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From my not so knowledgeable point of view we have: It seems the Spanish government messed up massively here. Instead of embracing a referendum about independe

From my not so knowledgeable point of view we have: It seems the Spanish government messed up massively here. Instead of embracing a referendum about independence they decided to flatly declare it illegal and attempt to ignore the problem. If they initially embraced the referendum they could have won, I believe that a Yes vote to independence nearly always ends up failing. But instead what happened is, they blankly declared it illegal and hoped that would be the end of it. While parties who were against independence were telling people to boycott it and parties for it telling people to vote yes. It seems the only outcome there is a massive yes vote. Once they had the massive yes vote, they have a democratic mandate for independence. Not only that, they get to say they have 90% mandate. The only way forward from that is for the Spanish government to back down and start negotiations or for indepence to be declared. Here we are as Catalan declares independence, which it seems can either turn into a civil war, a flat-out failure with everyone arrested, Spain eating some humble pie to get them back to the table, or Spain just accepting Catalan is gone. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

chrisbrowning 9y ago
That probably would have been the better move as far as "optics" are concerned, but the Spanish constitution states that this kind of referendum is illegal. In any case -- I think the ruling party in Spain wanted this to flare up so they could consolidate political support during the next election, since most of Spain is adamantly opposed to Catalan independence.
- ryanlol 9y ago
  Not true. It states that this kind of a referendum is invalid.
  - chrisbrowning 9y ago
    I won't split hairs with you on that, but -- right or wrong -- Spain's Constitutional Court ordered the referendum stopped, and the Spanish government moved to enforce that order.
- eumenides1 9y ago
  As a Canadian kid, i never understood why they would let Quebec go through with a referendum. Seems insane to just "divorce" a country (for lack of better words). As i grew up, i thought it was pretty progressive to allow it. As an adult, it seems like the only logical tactical option. A lot of people will claim that it isn't legal. They will be right. But their constitution wasn't written with modern times in mind. <b>Without violence</b>, how is Spain going to stop Catalan from succeeding? What if Catalan gets violent? How will Spain respond? There are very few good moves left here for Spain.
  - gsnedders 9y ago
    > But their constitution wasn't written with modern times in mind. 1978 really wasn't that long ago. I'd call 1978 modern times!
    - kobeya 9y ago
      It was coming out of a fascist dictatorship at the height of the Cold War. I’d say the context was pretty far removed from the modern EU, even if it was in living memory.
    - tomjen3 9y ago
      Counterpoint: it is only a year after their facist dictator died: Germany in 45 and 95 were very different places.
      - kgwgk 9y ago
        1978-1975=3
  - pvaldes 9y ago
    > Without violence, how is Spain going to stop Catalan from succeeding? Empire of Law.
alvatar 9y ago
I keep reading this in international media. The Spanish government didn't declare the referendum illegal. It was the top court, which is independent from the government. The government ensures that the law is applied once that is decided. That said, I think Spain should have held a referendum (by changing the constitution). Everything would have been much easier.
- ensignavenger 9y ago
  Most definitions of government include the judicial system as part of government. I don't know much Spanish, maybe they have different words for the different parts of government, but no word that describes all of government in general, so maybe it is just a translation issue.
- titanix2 9y ago
  Who is paying the judges wages? For important matter like that, it is difficult to trust that the State and the government have totally no implication.
  - gras 9y ago
    This, and: Who are funding the independence movement?
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
  In the US "the government" typically applies to either all three branches (courts, legislature, executive) or occasionally to the latter two only. The latter definition is typically only used in the case of a lawsuit involving the state. This is in contrast to parliamentary systems where the government is formed of the dominant political party or coalition in parliament, and also gets to act as the executive branch. The US almost always uses the first definition (all 3 branches are government), parliamentary systems almost always use the second (courts aren't government). In the first (more common) US-style sense, the government certainly did declare the referendum illegal.
  - 9y ago
6t6t6t6 9y ago
> it seems can either turn into a civil war When only one of the sides have weapons, there can not be a civil war, only a genocide. I am convinced that there is a limit on the violations of Human Rights that Europe will be able to tolerate from a state member.
- jcadam 9y ago
  If the alternative is direct military intervention by the other member states, I suspect they're prepared to tolerate quite a bit.
- simias 9y ago
  "civil war", "genocide". Come on people, don't throw these words willy-nilly, leave that to bad news outlets. Yes, the spanish government was quite brutal in its attempt to stymie the referendum (probably unnecessarily so) but we're not on the verge of a catalan genocide in any way, shape or form. If you keep abusing words they end up losing their meaning.
  - narag 9y ago
    Yes, the spanish government was quite brutal in its attempt to stymie the referendum That's wrong. There were a handful of injured, don't believe the propaganda. Most international media that were fooled by that lies have acknowledged this much.
