:45PM (1 child)
While I think both sides would want to avoid that scenario, it seems evermore likely. :(
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Thursday October 05 2017, @04:39PM
Widely reported that the army are being shipped in already. :(
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @02:07AM
There is a flaw in your logic: among several other defects in the voting method (I won't argue with the fact that many were caused by the referendum being illegal and thus authorities executing several judge-ordered measures to thwart it), the Catalan government changed the voting method 20 minutes before voting "officially" started so people would be able to vote in any of the polling stations instead of their assigned ones. That means that people that had their votes confiscated could simply go to another station and vote again, and most did - note that there are several documented cases of people voting several times in different stations without issues. This means that the chance that people that wanted to vote "yes" did not is very low, and it is very likely that only a marginal number of them actually didn't. It seems that at least a few voted more than once...
Again, there was no way the vote could be held with any kind of guarantees after Spain's authorities did all they could to dismantle its organization, but let's not pretend it is anywhere near trustworthy. As an example, the updated figures for the results released today by the Catalan government, which include the last 5% of votes, have added 23,793 votes total, 23,894 of which are "yes" votes... There are strong indicators for the Catalan government gaming the numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:19PM
says the guy that will probably have a grandson named Mohamed.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aim on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:49PM (2 children)
Also, following the (non-lethal) violence of the spanish (as opposed to catalan) police forces, pretty much the whole of Catalonia is on general strike today and the masses are taking to the streets to protest this very violence. Also, while the EU accepts Madrid's view that the referendum was illegal, they also quite clearly blamed Madrid for the unnecessary violence.
I sure wonder where things are going to go to in Spain, as the hard stance of Madrid is driving people to the catalan independentists. If sensible minds prevail, I should think it might go towards more autonomy for the regions, but I do fear more violence.
[For contrast, insert comment on police violence in the USA here]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @03:07PM
I was a bit surprised that the Spanish police force was using weapons that are forbidden in the EU. I wonder if they get repercussions based on that sole fact, or that it will be ignored as something that didn't happen and sets a precedent for future police intervention in the EU.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:22PM
Uh-huh. Quite clear, as in the press secretary of the vice president of the European Commission put out a press release to urge "all relevant players" to move from confrontation to dialogue. Is that really "clearly", and in response to what they think is "unnecessary violence"? I rather think it shows the moral bankruptcy of the EU.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 03 2017, @03:47PM (2 children)
From the Catalan side of things:
1. The Catalans have a long tradition going back to at least the Spanish Civil War of managing their own affairs.
2. For now almost a decade in Spain, unemployment has been sky-high and the government has been under absolutely crushing debt. It's no surprise that people would be trying whatever they can think of to get out from that.
From the government side of things:
1. The Spanish government has made promises to the rest of the EU and Germany in particular. Catalonia seceding would make it harder or even impossible for them to keep those promises.
2. If Catalonia gets away with seceding, then Basque country is not far behind, and it's entirely possible that other bits and pieces of Spain follow after that. The basics of maintaining a country involve keeping your territory intact.
From the cops' side of things: Beating people up is what they do.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:30PM (1 child)
1. The Spanish government has made promises to the rest of the EU and Germany in particular. Catalonia seceding would make it harder or even impossible for them to keep those promises.
So what? Too bad. Circumstances change, and promises aren't worth much.
2. If Catalonia gets away with seceding, then Basque country is not far behind, and it's entirely possible that other bits and pieces of Spain follow after that. The basics of maintaining a country involve keeping your territory intact.
What's the problem here? Why does Spain *need* to stay a singular nation? Did Czechoslovakia need to stay a singular nation? No. It amicably broke up, the two resulting countries are still friends, and they're both trading partners within the EU. There's a bunch of nations in the EU that are small: Luxembourg, Malta, etc. are very small, but countries like Ireland, Slovenia, and Croatia are also quite small with less than 5M population. I count a full 16 nations in the EU that are smaller than Catalonia (pop. 7.5M)! So why should Spain remain such a large singular nation? Honestly, IMO the EU would be better off if some of its larger nations broke apart to eliminate these internal tensions, and then became full-fledged EU members. (There's also some microstates that aren't full EU members but use the Euro and have special status: Andorra, Iceland, Liechtenstein, San Marino, etc.) I really don't see why regions with well-defined separate ethnic groups or cultures shouldn't be separate nations here; normally, the argument is they're too small to stand alone, there's economic benefits in unity, etc., but this is the EU so those arguments fall flat: there's lots of small EU nations with less than 7.5M population, and they get all those economic benefits by being EU members, so they don't need to be part of some other nation that is in turn an EU member.
We have the same thing in the USA: why do NYC and upstate NY need to stay in a single state? They really don't. They could split up, and both would easily be viable states on their own, while remaining members of the union. It would make more sense to break apart NY state (each new state would be roughly 10M) in fact, than to continue allowing Rhode Island and Wyoming to exist as separate states. Wyoming only has a pathetic 500k people!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:18AM
In California (Nor Cal, So Cal, Central, Cascade, and Sierras. Possibly Western variants as well via port cities)
We need transportation infrastructure with relatively tolerant laws for traveling between regions, but each region needs more flexibility in its laws than region specific laws would allow. Working this out would be difficult but could allow more diversity in individual regions so long as shared resources such as water and air were suitably preserved by all parties (IE nobody upstream taking all the water or upwind polluting all the air.)
