4 ms·

Not true. People came to the polls wearing Spanish flags. No violence. The Catalan process has thankfully been extremely peaceful. People did not vote in the r

Not true. People came to the polls wearing Spanish flags. No violence. The Catalan process has thankfully been extremely peaceful. People did not vote in the referendum because it was not officially recognized as such. Because the Spanish government refused to agree on the terms. The referendum was a sad exercise of democracy, in which the voice of lots of Catalans was not heard. But it was the only one that could be organized due to the ferocious opposition of the Central Government. I would prefer the Referendum to be repeated, in better conditions and properly organized, with all parties exposing their arguments, and all citizens interested enough to vote having their voices heard. Sadly, this might now never happen.

icebraining 9y ago
The next Catalan elections will be a referendum by another name, no? Obviously without legal force, but if the parties for independence win big, it'll be hard to claim it's for any other reason - and the same for the parties against it.
- gonvaled 9y ago
  True, and this already happened in the last elections to the Catalan Parliament (Generalitat). But it's sad to fake referendums by hijacking elections, which exist for completely different reasons. This just mixes and confounds lots of different issues, and makes parliamentary elections meaningless. The question of independence is complex enough that warrants a dedicated vote.
- pjc50 9y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't any more Catalan elections or the independence parties were banned from standing in them.
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    That's a coup of the Spanish State, isn't it?
  - gonvaled 9y ago
    Mmmm, that would degenerate rapidly into civil disobedience. It is hard to see how the central Spanish government can change the opinions of a big part of Catalan society by playing hard ball. I would say that the harder they go, the most people they antagonize. And therein lies the problem: 15 years ago the amount of pro-independence was relatively low, but the Central government has refused to take the demands of the Catalan government seriously. The current political class ruling in Spain is completely overwhelmed on how to deal with a changing society, and the structure of the Spanish State is inflexible, to the point of having to argue that in order for a region to push for the changes they feel they are entitled to, first they need to reform the Constitution, something that is impossible to achieve since the reforms they want to implement are blocked by exactly the same people that would block a reform of the Constitution. Go figure.
simias 9y ago
I guess the point is that given that the spanish government considered the referendum illegal, people not in favor of independence would probably not have wanted to caution it by participating. Clearly in these conditions the results can't be trusted. It's more like "90% of the people who thought the referendum was legitimate are in favor of independence". There's obviously a big selection bias. As for the question of whether the referendum was legitimate or not, the problem in my opinion is how can you consider a referendum democratic if only a tiny portion of the country's population gets to take the decision? Catalunia becoming independent would have consequences throughout the country, shouldn't everybody get to vote? And if not, where do you draw the line? Paris and its region generate about 1/6th of the total GDP of France, what if Parisians decided to declare independence? What about the Lega Nord in Italy? And let's not even talk about the historical economic divide between eastern/western Germany or the variations of GDP between states in the USA. What if all the rich people in Japan decided to all move to an inhabited island and declare independence with 100% of the vote? Would that be legitimate?
- Ajedi32 9y ago
  > Catalunia becoming independent would have consequences throughout the country, shouldn't everybody get to vote? That's a strange argument. Should the other member states of the EU have gotten to vote on Brexit?
  - simias 9y ago
    Brexit was made possible by article 50 of the treaty on european union[1]. This article was introduced by the treaty of Lisbon[2] which was approved by the european parliament and ratified by all EU members. So while only UK citizens got to vote on brexit the legal possibility to exit the union was actually approved by all the EU members. If there was an article in the spanish constitution that allowed for a region to secede under certain conditions we wouldn't be having this discussion. Furthermore the UK always remained a sovereign state, with its own currency, army etc... It's hardly comparable to Catalunya. The scottish referendum would be a better comparison. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_50_of_the_Treaty_on_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_50_of_the_Treaty_on_Eu... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon

icebraining 9y ago

The next Catalan elections will be a referendum by another name, no? Obviously without legal force, but if the parties for independence win big, it'll be hard to claim it's for any other reason - and the same for the parties against it.

gonvaled 9y ago
True, and this already happened in the last elections to the Catalan Parliament (Generalitat). But it's sad to fake referendums by hijacking elections, which exist for completely different reasons. This just mixes and confounds lots of different issues, and makes parliamentary elections meaningless. The question of independence is complex enough that warrants a dedicated vote.
pjc50 9y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't any more Catalan elections or the independence parties were banned from standing in them.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  That's a coup of the Spanish State, isn't it?
- gonvaled 9y ago
  Mmmm, that would degenerate rapidly into civil disobedience. It is hard to see how the central Spanish government can change the opinions of a big part of Catalan society by playing hard ball. I would say that the harder they go, the most people they antagonize. And therein lies the problem: 15 years ago the amount of pro-independence was relatively low, but the Central government has refused to take the demands of the Catalan government seriously. The current political class ruling in Spain is completely overwhelmed on how to deal with a changing society, and the structure of the Spanish State is inflexible, to the point of having to argue that in order for a region to push for the changes they feel they are entitled to, first they need to reform the Constitution, something that is impossible to achieve since the reforms they want to implement are blocked by exactly the same people that would block a reform of the Constitution. Go figure.

simias 9y ago

I guess the point is that given that the spanish government considered the referendum illegal, people not in favor of independence would probably not have wanted to caution it by participating. Clearly in these conditions the results can't be trusted. It's more like "90% of the people who thought the referendum was legitimate are in favor of independence". There's obviously a big selection bias. As for the question of whether the referendum was legitimate or not, the problem in my opinion is how can you consider a referendum democratic if only a tiny portion of the country's population gets to take the decision? Catalunia becoming independent would have consequences throughout the country, shouldn't everybody get to vote? And if not, where do you draw the line? Paris and its region generate about 1/6th of the total GDP of France, what if Parisians decided to declare independence? What about the Lega Nord in Italy? And let's not even talk about the historical economic divide between eastern/western Germany or the variations of GDP between states in the USA. What if all the rich people in Japan decided to all move to an inhabited island and declare independence with 100% of the vote? Would that be legitimate?

Ajedi32 9y ago
> Catalunia becoming independent would have consequences throughout the country, shouldn't everybody get to vote? That's a strange argument. Should the other member states of the EU have gotten to vote on Brexit?
- simias 9y ago
  Brexit was made possible by article 50 of the treaty on european union[1]. This article was introduced by the treaty of Lisbon[2] which was approved by the european parliament and ratified by all EU members. So while only UK citizens got to vote on brexit the legal possibility to exit the union was actually approved by all the EU members. If there was an article in the spanish constitution that allowed for a region to secede under certain conditions we wouldn't be having this discussion. Furthermore the UK always remained a sovereign state, with its own currency, army etc... It's hardly comparable to Catalunya. The scottish referendum would be a better comparison. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_50_of_the_Treaty_on_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_50_of_the_Treaty_on_Eu... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon