Last Monday's blockade of Barcelona's airport by Catalonian indepedence protestors, which delayed over 100 flights, had a technological twist as the Guardian reports:
Tellingly, the airport occupation – with its echoes of the enduring protests in Hong Kong – was not called by the two biggest traditional pro-independence civil society groups, the Catalan National Assembly and Òmnium Cultural. It was the brainchild of a secretive new group called Tsunami Democràtic that is using apps and social media to control and co-ordinate the protests.
TechCrunch has a more in-depth article about the Tsuami Democràtic app and infrastructure. Users need to activate the app with QR codes—displayed at special events—to receive notifications of upcoming protests. The app seems to have taken a lot of inspiration from the Hong Kong protest movement, with a crowd-sourced map dynamically mapping road blocks and police presence in the area.
The group behind the app is described as a "technical elite" of unknown number or identity. Protests are organised (and canceled) by the app administrators with users signing up to attend. It's not clear who is behind, or financially backing the app; Catalonian tech expats, wealthy backers, or independence groups like CDR (Comitès de Defensa de la República) who have organised similar protests in the past.
This isn't the first technological solution for communicating out of sight of the Spanish state, perceived as increasingly authoritarian by some in the independence movement. Whatsapp was used during the 2017 referendum attempt, and Telegram's Messenger has seen a recent surge in Spanish downloads. On Friday, Spain's high court has ordered the Civil Guard to close down Tsunami Democratic's website and social media accounts. As TechCrunch notes:
"For Tsunami Democràtic and Catalonia's independence movement generally this week's protests look to be just the start of a dug-in, tech-fuelled guerrilla campaign of civil disobedience"
The app is currently only available on Android. There is no iOS version as the "politics of the App Store is very restrictive".
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Saturday October 19 2019, @04:05PM
🏴
Check this comment in a few years to see if the Catalonian flag [wikimedia.org] renders [emojipedia.org] in your browser.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19 2019, @04:06PM
revolution? there's an app for that.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19 2019, @04:37PM (18 children)
Why Do they want to separate?
Skimmed TFA and found nothing
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Saturday October 19 2019, @05:04PM (8 children)
Breaking News: Catalonia Declares Independence [soylentnews.org]
They want to finish what they started.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_movement [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9318_Spanish_constitutional_crisis [wikipedia.org]
TL;DR, Catalonia already had limited autonomy, different language and culture, etc. Support for independence has increased due to Spain's harsh reactions to attempts to become independent.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19 2019, @06:18PM (2 children)
yes and they are productive, successful, etc and spain's lazy ass leaches off of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19 2019, @06:49PM
Catalonia has been the only region of Spain with any history of success since reconquista. The rest of Spain is like the Mexico of Europe, with southern Italy being the Baja peninsula or something.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 20 2019, @09:09AM
Here you have the answer: Because they know they are superior to the pathetic Spanish race.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19 2019, @10:34PM (4 children)
Seriously? Different language and culture? Harsh reactions to an illegal declaration of independece justified with a fake referendum? Catalonia has limited autonomy? Have you ever been to Spain?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday October 19 2019, @10:54PM (3 children)
You're nitpicking, big time.
The rebirth of Catalan: how a once-banned language is thriving [theconversation.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalonia [wikipedia.org]
"Illegal declaration of independence" is a dumb phrase. There's unsuccessful and successful declarations of independence. If you win, it's legal. And was the referendum any more fake than the Brexit referendum?
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(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19 2019, @11:15PM (1 child)
Dunno if the Brexit referendum had universal census or anyone could vote several times and even bring the ballot box stuffed from home.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday October 19 2019, @11:49PM
Spain got the Catalan referendum it deserved by trying to stop it from happening.
I can't say what the outcome will be but a massacre or two might help speed things along.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 20 2019, @12:03AM
The Brexit referendum was initiated by those legally allowed to do it (and non binding, following the same laws). The Catalonian one was not, neither the laws allows a local government to declare independence. Of course, you will say that if they win, then it is legal. Just like you also believe that Catalonia was a Kingdom centuries ago, when what in reality it was Aragon Crown and current politicians are going full 1984 rewriting History with stupid things like Cataloaragonian nonsense. So far the ones in jail are there for setting things by means of their official positions, and using public money to do it.
If Catalonia was to get out of Spain, the referendum must be for all Spain's citizens, not Catalonia only. Basque Country can jump in, solve all in one go, instead of being puppeteers of today. As Brexit lesson, it should come with clear conditions in advance, not arranging them after. And it could be a surprise, because then Catalonian could get what they want, "independence at any cost": most of the rest of Spain setting a nice thing for them (including money for the trouble), voting for that, and kicking Catalonia whinners out even if they vote to remain because they are getting the wrong end of the stick. It could really happen if the deal splits Catalonia to have a remain and exit parts. Majority picks & wins, minority future is fucked (small land and bills to pay), but all legal, as you say, because "win" and, most important, because it followed the laws.
