8 ms·

Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

47 points by tomp 9y ago

s_kilk 9y ago
It's frankly disgraceful that the Spanish state has turned to violence to suppress the democratic process.
- lz400 9y ago
  It's not democratic, it's illegal and the justice system has ordered its dismantling. Think what you will, disagree with the law if you want but at this point the government is forced to apply the law. They don't have a choice.
  - s_kilk 9y ago
    You're making a fundamental mistake in conflating legality with democratic will.
    - lz400 9y ago
      Surely part of the democracy is the rule of the law, isn't it? I'm sure you can point to laws in the past that made a farce of democracy, but most of them aren't in modern democracies. You can think this one is particular is anti-democratic but most countries actually have similar laws against unilateral secession of a single region.
      - ekimekim 9y ago
        > I'm sure you can point to laws in the past that made a farce of democracy, but most of them aren't in modern democracies. I can point to a HUGE number of laws that make a farce of the democratic process in almost any modern democracy. A short list that applies mostly to the USA but some to other countries also: * Gerrymandering (the act of designing districts along demographic lines to influence an election outcome) * First past the post voting (where voters can't vote for who they really want, they have to vote 'strategically' for the person they think will come first or second) * Voter ID laws that seek to disenfranchise certain demographics by requiring hard(or expensive)-to-acquire ID they are less likely to have
        lz400 9y ago
        Sure but unless you are extremely radical, those are the exception not the rule. Most of the laws, that regulate murder, theft, libel, etc. are all right. At least I like to think that most first world countries are approximately democracies, otherwise what's the measure of democracy we can have? because as I said, no unilateral secession is a pretty universal coded law in the first world.
  - DCKing 9y ago
    I'm not disagreeing, but just a semantic argument here. The referendum is absolutely democratic. But it is also illegal under the Spanish constitution. The problem is that the Spanish constitution and the judge's interpretation (which is straightforward but unfortunate) patently would disallow self determination through a referendum, which to me is democracy in its purest form. The only reason it's illegal is because the law is undemocratic. I agree the Spanish central government seemingly had no choice but escalation. But that escalation is tragic and will only make Catalonia's independence inevitable, whereas it was not at all clear cut before this.
    - thesumofall 9y ago
      There will be people here with more knowledge about international constitutional law but I’m pretty sure almost every state has rules in place to prevent it from disintegrating. Otherwise, what would stop oneself to declare one’s own little piece of land as independent (with yourself voting for it) and stop paying taxes?
      - lostmsu 9y ago
        Two problems with that: 1) I'm not sure that would be bad 2) Some areas are already relatively independent. Wouldn't harm to make them a bit more so.
      - dandellion 9y ago
        Without an army to defend your borders the government from which you claim independence could just remove you by force... You would have problems to trade so you would have to be completely self sufficient with food, energy etc. You kind of need to reach some critical mass to be able to organize a functioning nation. Getting to city-states could be viable, but I don't think it can go much farther.
      - DCKing 9y ago
        The world is not a libertarian tax fantasy of that degree, no. But it should be possible for groups that have a significant cultural claim to vote on these matters. And it should be possible that if a significant amount of this cultural group agrees on the subject that a mutual understanding can be obtained between the main state and the group they govern over. It seems to me this constitution article was put in place to specifically specific regional identity issues that the country of Spain was built on. Spain is moreso a collection of regional identities than a firm national national identity. As a counterexample, the Dutch constitution does not identify what the unity of the Dutch state actually means or that breaking Dutch unity is against the law a priori [1]. Historically speaking, this has not been a great concern despite historical [2] and modern [3] seperatist movements, because the Dutch "identity" has historically been synonymous with the Dutch nationality to a very large degree. The same cannot be said for Spain. As a disclaimer, I'm not advocating identity politics here. I'm just trying to give a historical explanation. [1]: The Dutch constitution does define treason but what constitutes treason is left rather vague and therefore up to a judge to decide. Would/should the same Spanish judge have deemed this referendum treason in the absence "state unity" laws? Not a rhetorical question. [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_National_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_National_Party
  - viraptor 9y ago
    I agreed until "forced to apply the law". Many laws are changed after first the approval goes away, then the enforcement is phased out, and only then the actual act is written. Law is very often applied in the context of current situation / people involved. Government is not forced to do anything really. Also, the law most often mentioned - Spanish constitution - mentions that Spain cannot be divided. This is just a referendum. The goal is the division of course. But the referendum itself is not changing anything.
  - zimablue 9y ago
