It also seems like if we follow that all the way down where does the fracturing stop and how do you maintain a larger society? Does every sub division of administration have that same right to just say screw the rest of you I'm going home? Allowing it all the way down seems like a ticket straight to fractious setup of loosely associated towns and cities. There's reasons we built up the larger groups over time and part of accessing those benefits requires gluing those partisan impulses together to resist tribal urges.
The results of the elections and the independence referendum strongly disagree.
>Most people in Catalonia (1978) voted in favor of these constitution,
Unlike those that voted the Estatut d'Autonomia (see below), many of these people are dead. There was no alternative to this constitution as it happened in a very unstable climate after the death of the dictator, where the constitution was seen as the one way to stabilize the country and advance towards a democracy.
And the fact people want this is in no way unrelated to what happened to the Estatut d'Autonomia, which defines the relationship between Catalonia and Spain. The current version of the document was written in Catalonia, revised and cut several times until Spain was OK with it, then voted in a referendum in Catalonia and put into effect, only to be cut down dramatically shortly after by the constitutional court, acting on the behalf of a Spanish nationalist political party which gets almost no votes at all in Catalonia. This was perceived as a massive insult to Catalan people.
Not only the situation was not repaired, but Spain's attacks on Catalonia's self government continued. This is the main reason why independence took a hold, perceived as the only option going forward.
The turn out in the 2017 one was 43% and iirc at the time those against the referendum were encouraged to and did sit out as a way of saying 'this is not legitimate' which kind of muddies the water a bit on the actual numbers. [0]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_refe...
[0] Of course this is the problem with any low turn out election, how do you account for the people that don't turn out? Are they protesting, happy with either choice or something else?
Nobody took a "carte blanche" to secede. The succession of pro-independence governments were put in there by voters. These governments exhausted all possible avenues with the spanish goverment, which refused to even talk about the topic.
Catalan people were then asked explicitly whether they wanted it, in the referendum that's famous for the violence of the spanish police that were sent to prevent it. And even after that, the Catalan government tried again and again to establish dialogue with Spain, to no avail.
Spain then went on to suspend catalan government, put everybody they could in jail, and to force an election in Catalonia. An election from which yet another pro-independence government was formed.
And to date, Spain has refused any and all dialogue, and the politicians in Jail have been given a judgement that most people in Catalonia cannot agree with, by a trial that independent international observers found outrageously biased and unfair.
This is why we are where we are. The people have taken to the streets because that's what's left.
If the trial was fair, why is the majority of the sentence an explanation about how fair they were? One doesn't need to explain how clean they are, they just need to be clean.
Why were policemen allowed to explain their fears, but not the defense witnesses?
Why were only some of the defense witnesses warned that omitting the truth would be considered perjury but no single accusation witness was? The Spanish politicians were really withholding a lot.
The minister in charge of taxes said, on the trial, that there wasn't an euro unaccounted for. So where is the mishandling of money? The law was stretched thin on this.
But all these expert seem to ignore that these people can appeal their sentences if they don't agree with them. Spain, at difference of authoritarian countries, is subjected to international law. Do you accept these international courts or are they fascists too? Because if the whole world think that what these politicians did was wrong maybe, just maybe, you should consider that there is a possibility that what they did was wrong.
The Spanish government has made many mistakes, and I am very sure they will make many more, no matter who wins the elections. But the Generalitat cannot just take the law into their hands. Everybody knew it would have legal consequences. Most of them can be out early next year. Do you think this an injustice that deserve rioting and burning your city? That is what I would call an stretch.
How justice works is to usually make the initial judgement on a low court and the recourses go to higher ones. Not on this, it was directly judged on the higher one and no recourse can be made about the judgement, only about how it was reached.
This ruling is not something that "deserves" rioting, it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I am talking about official positions, not "interventions". Please, show me all those countries that have condemned Spain for its fascist non-democratic practices.
And, I repeat than I am not a layer, but as far as I understand this sentence can still be appealed in international courts.
In a shallow search I've found this, from just before the trial [0] Iceland, and Scotland, ask for democratic solution. Couple of quotes: "The Icelandic Government has called upon their Spanish counterparts to look for a negotiated solution, emphasising the need to respect human rights.", "Scottish minister reiterates support for “the people of Catalonia to determine their own future”". February 15th 2019.
I've heard interventions on the EU parliament to talk about the issues, but it was voted against.
On the other hand I've seen no country saying that Spain is doing great with their police. Almost the opposite, with China saying that Hong Kong police are better than Spanish police and the press is the other way around [1].
