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Catalonia’s Independence Vote Descends into Chaos and Clashes
- centimeter 9y agoI don’t think the Spanish government could have done a better job of justifying Catalan secession if they tried. Tons of horrific Spanish police brutality on display at https://twitter.com/hashtag/CatalanReferendum?src=tren https://twitter.com/hashtag/CatalanReferendum?src=tren
- Laforet 9y agoEven the Iraqi government shows more restraint. It's 1916 all over again.
- cloakandswagger 9y agoDespite all the emotion and opinions about Catalonia, what you said is absurdly stupid. These are protesters being whacked with bats and shot by rubber bullets, with no reported deaths yet. Saddam killed 5000 people with mustard gas, and the current day Iraqi government employs summary executions against accused ISIS members. They are universes apart.
- skissane 9y agoI don't think what was said is "absurdly stupid". Compare the actions of the Iraqi central government to the Kurdistan independence referendum vs. the actions of the Spanish central government to the Catalonia referendum, the two votes occurring roughly one week apart. In both cases the central government considered the vote to be illegal. The Iraqi central government, despite declaring the vote to be illegal, took no physical steps to prevent it. The Spanish central government turned to violent repression. So, rather than absurdly stupid, the comparison is quite accurate – in this particular case, the Spanish government behaved far worse than the Iraqi one did – and stuff that Saddam did (nothing to do with the actions of the current Iraqi government which is controlled by anti-Saddam forces), or stuff that the current Iraqi government does to ISIS fighters (summary executions are abhorrent, but nothing to do with the Kurdish independence vote) are just irrelevancies.
- dang 9y agoThis comment breaks the HN guidelines against name-calling in arguments. Please read and follow them when commenting here. The rules apply whether or not someone else is wrong—indeed that's when they're most important to stick to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Retric 9y agoAs far as I could find, ~770,000 votes lost and the results are clearly in favor of separation even if every one of those lost votes was No. https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2017/oct/01/catalan-independence-referendum-spain-catalonia-vote-live https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2017/oct/01/catalan-i...
- Y7ZCQtNo39 9y agoI wonder if the ballots were destroyed, or if we'll ever know the results of them. Since they were forcibly taken, the impartialness would surely be dubious.
- peteretep 9y ago42% turn out tho. Quite possibly those not in favour were boycotting it?
- christudor 9y agoThe average turnout across all EU nations for the 2014 European Parliament elections was 43% and no-one is questioning the legitimacy of those results.
- ZanyProgrammer 9y agoThough secession surely would require a higher hurdle than normal parliamentary elections, for such momentous an election? These aren't normal elections,but the breakup of a major European state.
- gonvaled 9y agoPerfectly right. But I fear that the opposition of the spanish government to a well organized referendum leaves us with this second rate opinion poll as the best we can get: 90% for yes, with 40% turnout. Pretty bad managed by Spain.
- peteretep 9y ago
- SomeStupidPoint 9y agoIs there a good summary of why this is happening -- what the complaints and issues are, etc?
- falsedan 9y agowikipedia.org/en/Catalonia Spain, like all nation-states descended from medieval feudal states, is a conglomeration of multiple distinct regions with individual histories.
- cjalmeida 9y agoExcept for a brief period in 1600s, Catalonia was never a sovereign entity. If it weren't for a Catalan language revival in the 20th century as a response to Franco's dictatorship, it's claim to independence from a historical perspective has even less weight than Venice's.
- flukus 9y agoThere were also part of the Crown of Aragon for quite a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_of_Aragon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_of_Aragon
- falsedan 9y ago> Venice lol ok These regions still had self-governance far in excess to the equivalent nowadays. Being a vassal state to a title is pretty unrestrictive: you had to raise levies, pay a tithe, and not lose the province to a rival claim. Nobles were free to set taxes and laws as they pleased.
- vxNsr 9y agoWhile I'm all for democracy, this paragraph here seems to imply this wasn't quite that: Catalan officials instead relied on privately printed ballots, and changed the voting rules an hour before polls were scheduled to open, to allow voters to cast a ballot at any poll station, without using an envelope and whether registered there or not.
- colanderman 9y agoWho cares? Ignore the results, challenge them in court. Sending in police to beat people for writing on slips of paper is fascism in its purest form.
- toyg 9y agoThey were trying to resist a violent crackdown, equivalent to trying to vote under military occupation. It’s a miracle any ballot was cast at all, not exactly the time for being picky on how it happened. Without the crackdown, the vote could have been monitored by independent organisations, like it happens in modern democracy.
- p49k 9y agoWeren’t they forced to do that due to blocking of precincts by Spanish police, though? That specific rule change makes sense in context.
- ethbro 9y agoThe difference between politics in theory and politics in practice is how legal decisions are applied. Sending in the riot police to enforce the ban made the Spanish government look weak and fearful. In all actuality, they could have just said "Sure, vote. The results won't be legal."
- nextos 9y agoI'm also all for democracy. And the Spanish government has handled the situation atrociously. But the referendum is a joke. Both the way it was called, and how it has been conducted. Furthermore, the result is impossible to believe given previous results in open elections. A sad day for Spain and Catalonia.
- marcoperaza 9y agoThe Spanish government has succeeded in ruining the referendum. Law abiding citizens who respect the Spanish government clearly stayed home and did not participate in the illegal vote. Anyone who is claiming an electoral victory for the independence camp is delusional. The level of support for independence is nowhere near 90%, which was the final tally. An illegal referendum that half the population either chose to or was forced to boycott does not have any legitimacy.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- centimeter 9y agoSo you’re saying that the Spanish government's violent authoritarian tactics backfired? Whoops, sucks for them. Maybe if they wanted all their supporters to turn out they shouldn’t have been violently beating and shooting people at the polling stations. If the Spanish have any doubt as to the fact that the vast majority of Catalonians want to leave Spain, they can feel free to allow people to hold a referendum without attacking them this time.
- marcoperaza 9y agoNo, I'm saying they got exactly what they wanted: the referendum is less meaningful than an online opinion poll.
- toyg 9y agoThis would have happened without the crackdown as well. That’s why a referendum often requires a quorum of voters: if the majority of people think it’s pointless, they don’t show up and the referendum is void. But with the crackdown, now independentists can claim a moral victory as well as a vindication of their reasons, and they can even claim the missing voters could have been for them, because cleary it was unsafe for most people to show up regardless of political inclination. Good job, Spanish government, you’ve just strengthened your enemies. This was phase 3 of the classic Gandhi quote.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
- tkubacki 9y agoEven though I believe most Catalonia people want independence (good for them) I would not be surprised if we found Russia's role in the event was similar as in last vote for president in the US
- sergiotapia 9y ago"Muh russia" in Hackernews? Say it ain't so!
- tambienben 9y agoI don't think Russia is the bogeyman you think it is.
- tkubacki 9y agoOh no they just regurally kill opposition members (Niemcow) and independent journalist (Politkowska). What should we be afraid of ?
- tambienben 9y agoThat's a false equivalency. Yes, Russia has a horrible human rights record. That doesn't speak directly, in any way, to the rattling of sabres over alleged (or hypothetical) political sabotage.
- dreamfactored 9y agoWhile the local politicians are grandstanding opportunists who don't get how they are being played, it's another faultline to exploit and the Kremlin has been efficiently working it. https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/10/01/inenglish/1506854868_900501.html https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/10/01/inenglish/1506854868_90...
- dang 9y agoPlease don't do this here.
- 9y ago
- spguy 9y agoCatalan goverment run this vote against all laws. There is no laws in Spain that allows such a vote. Catalan goverment has used the people only as a way to declare secession in next days.
- senatorobama 9y agoI wonder if this will relight the flames of the Kashmir struggle.
- andreu 9y agoTwo scenarios: It's 2019, Trump is still president, California has had enough and wants to leave the US. Or, perhaps, it's 2020, Bernie just got elected a bunch southern and midwestern states want to leave the union. Would that be allowed? Would it be legal according to the US constitution? Would the police intervene if required to stop it? Maybe even the US army? How do you (presumably american) feel about whatever you think would happen?
- grondilu 9y agoThis reminds me of something I have been wondering lately : what is the ideal size for a country? I mean, most borders nowadays are remnants of a very different world where kings were continuously fighting to maximize their territory, or at least not to let it shrink. Things are very different these days, since most countries are peaceful and democratic. If we were to rationalize all this and draw lines peacefully, what would be the typical size of a country? Would we chose no country at all, in a world-government? Would we pick the "city-state" model, as often advocated by libertarians?
- FooHentai 9y agoWell first let's tackle a simpler similar question that might inform our view - What's the ideal programming language?