    To say that a region trying to forge independence is illegal is true by definition because wherever you are the law will enshrine the status quo, but it's not a meaningful statement. And to say that there's no choice but to apply the law isn't true, when it comes to questions this big the system of: make law=> judicial system interprets=> police enforce breaks down, because it's a political question not a legal question. Eg. how Uber in London is implicitly political, it's too big to be held by courts and keep politicians out. Spanish politicians absolutely had some leeway in how they dealt with this.
    - lz400 9y ago
      We can surely discuss the implementation of a very clear judicial order but at the end of the day those things are difficult and doesn't change that in principle that referendum wasn't democratic and needed to be stopped and the forces of the state employed in that.
  - dandellion 9y ago
    Yes, it's also too convenient for them to even consider changing an unethical law.
  - bitL 9y ago
    Women's suffrage used to be illegal. Black movements in the US used to be illegal. Fight against apartheid used to be illegal. Now we have Spanish police beating ordinary people in the age of Internet. This is beyond Streisand-effect stupid. They should have done British style referendum, almost surely "Independencia" would have lost, and then could stick the result to the faces of local population for the next two decades. Now they basically made people there realize their opinion doesn't matter and convinced undecided people they're better on their own. At best they end up with a velvet-divorce in Czechoslovakian style, at worst... Well, a can of worms. It's a complete BS to also mention Catalonia would be out of EU; as the 2nd most advanced region of Spain EU would be more than happy to quickly accept them than to risk Russia/China making a foothold there. Oligarchs there should have played it the same way as in EEU, where they kept control of local economy and gave people meaningless concessions to keep them happy, and continued medial control of population. I am wondering if they really became so stupid or if they did actually plan Catalonian independence. Both alternatives are sadly likely.
    - lz400 9y ago
      That's a very obvious fallacy. Women's suffrage used to be legal, therefore all laws are wrong? or, the law I don't like is wrong?
      - bitL 9y ago
        All great movements of the past were illegal; that's what made them great in the history books, even if they were carefully planned by Machiavellian types in the background. One very popular past dictator in Germany was democratically elected though. If Spain wants to stay united, they really need to start talking to Catalonia instead of literally kicking their butts and smashing them on the ground, or they risk an abrupt end (maybe not today, but in 20 years when a new generation remembering this comes to full force and resentment can't be contained any longer).
        lz400 9y ago
        You have already godwin'd me :) Anyway, imho this is still just fallacious. You are attaching to the Catalonian independence movement the adjective of "great". Then you say great movements are "illegal", etc. etc. Too much of a fact-less reasoning for me.
  - Kenji 9y ago
    Morality and legality are orthogonal.
  - fiblye 9y ago
    What? A group of people getting together to vote to make a decision in no way violates democracy. It's the very essence of democracy. Telling people "you aren't allowed to vote because this decision belongs to us, and so your actions are illegal" is anti-democratic. A government saying that voting in a specific circumstance is illegal doesn't make the voting anti-democratic. That simply makes it illegal. Another example is that under 18s can't vote in most countries. If 17 year olds decide to get together and vote anyways, what they're doing isn't anti-democratic. They're just doing something illegal. They're violating a restriction of democracy.
    - ghaff 9y ago
      The 17 year olds aren't even doing anything illegal so long as they're not misrepresenting their age. They're simply taking a vote that has no force of law behind it.
  - wilun 9y ago
    You are just requiring democratic as implying not-illegal for some arbitrary laws. We already had tons of examples for why this is a very poor criteria. IMO, this vote is just one more example.
  - adnam 9y ago
    You can't solve political problems with judges and riot police.
  - sorokod 9y ago
    By same reasoning, American War of Independence was illegal. I don't have a problem with this, do you?
  - kiliancs 9y ago
    The organization of the referendum and its law have been automatically suspended, there's no ruling as wether they are constitutional or not. There's nothing in that suspension that implies beating people who want to participate. Spain brought police and paramilitary police in the thousands in preparation for this. There's clearly a lot more going on that just a government trying to follow the law. The 9N 2014 voting was similarly suspended and this didn't happen. Also check out how the population in several Spanish cities sent their police and paramilitary police to Catalonia with chants of "a por ellos" (roughly, "go get them") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA1Sw-szU6w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA1Sw-szU6w How do you morally justify that a people who according to all recent polls has a 80+% support for an independence referendum is governed by those who are happy using violence against them, their children and their elders to suppress a peaceful attempt to decide about their own future? In my opinion they have lost all legitimacy to govern or tax these citizens. Spain has pushed this to a situation in which the only way for Catalans to have a representative government and have their rights (including that of self-determination) respected is independence. I wonder how many more Catalans have embraced the independence movement today.
- bjourne 9y ago
  Indeed. But what if the inhabitants of the Navajo Nation (http://www.nec.navajo-nsn.gov/portals/0/TEC%20US%20Map.png http://www.nec.navajo-nsn.gov/portals/0/TEC%20US%20Map.png) demanded sovereignty? The US would likely suppress its self-determination in exactly the same way.
  - protomyth 9y ago
    Nah, these days the US government would just ignore them. It’s not like they take much of an interest in any of the tribal governments, unless it can get some politician some votes. A better example would be California or Texas. I’m pretty sure we would not see the preemptive harsh measures Spain has engaged in.
    - ghaff 9y ago
      Fully agree. If California put a secession question on as a ballot referendum, think what you will of the current state of the federal government but I have a lot of trouble believing we'd see federal troops preventing people from voting. Obviously the situations are somewhat different. While I can actually imagine something wacky like that getting on the California ballot, it's not something very many people in California or elsewhere would take seriously.
  - akvadrako 9y ago
    Hell, a bunch of semi-autonomous US states tried this in the 1860s and got crushed by the full force of the national military for their attempt. There is clearly no internationally accepted right to self-determination. Maybe there should be, but I'm not sure it can be made fair and practical. The status quo seems to be: > According to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, the UN, ICJ and international law experts, there is no contradiction between the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity, with the latter taking precedence. ¹ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination
    - ghaff 9y ago
      Although, even leaving aside issues specific to the Civil War, 2017 is also a lot different from 1860. To the degree that a region of a Western democracy, especially one with a clear historic identity, really wants to separate from the parent country, most would say it's their right to do so. (Although the separating region may not like the terms.) Sending national government troops into Scotland, Quebec, or California to force them to remain would be a pretty unpopular move throughout the Western world.
- flexie 9y ago
  The violence part is a disgrace and likely extremely counterproductive. But there is not much democracy in the catalan referendum. It's unconstitutional, and there is little guarantee it's fair to the castellano half of the catalan population which is also much more likely to refrain from voting. The referendum will probably not reflect the will of the catalan population.
  - jules 9y ago
    Then they should have helped organise a proper referendum, not repress this one with violence.
    - flexie 9y ago
      I agree. That's also the only way to make sure the no voters participate.
  - wilun 9y ago
    You can accuse any pool of not reflecting the wishes of the population, with the (poor and fallacious) excuse that some people choose not vote. Now remains the problem of having to make such a choice in case an illegal vote is organized, but there shall be no problem in the first place if the results are ignored. But even then, you can't recursively deplete the meaning of the word "democratic" by tying it to pre-existing arbitrary constitutions, even more so when said constitutions trivially violates the right of people to self-determination.
    - flexie 9y ago
      Your use of the words poor or fallacious are indeed poor. There is a huge difference between a) the usual situation where some people don't participate in a regular referendum or election that most of the population and all authorities support as constitutional, and then b) the situation in Catalonia where the referendum is only considered legal by some of the authorities, where other authorities have told voters to refrain from voting and are actively trying to prevent the voters from voting, and where a presumed 40-50 percent of the "electorate" don't even believe it's constitutional. Let's not pretend that people that would vote "remain" are likely to participate in a vote they have been told by the some of the authorities not to participate in. Only the "leave" voters who believe the referendum is legal in the first place have a clear incentive to participate in it.
- return0 9y ago
  We could set up a poll in HN and call it a referendum, it would still be bullshit. The way the spanish govt acts is indeed wrong and stupid , but this is not democratic process. They could let the vote go through; its illegal anyway and its highly unlikely the international community will consider it valid.
mto 9y ago
That's how you convince people to stay with you
klatuveranictu 9y ago
From the shitshow Spain put out on the BBC in their interview the other day this outcome seemed inevitable. The guy basically said "they shouldn't have an election because they'll lose and that's why they shouldn't even bother having this illegal vote at all". People need to remember how shitty Spain's economy is/was after the 2008 collapse. People talked about them in the same breath as Greece, Italy, and Ireland.
- Kathee_HDS 9y ago
  People ought to know we're still deep under the rubble of the collapse, and most of us need two, even three jobs, to earn just enough to live by. They ought to know that Spain government has been siphoning funds out from the pension funds, and under the pretense of solidarity between communities are making the richer autonomies pay for everything that should be paid with the money they're using to further their own agendas, pay lobbies for a position after they retire, and putting people of their families as assistant in a way that reeks of nepotism, just to enrich themselves. People should know the Government of Spain has declared the millions funneled to rescue the banks as lost without hope of ever getting anything back, all the while kicking people out of their mortgaged houses which they can't pay for thanks to the late laws on working rights passed with absolute majority by this same government without ever consulting the citizens. They should know, but very few headlines ever talk about that, because the local media is in debt to the banks who profit from dealing with the government in this fantastic, incorruptible country.
patrickaljord 9y ago