    - 6t6t6t6 9y ago
      I will just leave this here: https://spanishpolice.github.io/ https://spanishpolice.github.io/
      - microcolonel 9y ago
        It's interesting to see how quickly people will downplay and deny the actions of the Guardia Incivil. If the referendum is illegitimate, why suppress it? ;- )
simion314 9y ago
But the referendum was invalid because of the constitution, you can't ignore the constitution because you want, you need to change the constitution.
- ryanlol 9y ago
  >you can't ignore the constitution because you want Uh? Why not? This has been done countless of times in history.
  - johannes1234321 9y ago
    If a government renders the government irrelevant they take away their own legitimation. Sure in past that append a common term for that is "revolution" or "coup".
    - fixermark 9y ago
      ... and Catalan doesn't have a military position to enforce its influence. The United States was an exception, but it was an exception borne of geographic distance and fighting against a parent already beset by its adjacent neighbors. Catalan will have no such military advantages if people try to settle this dispute via civil war.
- psadri 9y ago
  Everyone keeps talking about the constitution as if it is set in stone. The constitution was made by people, 50 years ago. It can and should be changed to reflect new realities.
  - mtmail 9y ago
    And those people probably put in rules on how to change it, e.g. two-third majority vote.
  - nemo44x 9y ago
    Then change the constitution instead of blithely ignoring it and conducting an illegal election.
harperlee 9y ago
> If they initially embraced the referendum they could have won They could have also lost in that case. There has been a huge for-independance campaign spanning 20+ years and including indoctrination of former children that now can vote. The last governments should not have ignored the problem, making instead an effort to provide objective information on what an independence entails. This is not something that you can level with a couple of months of "No" campaign. My take on this is that we end up having to open a process to change the Constitution with an ensemble of unprepared politicians (on all sides of the table) that blocks the country for a couple of years (for reference, we have recently spent 18 months with a government in functions because we could not manage to vote the new president). EDIT: It seems that some people didn't like "indoctrination". Ignore the word, my comment remains the same: education has been strongly focused on building a Catalan identity. It is not something that you level in a short term campaign. In Rajoy's shoes, this is something against his position.
- _jal 9y ago
  > indoctrination of former children that now can vote. That's an odd way to refer to that thing parents do when raising their kids. We call it 'talking' to them. You make it sound so sinister - almost like parents were passing on their religion or something.
  - gonvaled 9y ago
    Only the other side indoctrinates, didn´t you know that!?
    - ben_w 9y ago
      It’s one of those irregular verbs, isn’t it? I pass on my values, you tell fairytales, they indoctrinate their young.
      - gonvaled 9y ago
        Excellent! Do you have more irregular verbs?
yeukhon 9y ago
Why would the Spanish government let the Catalans declare independence regardless of the outcome of the illegal referendum?
- barrkel 9y ago
  Because the alternative is forcible oppression and denial of the right of self-determination. Read more about the right of self-determination here: http://www.unpo.org/article/4957 http://www.unpo.org/article/4957
  - narag 9y ago
    That right is only for colonies or genocide, not the case of Catalonia at all. They're one of the richest spanish regions. Edit: they've neve been independent, that's more of the bs that we're hearing these days.
    - ben_w 9y ago
      What is the fundamental difference between a colony and any other patch of territory?
      - narag 9y ago
        Are you serious?
        ben_w 9y ago
        Yes, I am. While people displaced by a colony are obviously disadvantaged, the colony itself and its residents are not.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        > While people displaced by a colony are obviously disadvantaged, the colony itself and its residents are not. I think you may be confusing the pattern of colonization in British North America with colonization more generally; the pattern elsewhere was more often of subordination to an imported elite rather than displacement.
marcosscriven 9y ago
They can’t really claim a mandate for leaving when those who wanted to stay boycotted the vote. That said, it would have been much less divisive if a proper referendum had been sanctioned.
- frobozz 9y ago
  They have a better mandate than UK leaving the EU: 92% pro, from a 43% turnout = 39.56% of the electorate in favour of Catalan independence. Compare to 52% of 72% = 37.44% of the electorate in favour of Brexit.
  - marcosscriven 9y ago
    I see I have been down voted. As someone born in Barcelona, with dual Spanish/British nationality, all I can say with certainty is that I’m deeply saddened to lose not one, but possibly now two connections to my European neighbours.
    - lllllll 9y ago
      Looking at the silver lining, you gain a new citizenship, being Barcelona born. :)
    - marcosscriven 9y ago
      Crazy. Even just expressing my own feelings on the matter is worthy of someone down voting. So very peculiar. Someone doesn’t agree I am deeply saddened?!
      - marcosscriven 9y ago
        There’s one seriously pathetic lone down voter out there.