And BTW, what Catalonians behind the uprising want is to cover their corruption (eg: Pujol money laundering and 3% commisions, Convergencia i Unio finances) and get more money from central government if they shut up (like they have done ever since Spain became "Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy" and their seats in Parliament allowed one of the two big parties to stay in charge).
To sum up: Catalonia are going against current laws and not doing anything to change them to get what they want. Which supposedly is one point of the concept of modern democracies: they include paths for change. Another is not fucking up minorities.
If might makes right, I have no hope for Humankind.
(Score: 5, Informative) by quietus on Saturday October 19 2019, @08:28PM (8 children)
The root of the cause, or the support for it, lies in the civil war and Franco's subsequent dictatorship. Many of the lead figures in the short-lived Spanish Republic were Catalan; Barcelona was an, perhaps the, important base for Republicans. Once defeated, the subsequent repression was harsh -- people simply disappeared into concentration camps if they had known Republican leanings, or if they uttered anything that could be interpreted as criticism towards the regime, in a bar, a store, anywhere. The ones who were lucky enough to be released, kept their mouths shut; knowing they were under constant surveillance, and barred from any decent job.
A book, written in Catalan (2009) [For a Bag of Bones, Lluis-Anton Baulenas], was the first to breach the taboo surrounding these concentration camps. (It tells the story of a legionary, an elite member of the Spanish Army, returning to the homeland to fulfill the last wish of his father, survivor of such a camp, to go find the resting place of his best friend in the camp, and give him a proper burial -- he fails, in the end, and gets executed himself.)
The regime's members, meanwhile, built themselves fortunes; and managed ultimately to get a good amnesty agreement once Spain converted to democracy in 1981: no hearings, no judges, no returns of property, silence.
It is no coincidence, I think, that the current government a couple of weeks ago exhumed the Generalissimo from his mausoleum (built with slave labor), or that at least a couple mass graves have been allowed to be exhumed in the latest years. It is also not so far-fetched to think that at least some of the judges in the High Court, who gave extremely harsh sentences to the independence leaders -- the direct initiation of the current protests -- have links to that past.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19 2019, @10:37PM
That is a quite shortsighted attempt to justify the actual events.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Saturday October 19 2019, @10:44PM (2 children)
At the very least, the journalist Isaías Lafuente's 2002 Esclavos por la patria : la explotación de los presos bajo el franquismo discussed the concentration camps.
In Academic writings, the Wikipedia entry mentions a paper from the 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francoist_concentration_camps [wikipedia.org]
I'm sure the Spanish Wikipedia entries have more to say but my Latin is some 2000 years too outdated to make any sense out of it. I'd only say that by the time the amnesty deal was signed and the records were unsealed, almost everyone working in the media and Academia were those that didn't oppose the regime so there had to have been a generation or two worth of "changing of the guard" for the subject to trickle down to the popular media.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by quietus on Sunday October 20 2019, @09:52AM (1 child)
The book I quoted apparently is originally from 2004, the Dutch translation from 2009. The taboo wasn't about the existence of these camps, it was that these camps were 'work camps', using forced labour to restore the damages from the civil war. They weren't. In the words of a Spanish wikipedia entry about the Franquist terror:
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Sunday October 20 2019, @01:43PM
That's not a taboo so much as a (self-imposed?) boycott / censorship by the - formerly state-owned, now headed by those that benefited from Franco's reign - media. Basically the same as https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/10/18/1421229 [soylentnews.org]
compiling...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19 2019, @11:42PM (1 child)
Amnesty was for everyone, Franco regime and anything during Civil War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_1977_Amnesty_Law [wikipedia.org] You forgot that Republicans also killed people out of the battlefield https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checa_(Espa%C3%B1a) [wikipedia.org] Both sides were assholes https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matanzas_de_Paracuellos [wikipedia.org] ( https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_Carrillo [wikipedia.org] was a politician with the new democracy, against far right will... but amnesty...) or https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masacre_de_Badajoz [wikipedia.org] It was a try to move on, but it clearly failled... for the full political range, as ultra left and ultra right kids born after 75 are focusing more in the past that in the future. USA has the war war war, Spain has the Franco Franco Franco to distract people.
BTW Spain became democratic in 1978. I don't know the exact status between Franco death in 1975 and the '78 Constitution, but 1981 is wrong.
(Score: 3, Informative) by quietus on Sunday October 20 2019, @01:59PM
You're correct -- 1981 is the year of the 23-F coup attempt, not the official establishment of democracy.