The fact that many politicians still don't know about the Streisand effect never ceases to amaze me. They should have let this slide and no one would have cared, heck most people can't spot Catalunya on a map and now it's all over international news with voters in blood including women and elderly people.
- chki 9y ago
  I'm not sure wether that would have actually been a possibility. The referendum ist illegal according to the ruling of the highest constitutional court. The absolute minimum of what a functioning state needs to do is pushing back on all illegal activities. By not doing anything against an illegal referendum the Spanish state would have made the first step towards accepting that it does no longer have full control over a part of its own territory. I'm also quite sure that their international reputation is not really that important to them when the state itself is endangered.
  - ryanlol 9y ago
    >I'm not sure wether that would have actually been a possibility. The referendum ist illegal according to the ruling of the highest constitutional court. The absolute minimum of what a functioning state needs to do is pushing back on all illegal activities. Utter nonsense. According to the courts referendum is invalid, organizing it in on the ground isn't criminal. Using public funds for it may be.
  - Lazare 9y ago
    > By not doing anything against an illegal referendum the Spanish state would have made the first step towards accepting that it does no longer have full control over a part of its own territory. I couldn't disagree more. If the referendum is not part of the legal process, then it's not binding, but participating in it should not be illegal, and absolutely should not be suppressed with force. There's a vast chasm between "we do not recognise this referendum because it was not held in accordance with the constitution" and "we will use violence to stop you doing this thing". > I'm also quite sure that their international reputation is not really that important to them when the state itself is endangered. Again, all it takes is to say "no, actually, no referendum was held, as the laws do not permit it. All you did was hold a symbolic protest", and boom, the state isn't threatened. Unless, of course, a majority of the broader state is sympathetic to the symbolic protest. Which, if so, would explain the seeming desperation to prevent it, but at the same time further undermines any moral justification for doing so. In short, either there was no need to suppress the voting, or there was no moral reason to suppress the voting. The more the Spanish state is threatened by a symbolic, non-binding, unconstitutional referendum, the less the Spanish state is deserving of defence.
nickpp 9y ago
Classic "Atlas Shrugged" moment: the hard-working, tax-paying people of Catalonia are tired of supporting the wealth-redistribution, equalitarianist Spaniards. A warning for other countries where the tirany of majority is becoming unbearable? That would be pretty much the whole Socialist West at this point, although I am not aware of similar geographical concentrations. It brings back memories of the old communist regimes of Eastern Europe: you did't like it? Tough luck! Leaving the country was ILLEGAL.
- patrickaljord 9y ago
  Spain and the EU (who's turning a blind eye) can't let this happen. If every productive region who's fed up of paying for the regions who don't produce much and spend irresponsibly declare independence, this would be the end of the EU and of most of its countries. Can't let that happen. Let's hope at least this will put pressure on non-productive regions to start spending more responsibly other regions money and make their economy more competitive and productive by liberalizing the economy a bit more.
Findeton 9y ago
I'm from Spain (Madrid) and I support the referendum, because I'm an economic libertarian and I support the freedom of association and smaller States. BTW, this is not a real referendum, as there are no guarantees. Of course, the reason why there are no democratic guarantees is because of the actions of the Spanish government. But you can see the "high degree" census control here in this video: https://elpais.com/Comentario/1506857481-5be7eb5d11476b5cac18b48068d1e87d https://elpais.com/Comentario/1506857481-5be7eb5d11476b5cac1... But I also have to say that there is certain hypocrisy in all this. Pro-independence people already have the pictures and excuses they wanted: Catalans voting and the Spanish police exercising violence. But, if Catalonia became independent, they would also have a police, a repressive force. So you can see how the excuse for creating a new State, violence of the State, is hypocritical for an economic liberal like me.
- _hgt1 9y ago
  The Catalan police is here too, and they're not cracking skulls.
  - Findeton 9y ago
    Of course, but they will use violence when something that the Catalan gov doesn't like happens. And it's not an hypothesis, it has already happened in the near past.
- ryanlol 9y ago
  >But you can see the "high degree" census control here in this video: https://elpais.com/Comentario/1506857481-5be7eb5d11476b5cac1.. https://elpais.com/Comentario/1506857481-5be7eb5d11476b5cac1.... This video tells you nothing, those ballot boxes don't seem to be in a polling station. Why assume they'll ever be counted?
  - Findeton 9y ago
    Because the Catalan gov has said that if polling stations are closed by the Spanish police, they will vote in the street.
adnam 9y ago
Rajoy has made a simple calculation: jackboots in the faces of peaceful Catalans trying to vote equals more votes for the Partido Popular in the rest of Spain.
m_nidis 9y ago
I find amusing most of The comments about allowing the vote. Voting is only a very small part of a democracy. The strongest pillar in any democratic state is the rule of law and separation of powers. I would like to ask the Catalan parents that have put their kids in front of charging police if they feel proud. Me personally what I feel is shame and sadnes. Manipulating chilhood in the name of freedom, In a very represeed European region. Well done!
ryanlol 9y ago
337 injured https://twitter.com/324cat/status/914465929207193600 https://twitter.com/324cat/status/914465929207193600