Then, again, the appeal to the sentence to international courts will do nothing. The appeal, even if it prospered, it would do nothing against the ruling, at most it would ask a revision of the trial [2]. And that's from a pro-independence source, so you can imagine what others might say.
[0] https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/13862/iceland-becomes-... [1] http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1168214.shtml [2] https://www.naciodigital.cat/noticia/189638/exvicepresident/...
You show the case of Iceland. They have "expressed concern". That's fine. I'm concerned too. And Scotland asks for a "democratic solution". A democratic solution cannot include breaking the law or ignoring court orders from a democratic country. I think both sides are guilty of not finding a democratic solution, don't you agree? Don't you think that these people refused the democratic solution the moment they decided to ignore the law? And, if you really think Spanish police is worse than the Chinese one, well... you should go there and check by yourself, I sincerely don't know what to say about such statement.
But let's forget for a second about the other comments and, please, answer me one question: what do you want? What should happen now to make you happy (or at least to stop spreading FUD about our country)? Should the government go against the court rule ignoring separation of powers? Should they allow the kids to burn Barcelona? What exactly do you want?
On that "both sides are guilty" I could find all the times the Catalan government has tried to talk and the Spanish response has been "no". It's hard to reach a consensus when one side is so fixed on not taking.
I haven't said, and neither think, that the Spanish police is worse than the Chinese one. But if they can make the comparison it's because the way the Spanish police is acting is quite unprofessional and unworthy of a force acting in a democratic country.
What do we want? Lots of things, because there are lots of "factions", each with different needs. I'll try to summarise the principal, some of which I may not agree with. I won't enter into wether they are real or not, some you might think they are not and I'm tired of explaining the same to different people in different media, I should make a github repo.
* Cultural freedom. Catalan culture feels the constant oppression of centralist Spanish culture trying to reduce it to folk usage, like it has almost done with Galician and Valencian (which is the Catalan spoken in Valencia).
* Our money. Catalonia gives more money than it receives.
* End of corruption. We are tired of the rampant corruption in Spain. And yes, Catalan corrupts should go to jail too, starting with Pujol.
* A future. The young ones don't have a future. There is no money, there are no jobs, the world is being destroyed.
* Improve public services. They are being destroyed, in the name of profit (for friends of the different ruling parties).
These are different things that different people want, there are probably more (like letting the political prisoners out and remove the occupation forces). Some are right wing, some left wing, and most of them would sit well with Spanish people.
This is not Catalonia against Spain, it's not even left vs right, it's up vs down.
If you don't mind, I will response to your points one by one. Feel free to not respond if you don't feel like it.
> Cultural freedom.
I think we will agree the situation has greatly improved in the last 40 years. I also agree with you it has to improve more. There is indeed some reject to everything related to Catalan culture by a minority in the centre of Spain. I have seen similar attitudes in the other side (hate for everything related with Spain). At least where I'm from (deep Castille), most of these people will be death in the next 20 years. Unfortunately, this is changing right now, due to the last events (from both sides).
> Money.
Any wealthy region has to help poorer regions for the greater being. Where to put the line is a matter of personal opinion. Although I don't share it, I respect your opinion that the line should be the border of Catalonia.
> Corruption.
This is as much a Spanish problem as a Catalan problem. Everybody in Spain (and everywhere else) is against corrupt politicians (even the corrupt politicians if you ask them!).
> Future and public services.
Again, everyone wants that, and this is not an "Spanish problem".
As you correctly say, it's up and down. Up is powerful, really powerful. When you need to fight a powerful force, looking for cooperation is always more useful than confrontation. You will find strong support all over Spain for these demands, or most of them. As you will find support to have a fairer justice system, or against the anti-riot police (everyone who has been at the other side at some point hates them). I understand these problems, but I do not see how independence will solve them. In some cases, I think all this "proces" is just making it worse.
But we do not need to agree. It is ok if we have different opinions. Again, thank you for a civilized discussion (it's getting harder and harder these days).
If these problems were solved without us having to resort to become independent we would not do that. In fact if most of them were "solved" the independence movement would diminish a lot.
But right now there's too much immobilism and cronyism in Spain. There are some of these questions that are met with a direct "no" from some parties (culture), and most of them are guilty of the main problems (corruption and public services) and will not solve them.
Having a blank slate would make it easier to solve them (theoretically).
Do you want to help solve the independence "problem" without "breaking" Spain up? Vote correctly this weekend, and help others choose any of the correct options, that do not want the power for the sake of the power.