But actual social laws and taxes and such need to be decided far more on the local community level than they currently are, and less money collected and dispensed to other regions. Let them figure out their own economy rather than having others prop it up thanks to better federal politicians/pandering.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:04PM (1 child)
I am reminded of a quote by Kennedy:
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:08PM
also see jdavidb's sig.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:59PM
Independence or bust: Catalan leader boxed in by his own angry base [reuters.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @11:45PM
How can you take them seriously when they ask for independence but then start adding "but this we keep united"? Monetary and ego reasons, mostly, seem to create a lot of fake independentists.
Futbol Club Barcelona is talking about selecting which league they would play, even when the organizers, laws and others factors say you must be "registered sports company" in Spain, follow the national soccer org. rules, etc, so if they are out, they can't play. They are also very outspoken about independence, spectators sing in every match, show off independentist flags... and still played the Spanish national trophy (booing Spanish hymn). Principles, do you have any, FCB?
http://www.elmundo.es/deportes/futbol/2017/10/02/59d2682622601d1a168b464a.html [elmundo.es]
One of the soccer players in the Spanish national team, from FCB, is very outspoken and wants to be independent. He has been dragging the issue for years, instead of declining the offer every time. Yet only when he started to get booed (go figure where fans got the idea...) he started to talk about leaving the team. Principles, do you have any, Mr Pique?
https://elpais.com/deportes/2017/10/01/actualidad/1506878465_614070.html [elpais.com]
"Oh, we are independent... but only when it is nice for us." Fakes, that is what they are. Why are their independence claims to be believed when they are not sticking to them for the ugly parts? Nobody forces them to play, nothing in Constitution says players must take part in national teams, or teams must take part in leagues and trophies. But staying home doesn't makes big money and launches your public career for later.
Keep and eat the cake. Gotcha.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:54AM (3 children)
Whether this effort succeeds or fails, looking at the big picture it is clear the old trend of ever larger unions heading toward the One World Government dreamed of by Progressives, Socialists and Banksters has reversed. Now it is all about larger entities coming under increasing pressure to maintain their current size against independence movements seeking more local authority and outright division of existing nation states.
Too many "nations" are just lines on a map with no cultural, social or racial identity, or historical accidents of wars often not even directly involving the country. It is worse in the Middle East where this was done intentionally (read about Sikes Picot) but Europe has a lot of this as well. The troubles after the Cold War broke some of the artificial constructs apart but there seem to be a desire to break some more up. Apparently large numbers of "Spaniards" do not think of themselves as such, so we could see three countries there, perhaps one of them still named Spain. The United Kingdom apparently isn't any more "United" than Spain so eventually it could shatter into three or more parts.
And Mad Merkel has probably already doomed the EU project, it will wobble along on inertia a few years more, a decade at most, before more fragments fall off. Only reason it will take so long for the next exit is the Euro problem. Easy to merge to a single currency, remonitizing local currencies again is going to painful enough to stall any more exits until the pain becomes unbearable.
And here in the U.S. it is hard to see anything "United" about us, quarreling tribes on the verge of advancing to violent skirmishes is a better description. American vs Progressive, Urban vs Rural, White vs everybody else, Rich vs middle vs Poor, only thing preventing a breakup might be deciding which lines to break along.
A good worldwide economic shock hits, and we still totter on the edge of one, and all bets are off worldwide. The balloon could go up anywhere.
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(Score: 2) by choose another one on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:44AM (2 children)
Mmmm... maybe.
I think the part of the picture that is missing there is that globalisation (the neo-capitalist banksters wet dream) is still happening and isn't obviously failing. I think it is actually a driver behind the nation-state fragmentation. As the free trade, free movement of whatever areas/blocs increase in size, there is less and less reason for culturally distinct areas to stay together as part of a nation-state.
It is notable that most (all?) of the recently fragmented (or desiring to be so) bits of states in Europe have either joined the EU or want to, or want to stay in it. The EU already has a (admittedly crude and not very effective) mechanism to even up finances between rich and poor states, and when it inevitably has to improve this to maintain the Euro currency even the poor regions will have no reason to stick within their current nations.
When your currency, laws, budgets, taxes, citizenship, all derive from the giant multi-nation trading bloc, what is actually left for a nation to do?
Yes, it is all breaking apart at one level, but maybe that is _because_ it has all converged at another level.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @10:09AM
This. The fact that Catalonia wants to secede from Spain but remain part of the EU should be hailed as one of the best examples of the success of the EU. Instead, the EC keeps repeating the same line that regions cannot leave their country without leaving the entire EU block, proving once again that the EU cares only about its politicians, not its citizens.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:28PM
i agree. most people are being domesticated too. hopefully governance will be voluntary via smart contract soon.