47 points by tomp 9y ago

s_kilk 9y ago

It's frankly disgraceful that the Spanish state has turned to violence to suppress the democratic process.

lz400 9y ago
It's not democratic, it's illegal and the justice system has ordered its dismantling. Think what you will, disagree with the law if you want but at this point the government is forced to apply the law. They don't have a choice.
- s_kilk 9y ago
  You're making a fundamental mistake in conflating legality with democratic will.
  - lz400 9y ago
    Surely part of the democracy is the rule of the law, isn't it? I'm sure you can point to laws in the past that made a farce of democracy, but most of them aren't in modern democracies. You can think this one is particular is anti-democratic but most countries actually have similar laws against unilateral secession of a single region.
    - ekimekim 9y ago
      > I'm sure you can point to laws in the past that made a farce of democracy, but most of them aren't in modern democracies. I can point to a HUGE number of laws that make a farce of the democratic process in almost any modern democracy. A short list that applies mostly to the USA but some to other countries also: * Gerrymandering (the act of designing districts along demographic lines to influence an election outcome) * First past the post voting (where voters can't vote for who they really want, they have to vote 'strategically' for the person they think will come first or second) * Voter ID laws that seek to disenfranchise certain demographics by requiring hard(or expensive)-to-acquire ID they are less likely to have
      - lz400 9y ago
        Sure but unless you are extremely radical, those are the exception not the rule. Most of the laws, that regulate murder, theft, libel, etc. are all right. At least I like to think that most first world countries are approximately democracies, otherwise what's the measure of democracy we can have? because as I said, no unilateral secession is a pretty universal coded law in the first world.
- DCKing 9y ago
  I'm not disagreeing, but just a semantic argument here. The referendum is absolutely democratic. But it is also illegal under the Spanish constitution. The problem is that the Spanish constitution and the judge's interpretation (which is straightforward but unfortunate) patently would disallow self determination through a referendum, which to me is democracy in its purest form. The only reason it's illegal is because the law is undemocratic. I agree the Spanish central government seemingly had no choice but escalation. But that escalation is tragic and will only make Catalonia's independence inevitable, whereas it was not at all clear cut before this.
  - thesumofall 9y ago
    There will be people here with more knowledge about international constitutional law but I’m pretty sure almost every state has rules in place to prevent it from disintegrating. Otherwise, what would stop oneself to declare one’s own little piece of land as independent (with yourself voting for it) and stop paying taxes?
    - lostmsu 9y ago
      Two problems with that: 1) I'm not sure that would be bad 2) Some areas are already relatively independent. Wouldn't harm to make them a bit more so.
    - dandellion 9y ago
      Without an army to defend your borders the government from which you claim independence could just remove you by force... You would have problems to trade so you would have to be completely self sufficient with food, energy etc. You kind of need to reach some critical mass to be able to organize a functioning nation. Getting to city-states could be viable, but I don't think it can go much farther.
    - DCKing 9y ago
      The world is not a libertarian tax fantasy of that degree, no. But it should be possible for groups that have a significant cultural claim to vote on these matters. And it should be possible that if a significant amount of this cultural group agrees on the subject that a mutual understanding can be obtained between the main state and the group they govern over. It seems to me this constitution article was put in place to specifically specific regional identity issues that the country of Spain was built on. Spain is moreso a collection of regional identities than a firm national national identity. As a counterexample, the Dutch constitution does not identify what the unity of the Dutch state actually means or that breaking Dutch unity is against the law a priori [1]. Historically speaking, this has not been a great concern despite historical [2] and modern [3] seperatist movements, because the Dutch "identity" has historically been synonymous with the Dutch nationality to a very large degree. The same cannot be said for Spain. As a disclaimer, I'm not advocating identity politics here. I'm just trying to give a historical explanation. [1]: The Dutch constitution does define treason but what constitutes treason is left rather vague and therefore up to a judge to decide. Would/should the same Spanish judge have deemed this referendum treason in the absence "state unity" laws? Not a rhetorical question. [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_National_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_National_Party
- viraptor 9y ago
  I agreed until "forced to apply the law". Many laws are changed after first the approval goes away, then the enforcement is phased out, and only then the actual act is written. Law is very often applied in the context of current situation / people involved. Government is not forced to do anything really. Also, the law most often mentioned - Spanish constitution - mentions that Spain cannot be divided. This is just a referendum. The goal is the division of course. But the referendum itself is not changing anything.
- zimablue 9y ago
  To say that a region trying to forge independence is illegal is true by definition because wherever you are the law will enshrine the status quo, but it's not a meaningful statement. And to say that there's no choice but to apply the law isn't true, when it comes to questions this big the system of: make law=> judicial system interprets=> police enforce breaks down, because it's a political question not a legal question. Eg. how Uber in London is implicitly political, it's too big to be held by courts and keep politicians out. Spanish politicians absolutely had some leeway in how they dealt with this.
  - lz400 9y ago
    We can surely discuss the implementation of a very clear judicial order but at the end of the day those things are difficult and doesn't change that in principle that referendum wasn't democratic and needed to be stopped and the forces of the state employed in that.
- dandellion 9y ago
  Yes, it's also too convenient for them to even consider changing an unethical law.
- bitL 9y ago
  Women's suffrage used to be illegal. Black movements in the US used to be illegal. Fight against apartheid used to be illegal. Now we have Spanish police beating ordinary people in the age of Internet. This is beyond Streisand-effect stupid. They should have done British style referendum, almost surely "Independencia" would have lost, and then could stick the result to the faces of local population for the next two decades. Now they basically made people there realize their opinion doesn't matter and convinced undecided people they're better on their own. At best they end up with a velvet-divorce in Czechoslovakian style, at worst... Well, a can of worms. It's a complete BS to also mention Catalonia would be out of EU; as the 2nd most advanced region of Spain EU would be more than happy to quickly accept them than to risk Russia/China making a foothold there. Oligarchs there should have played it the same way as in EEU, where they kept control of local economy and gave people meaningless concessions to keep them happy, and continued medial control of population. I am wondering if they really became so stupid or if they did actually plan Catalonian independence. Both alternatives are sadly likely.
  - lz400 9y ago
    That's a very obvious fallacy. Women's suffrage used to be legal, therefore all laws are wrong? or, the law I don't like is wrong?
    - bitL 9y ago