Take note that most readers here are not fluent in Spanish: so English-language wikipedia links, like for the Paracuellos massacres [wikipedia.org], Santiago Carrillo [wikipedia.org]
, the Badajoz massacre [wikipedia.org] are always welcome.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Lester on Monday October 21 2019, @10:49AM (1 child)
The root cause is a different language. Period. And the trunk is money.
We, human kind, love to create groups. We love to split the world in "we" and "they". All that stuff, "we all belong to human kind" is modern and it is not in our gnoma. So we find signs that make us different from other people. The clearest signs are race and language (and if those fail we can go for culture, dressing..., look colors of sport teams). Those who are from other race or talk another language are foreigner. It takes some time to overcome those feelings and accept foreigners as our neighbors. And it takes very little to turn our neighbors into foreigners again (sometimes just because I've been here since four generations and his grandfather was a foreigner) .
The Spanish civil war has little to do with Catalan problem. Just another excuse to rationalize a feeling. The feeling of being different was before Franco. During war, for a short period, it was declared the Catalonian Republic. The president of the short lived republic was executed after civil war by firearms. But that didn't skyrocket national feelings. During war, Catalonia was chaos. There were groups of anarchist, communist, fanatic Catalonian etc. , ridiculous trials and courts, murders, summary executions, personal retaliations dressed as executions etc were common. In the last days of war, people was fed up of war, many people just wanted the end of war.
What happened after war? Catalonia suffered repression in post-war until 1950 any thing related with Catalan culture or language was repressed. Later, Catalan language was not completely forbidden. It was banned from institutions, schools, universities. You had no problem in studying Catalan culture, as long as you used it just as cultural matter, as music, or Ancient Greek, not a political matter and if you showed you were a good boy and loyal to Spanish government. Nevertheless Catalan culture was used as a weapon by anti-franco movements and a political matter, so many times it was repressed.
What was the status when Franco died? There were legal Catalan culture societies, contests of poetry etc. Catalan books and songs were legally published (in fact, the song that was chosen to represent Spain in 1968 Eurovision was originally written in Catalan adn legally published, but Franco's regime demanded to be sung in Spanish and author didn't accept, so Franco's regime stole the song and another singer sang it in Spanish. Nevertheless, the author was not punished ayway), there was a strong movement of Catalan culture. But it still was banned from institutions. If you wanted to go to a post office, you had to speak in Spanish, and civil servants were not allowed to speak in Catalan to public, even when both spoke Catalan.
After Franco's dead in the poll for a new constitution in 1978, in Catalonia, constitution was accepted by 91% of Catalan people (other zones in Spain got less votes) What has happened since 1978? Why people has passed from accepting constitution to being separatist? Was central Spanish government so repressive? Well Catalonia Autonomy has its own police, has control of education and health and have a "national" TV that only speaks Catalan. You can study in Catalan language in public schools and universities. In fact, you can't study in Spanish in a public schools or universities in Catalonia even if you want to, even when laws order it, they ignore them.
so, what has happened to move from demand the right of using Catalan in institutions to demand to ban Spanish from Catalonian institutions?
When people speak another language, those feelings are always there. It is very flattering the discourse of "We are different, we needn't to obey any foreign law. With out them we would be happier", particularly to young people. In the last thirty years that was the discourse in schools. TV3, the local TV had a cartoon show for children that happened in a summer camp for boys, everybody spoke Catalan except a nasty and angry catholic priest that spoke only Spanish. The message not official but common was "Spain Steal us". Catalonia is one of the richest autonomies so it is true that gives more than receives. But other Autonomies give more, like Valencia and Madrid. There were some separatist parties, but not the one that ruled Catalonia, so although Catalonian institutions supported the feelings of not being Spaniard, didn't support separatism.
So for years such feeling have been nursed and fed by Catalonian institutions. And central government didn't nothing. They were always threatened with upset Catalonian people if they did anything. Moreover, in the Spanish parliament many times a major party needed the votes of Catalonian congressman to govern, so they were blackmailed a little to give more money to Catalonia and turn their blind eye when they ignored some Spanish laws about the use of Spanish language or not using Spanish flag in state facilities. Finally in 2006 they demanded too much and Spanish government said NO. The president of Catalonia Autonomy threatened Spain President with problems in Catalonia. And from then on, Catalonian institutions supported and backed separatist movement, promised a paradise after independence where EU will beg them to not exiting from EU, and so he set up the first referendum. The then President of Catalonia, Arthur Mas, admitted calmly in a interview that if Spanish government had accepted his demands, he wouldn't had backed separatism movement and set up a referendum. Moreover after the 2017 referendum he also admitted (not as calmly as in 2006) that Catalonia was not ready for independence because had no control of institutions.