- grondilu 9y agolol, good point.
- smudgymcscmudge 9y ago10 km^2
- dreamfactored 9y agoThe bigger the better. Like it or not, we are operating in a global economy and bigger gets massive economies of scale in production and consumption, and leverage in trade with the other blocs. (This is the reason Europe and the US are being destabilised by outside forces.)
- clarkmoody 9y agoThe smaller the better. Given the US perspective of polarized politics, how does it make sense that the strongly-held beliefs of one portion of the voting citizens should be foisted upon the remainder of the entire population? Smaller government is more responsive to the local conditions and culture than is large government. And the inevitable abuses of the state against the citizenry will be limited in scope.
- clarkmoody 9y ago"Illegal vote" is quite an interesting idea. The government that is supposedly democratic must give permission to the people to hold a vote, or else out come the batons and riot gear. It's a beautifully ironic snapshot of the nature of the state and "democracy."
- vvpan 9y agoI absolutely agree, the rhetoric here is unscrupulous. Voting is basic freedom of speech. Whether the vote compels anybody to anything is a whole different story.
- colanderman 9y agoRight, this is what completely baffles me. I haven't seen reasoning yet given in the news outlets. The only "logical" reason I can think of is the Spanish government thinks beating people queued in a line in the age of sousveillance is preferable to the outcome of a legitimate vote on this topic being made known.
- dreamfactored 9y agoSee https://medium.com/@tripu/referendum-e53331ddf841 https://medium.com/@tripu/referendum-e53331ddf841
- ardit33 9y agoI just read it, and it the whole point is: referendum is declared illegal, and therefore it is ok for Spain's crackdown on it. And people should not vote on illegal things, so they deserve it..... The point of democracy is for people to voice their opinions and vote on their future. Even if the referendum has no legal binding, it should have been allowed to happen. What's next, "polls" being declared illegal?
- dreamfactored 9y agoI'm not sure you understood the article if you think that's what it said. The point is that Spain is a representative democracy, not a direct one and that this is the way every modern democracy works. Democracy is therefore about voicing your opinion on who will govern, not on specific issues. You don't get to unilaterally decide to have a vote on splitting up the country in any nation in the world - devolution has to be negotiated and it takes generations. The alternative is force and armed struggle - the Basque and Northern Ireland approach, which we've hopefully put behind us.
- ringaroundthetx 9y agoWhy did the national government respond with personnel at all? If the national law, which all the states voted on in merely 1978, didn't allow for any state to unilaterally declare independence and this was deemed illegal and pointless, then why did they send police to enforce that, if it doesn't matter?
- gonvaled 9y agoA high turnout with a overwhelming vote for independence would have made it politically impossible to ignore. So they chose the next worse option: violent crack down. The least bad option would have been a negotiated referendum, with the full legitimacy of the State. And mind you, the separatists would have probably lost.
- doozy 9y agoIt's surprising how weak the Spanish government is. The obvious course of action would have been to arrest the entire leadership and charge them with treason and sedition. In Germany the parties promoting this movement would have been declared illegal and dissolved long ago. It all boils down to a regional government using taxpayer's money to stage a mock election as a means to usurp the functions of the democratically elected national government. And suddenly those who respect the Rule of Law are the bad guys. Maybe the Spanish government is just waiting for them to actually declare independence to bring down the hammer.
- gonvaled 9y ago> treason and sedition What is this? Treason to what? Something they do not believe in? Sedition? By definition, but not necessarily with the negative connotation of your word choice. Regional vs national government? This is exactly what Catalans are trying to sort out. Taxpayer's money? This is one of the issues that Catalans are complaining about (rightly or wrongly) Your whole arguments boils down to: "things are as they are, and trying to change them is bad because that would mean things do not stay as they are".
- flukus 9y ago> And suddenly those who respect the Rule of Law are the bad guys. So what is the legal path to independence? You can claim it's illegal all you want, but unless there is a legal avenue to pursue then legality is irrelevant.
- gonvaled 9y agoThat is indeed the core of the problem. Catalans have so far only been offered fake alternatives: "Reform the Constitution", for which they will never have a majority.
- 6t6t6t6 9y agoIn Turkey they arrest journalist following the rule of (their) law. In Spain, the paramilitary police injured 800 citizens who wanted to vote. Following the rule of (their) law, of course.