      All great movements of the past were illegal; that's what made them great in the history books, even if they were carefully planned by Machiavellian types in the background. One very popular past dictator in Germany was democratically elected though. If Spain wants to stay united, they really need to start talking to Catalonia instead of literally kicking their butts and smashing them on the ground, or they risk an abrupt end (maybe not today, but in 20 years when a new generation remembering this comes to full force and resentment can't be contained any longer).
      - lz400 9y ago
        You have already godwin'd me :) Anyway, imho this is still just fallacious. You are attaching to the Catalonian independence movement the adjective of "great". Then you say great movements are "illegal", etc. etc. Too much of a fact-less reasoning for me.
- Kenji 9y ago
  Morality and legality are orthogonal.
- fiblye 9y ago
  What? A group of people getting together to vote to make a decision in no way violates democracy. It's the very essence of democracy. Telling people "you aren't allowed to vote because this decision belongs to us, and so your actions are illegal" is anti-democratic. A government saying that voting in a specific circumstance is illegal doesn't make the voting anti-democratic. That simply makes it illegal. Another example is that under 18s can't vote in most countries. If 17 year olds decide to get together and vote anyways, what they're doing isn't anti-democratic. They're just doing something illegal. They're violating a restriction of democracy.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    The 17 year olds aren't even doing anything illegal so long as they're not misrepresenting their age. They're simply taking a vote that has no force of law behind it.
- wilun 9y ago
  You are just requiring democratic as implying not-illegal for some arbitrary laws. We already had tons of examples for why this is a very poor criteria. IMO, this vote is just one more example.
- adnam 9y ago
  You can't solve political problems with judges and riot police.
- sorokod 9y ago
  By same reasoning, American War of Independence was illegal. I don't have a problem with this, do you?
- kiliancs 9y ago
  The organization of the referendum and its law have been automatically suspended, there's no ruling as wether they are constitutional or not. There's nothing in that suspension that implies beating people who want to participate. Spain brought police and paramilitary police in the thousands in preparation for this. There's clearly a lot more going on that just a government trying to follow the law. The 9N 2014 voting was similarly suspended and this didn't happen. Also check out how the population in several Spanish cities sent their police and paramilitary police to Catalonia with chants of "a por ellos" (roughly, "go get them") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA1Sw-szU6w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA1Sw-szU6w How do you morally justify that a people who according to all recent polls has a 80+% support for an independence referendum is governed by those who are happy using violence against them, their children and their elders to suppress a peaceful attempt to decide about their own future? In my opinion they have lost all legitimacy to govern or tax these citizens. Spain has pushed this to a situation in which the only way for Catalans to have a representative government and have their rights (including that of self-determination) respected is independence. I wonder how many more Catalans have embraced the independence movement today.
bjourne 9y ago
Indeed. But what if the inhabitants of the Navajo Nation (http://www.nec.navajo-nsn.gov/portals/0/TEC%20US%20Map.png http://www.nec.navajo-nsn.gov/portals/0/TEC%20US%20Map.png) demanded sovereignty? The US would likely suppress its self-determination in exactly the same way.
- protomyth 9y ago
  Nah, these days the US government would just ignore them. It’s not like they take much of an interest in any of the tribal governments, unless it can get some politician some votes. A better example would be California or Texas. I’m pretty sure we would not see the preemptive harsh measures Spain has engaged in.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    Fully agree. If California put a secession question on as a ballot referendum, think what you will of the current state of the federal government but I have a lot of trouble believing we'd see federal troops preventing people from voting. Obviously the situations are somewhat different. While I can actually imagine something wacky like that getting on the California ballot, it's not something very many people in California or elsewhere would take seriously.
- akvadrako 9y ago
  Hell, a bunch of semi-autonomous US states tried this in the 1860s and got crushed by the full force of the national military for their attempt. There is clearly no internationally accepted right to self-determination. Maybe there should be, but I'm not sure it can be made fair and practical. The status quo seems to be: > According to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, the UN, ICJ and international law experts, there is no contradiction between the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity, with the latter taking precedence. ¹ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination
  - ghaff 9y ago
    Although, even leaving aside issues specific to the Civil War, 2017 is also a lot different from 1860. To the degree that a region of a Western democracy, especially one with a clear historic identity, really wants to separate from the parent country, most would say it's their right to do so. (Although the separating region may not like the terms.) Sending national government troops into Scotland, Quebec, or California to force them to remain would be a pretty unpopular move throughout the Western world.
flexie 9y ago
The violence part is a disgrace and likely extremely counterproductive. But there is not much democracy in the catalan referendum. It's unconstitutional, and there is little guarantee it's fair to the castellano half of the catalan population which is also much more likely to refrain from voting. The referendum will probably not reflect the will of the catalan population.
- jules 9y ago
  Then they should have helped organise a proper referendum, not repress this one with violence.
  - flexie 9y ago
    I agree. That's also the only way to make sure the no voters participate.
- wilun 9y ago
  You can accuse any pool of not reflecting the wishes of the population, with the (poor and fallacious) excuse that some people choose not vote. Now remains the problem of having to make such a choice in case an illegal vote is organized, but there shall be no problem in the first place if the results are ignored. But even then, you can't recursively deplete the meaning of the word "democratic" by tying it to pre-existing arbitrary constitutions, even more so when said constitutions trivially violates the right of people to self-determination.
  - flexie 9y ago
    Your use of the words poor or fallacious are indeed poor. There is a huge difference between a) the usual situation where some people don't participate in a regular referendum or election that most of the population and all authorities support as constitutional, and then b) the situation in Catalonia where the referendum is only considered legal by some of the authorities, where other authorities have told voters to refrain from voting and are actively trying to prevent the voters from voting, and where a presumed 40-50 percent of the "electorate" don't even believe it's constitutional. Let's not pretend that people that would vote "remain" are likely to participate in a vote they have been told by the some of the authorities not to participate in. Only the "leave" voters who believe the referendum is legal in the first place have a clear incentive to participate in it.
return0 9y ago
We could set up a poll in HN and call it a referendum, it would still be bullshit. The way the spanish govt acts is indeed wrong and stupid , but this is not democratic process. They could let the vote go through; its illegal anyway and its highly unlikely the international community will consider it valid.