It is sad when a politician uses people's passions to get things. The problem is that they flatter passionate people telling they are heroes, because those people, after they feel justified to not refrain, don't accept oders "now go, now stop, now go a little, now stop" they feel betrayed. It is a problem when a politician backs activist, but the really big problem is when an activist becomes a politician. That is were we are now.
So why separatism? Because they speak another language, and it is flattering to think you are different and you don't need anyone . You are very aware of the cons but not of the pros of being part of a bigger group. Add the help of local caciques that know that they would be better if they don't have to give accounts to anyone.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Monday October 21 2019, @11:27AM
Thanks for the insightful reply. I'm Flemish myself, and somewhat the same mechanism plays here: the call for Flemish independence started in earnest here when an up-and-coming politician drove a truck full of fake money into the Walloon part of the country. The message -- since often repeated, in subtle and not so subtle ways -- is that We are hard working, earnest and independent people with an entrepreneurial spirit, while They are lazy profiteers always looking for handouts.
The guy who pulled that stunt, Bart De Wever, is now the kingmaker in Flemish and national politics, with heavy support by the media and barely any opposition at all. Adults from working age in general do not vote for him, or his party -- the older and, stunningly, the young do -- the 18- to 20-somethings who should be more left-leaning and open to the world. Even more stunningly, he and his party are now being overtaken by an even more right-wing party, who apparently are the new darlings of those 18-20-something voters: being racist now seems to be the cool thing.
Both of those parties have clear roots in the war period i.e. the side that collaborated and fought along with the Nazis.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday October 19 2019, @05:35PM (5 children)
This is the thing that the FOSS folks prophesied decades ago. first, control of software would be used to crush the business competition and to maximize profits. then it would be used to crush political freedom.
I hope that the PureOS takes off (and other FOSS phone OSes) to counter this.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19 2019, @05:49PM (2 children)
yes. Free Software is everything. People who don't understand that, just don't know what world they are really living in; by design.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 20 2019, @01:12AM (1 child)
No, free software is nothing. Stallman doesn't understand the world he lives in, and now he's going to die penniless in obscurity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 20 2019, @06:14PM
he will never be "in obscurity", you dumb whore. Everything will be controlled by software in the future, assuming current trajectory. If human kind doesn't take control of software via copyleft, it will be like Terminator, Robocop, and worse. Maybe the computer decides what gene therapy your child gets and it's closed source and controlled by international villains.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 20 2019, @02:52PM (1 child)
Which would be fine if
i. There were versions for the older phones *we* have, and not the latest 'ooooh shiny' models the *developers* favour.
ii. Even there is a version of a.n.other OS which does nominally support the older phones, let's have 100% functionality, not the 'well, 90% of it works, sort of, the other 10%?, meh, you don't need shit like the camera to work properly, do you?'
iii. Installing an alternate OS was a simple task that a mere pleb can carry out, hell, I've lost count of the number of phones I've rooted and installed cyanogen and friends on for people, I regard myself as being tech savvy, even I've looked at the procedures and hoops I've had to jump through sometime and went 'what the fuckety fuck?'
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 20 2019, @06:19PM
the phone we have are defective by design. devs can't help the fact that we funded our own enslavement.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday October 19 2019, @06:48PM (5 children)
We need apps that don't need a central network.The phones have to be able to connect directly to each other. Remember the old Nextels? They had radios that connected to any other Nextel within range. It's better than nothing. But in this cat and mouse the cops will just put up jamming towers.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 19 2019, @07:02PM
Young folks adapt more quickly than censors and court-ordered blocking. They will use Tik Tok to coordinate protests if they have to.
I don't think mesh networking is practically on the table, so no jamming towers, although they might want to go full Stingray on everybody.
Shutting down the internet and mobile networks is an option, as seen during the Arab Spring [wikipedia.org]. I doubt that would work in Catalonia.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19 2019, @07:03PM
What we really need is open standards for multipath routing, and then actually use them. Long-distance mesh networking can work as long as bandwidth requirements aren't high, but that would require government to open up spectrum for public use (power limits, lack of useful long-range frequencies, and stupid restrictions like no encryption on HAM make any useful WAN-scale mesh effectively illegal).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19 2019, @07:05PM (1 child)
That Nextel “radio” feature operated through the network.
If you want a standalone walkie-talkie service, then it’s easy to buy family radio service (FRS) radios.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday October 19 2019, @07:12PM
That Nextel “radio” feature operated through the network.
Later models did both, with and without the network, but range was basically line of sight, pretty much like CB radio.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19 2019, @08:37PM
Here you are. Now go revolt!
Maniverse
https://www.manyver.se/ [manyver.se]
https://f-droid.org/app/se.manyver [f-droid.org]
Briar
https://briarproject.org/ [briarproject.org]
https://briarproject.org/fdroid [briarproject.org]
Oh, and replace your droid with LineageOS to be on the safe side.