mto 9y ago

That's how you convince people to stay with you

klatuveranictu 9y ago

From the shitshow Spain put out on the BBC in their interview the other day this outcome seemed inevitable. The guy basically said "they shouldn't have an election because they'll lose and that's why they shouldn't even bother having this illegal vote at all". People need to remember how shitty Spain's economy is/was after the 2008 collapse. People talked about them in the same breath as Greece, Italy, and Ireland.

Kathee_HDS 9y ago
People ought to know we're still deep under the rubble of the collapse, and most of us need two, even three jobs, to earn just enough to live by. They ought to know that Spain government has been siphoning funds out from the pension funds, and under the pretense of solidarity between communities are making the richer autonomies pay for everything that should be paid with the money they're using to further their own agendas, pay lobbies for a position after they retire, and putting people of their families as assistant in a way that reeks of nepotism, just to enrich themselves. People should know the Government of Spain has declared the millions funneled to rescue the banks as lost without hope of ever getting anything back, all the while kicking people out of their mortgaged houses which they can't pay for thanks to the late laws on working rights passed with absolute majority by this same government without ever consulting the citizens. They should know, but very few headlines ever talk about that, because the local media is in debt to the banks who profit from dealing with the government in this fantastic, incorruptible country.

patrickaljord 9y ago

The fact that many politicians still don't know about the Streisand effect never ceases to amaze me. They should have let this slide and no one would have cared, heck most people can't spot Catalunya on a map and now it's all over international news with voters in blood including women and elderly people.

chki 9y ago
I'm not sure wether that would have actually been a possibility. The referendum ist illegal according to the ruling of the highest constitutional court. The absolute minimum of what a functioning state needs to do is pushing back on all illegal activities. By not doing anything against an illegal referendum the Spanish state would have made the first step towards accepting that it does no longer have full control over a part of its own territory. I'm also quite sure that their international reputation is not really that important to them when the state itself is endangered.
- ryanlol 9y ago
  >I'm not sure wether that would have actually been a possibility. The referendum ist illegal according to the ruling of the highest constitutional court. The absolute minimum of what a functioning state needs to do is pushing back on all illegal activities. Utter nonsense. According to the courts referendum is invalid, organizing it in on the ground isn't criminal. Using public funds for it may be.
- Lazare 9y ago
  > By not doing anything against an illegal referendum the Spanish state would have made the first step towards accepting that it does no longer have full control over a part of its own territory. I couldn't disagree more. If the referendum is not part of the legal process, then it's not binding, but participating in it should not be illegal, and absolutely should not be suppressed with force. There's a vast chasm between "we do not recognise this referendum because it was not held in accordance with the constitution" and "we will use violence to stop you doing this thing". > I'm also quite sure that their international reputation is not really that important to them when the state itself is endangered. Again, all it takes is to say "no, actually, no referendum was held, as the laws do not permit it. All you did was hold a symbolic protest", and boom, the state isn't threatened. Unless, of course, a majority of the broader state is sympathetic to the symbolic protest. Which, if so, would explain the seeming desperation to prevent it, but at the same time further undermines any moral justification for doing so. In short, either there was no need to suppress the voting, or there was no moral reason to suppress the voting. The more the Spanish state is threatened by a symbolic, non-binding, unconstitutional referendum, the less the Spanish state is deserving of defence.

nickpp 9y ago

Classic "Atlas Shrugged" moment: the hard-working, tax-paying people of Catalonia are tired of supporting the wealth-redistribution, equalitarianist Spaniards. A warning for other countries where the tirany of majority is becoming unbearable? That would be pretty much the whole Socialist West at this point, although I am not aware of similar geographical concentrations. It brings back memories of the old communist regimes of Eastern Europe: you did't like it? Tough luck! Leaving the country was ILLEGAL.

patrickaljord 9y ago
Spain and the EU (who's turning a blind eye) can't let this happen. If every productive region who's fed up of paying for the regions who don't produce much and spend irresponsibly declare independence, this would be the end of the EU and of most of its countries. Can't let that happen. Let's hope at least this will put pressure on non-productive regions to start spending more responsibly other regions money and make their economy more competitive and productive by liberalizing the economy a bit more.

Findeton 9y ago

I'm from Spain (Madrid) and I support the referendum, because I'm an economic libertarian and I support the freedom of association and smaller States. BTW, this is not a real referendum, as there are no guarantees. Of course, the reason why there are no democratic guarantees is because of the actions of the Spanish government. But you can see the "high degree" census control here in this video: https://elpais.com/Comentario/1506857481-5be7eb5d11476b5cac18b48068d1e87d https://elpais.com/Comentario/1506857481-5be7eb5d11476b5cac1... But I also have to say that there is certain hypocrisy in all this. Pro-independence people already have the pictures and excuses they wanted: Catalans voting and the Spanish police exercising violence. But, if Catalonia became independent, they would also have a police, a repressive force. So you can see how the excuse for creating a new State, violence of the State, is hypocritical for an economic liberal like me.

_hgt1 9y ago
The Catalan police is here too, and they're not cracking skulls.
- Findeton 9y ago
  Of course, but they will use violence when something that the Catalan gov doesn't like happens. And it's not an hypothesis, it has already happened in the near past.
ryanlol 9y ago
>But you can see the "high degree" census control here in this video: https://elpais.com/Comentario/1506857481-5be7eb5d11476b5cac1.. https://elpais.com/Comentario/1506857481-5be7eb5d11476b5cac1.... This video tells you nothing, those ballot boxes don't seem to be in a polling station. Why assume they'll ever be counted?
- Findeton 9y ago
  Because the Catalan gov has said that if polling stations are closed by the Spanish police, they will vote in the street.

adnam 9y ago

Rajoy has made a simple calculation: jackboots in the faces of peaceful Catalans trying to vote equals more votes for the Partido Popular in the rest of Spain.

m_nidis 9y ago

I find amusing most of The comments about allowing the vote. Voting is only a very small part of a democracy. The strongest pillar in any democratic state is the rule of law and separation of powers. I would like to ask the Catalan parents that have put their kids in front of charging police if they feel proud. Me personally what I feel is shame and sadnes. Manipulating chilhood in the name of freedom, In a very represeed European region. Well done!

ryanlol 9y ago

337 injured https://twitter.com/324cat/status/914465929207193600 https://twitter.com/324cat/status/914465929207193600