      - dang 9y ago
        These comments are breaking the site guidelines. Would you please read them and follow them when commenting here? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
whorleater 9y ago
>It seems the Spanish government messed up massively here. Instead of embracing a referendum about independence they decided to flatly declare it illegal and attempt to ignore the problem. Did they? The EU doesn't support Catalan independence, the US doesn't support the movement, the Catalan independence has 0 backing from any outside source, while most countries see this as an internal affair within Spain. Madrid even loosened rules on Spanish companies, allowing them to easily move their headquarters to Madrid, triggering an exodus out of Barcelona. The response was certainly heavy-handed, but the table is definitely in Madrid's favor. >Here we are as Catalan declares independence, which it seems can either turn into a civil war, a flat-out failure with everyone arrested, Spain eating some humble pie to get them back to the table, or Spain just accepting Catalan is gone. Catalan has 0 outside support and the support within the region is fractured as well, with Barcelona split on opinion. Many major companies have already moved their headquarters from Barcelona to Madrid. Spain has constitutional powers vis-a-vis Article 155 to impose authority. All signs point to this independence movement being a flop.
- celticninja 9y ago
  You dont need outside support to declare independence, it is of no concern to those in Catalan what the US or anyone else thinks. The best course of action for the Catalan parliament would have been to call an election and then if they won it with a decent majority used that as their mandate to declare independence. As it is they dont have a solid mandate so it is easier for Spain and the EU to ignore them, however all those Catalans who didnt support independence may well change their minds if the spanish army comes rolling into Barcelona.
  - fixermark 9y ago
    "You don't need outside support to declare independence" is a philosophically pleasing but politically unsound idea. It's the sort of thing that leads to martyred revolutionaries instead of redrawn boundaries on a map.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    > You dont need outside support to declare independence, it is of no concern to those in Catalan what the US or anyone else thinks. Good luck without being self-sufficient.
Erikun 9y ago
Not quite that simple from what I understand. A week before the vote the Catalan parliament passed two laws, one that a referendum should be held and one that if yes to independence won, regardless of turnout, independence would be unilaterally declared. No way that the spanish government could allow that to go ahead unchallenged. Its worth noting that they have allowed nonbonding votes previously, there was one in 2014 with similar results and turnout. Its the fact that this one was binding that caused the crisis. https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/09/economist-explains-17 https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/09/e...
vilmosi 9y ago
>>> If they initially embraced the referendum they could have won The UK government thought like you. It allowed the people to vote for Brexit, thinking it would never pass. And here we are today.
- johnnyfaehell 9y ago
  The UK government did exactly that and got a no vote to the Scottish independence. The Brexit vote was full-on farce, people literally had no idea what they were voting yes to. How could they, there was no plan.
  - PeachPlum 9y ago
    The plan was laid out clearly. The question asked of the electorate was also clear. February 2016 The process for withdrawing from the European Union Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs by Command of Her Majesty https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/504216/The_process_for_withdrawing_from_the_EU_print_ready.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm... 2.1 The result of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union will be final. The Government would have a democratic duty to give effect to the electorate’s decision. The Prime Minister made clear to the House of Commons that “if the British people vote to leave, there is only one way to bring that about, namely to trigger Article 50 of the Treaties and begin the process of exit, and the British people would rightly expect that to start straight away”. The referendum question, June 2016 : --- Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union? [ ] Remain a member of the European Union [ ] Leave the European Union --- Of the votes cast 51.9% Leave (17,410,742), 48.1% Remain (16,141,241) Electorate 46,501,241 37.4% of the electorate voted to leave 34.7% of the electorate voted to remain
    - marcosscriven 9y ago
      I don’t think it’s valid to claim the non voters in an aggregate 65%. Otherwise you could say 68% of the country didn’t vote to leave. Which presumably means it was a stronger position. Edit - I see you removed that claim.
flexie 9y ago
I cannot imagine that it ends in a civil war. Civil wars happen when you have 1) a lot of young men, 2) who have little to lose, and 3) who are used to living a life with not much more comfort than that of a soldier (maybe even less) The young generation in Catalonia is small, they have a lot to lose, and they live very comfortable lives. I don't see them taking up arms. Maybe they will take to the streets for a few days, but they are not willing to fight in great numbers, or give up studies or jobs. In the last civil war in Spain or the one in America or the ones in the Middle East, those conditions were present.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Those factors make war of any kind more likely, but are not necessary for it, civil or otherwise.
- epmatsw 9y ago
  Doesn’t Catalonia have a 13% unemployment rate? And a ~40% unemployment rate among young people? Seems like that fits those criteria pretty well...
  - flexie 9y ago
    There is a huge difference between the well educated but for now unemployed Catalan, 28 year old, only child (or with one or two siblings), always well fed, always warm, maybe living with his parents, maybe sharing a flat somewhere, all his life feeling safe, spending his days playing Xbox, surfing the Internet, chasing girls, hanging out on cafes or bars or going to Camp Nou to watch games, going skiing in January, to the beach in the Summer and then your young, angry Arab man, third son in a family of 5, little education, no girls, no fun, no safety, no future.
    - scientistem 9y ago
      It actually sounds like you’re describing the leadup to wwi. These conditions lead to war, not against it. I’d love to hear a contrary opinion for the downvote I got: gross economic disparity and a large populace that has forgotten war sounds a lot like the early twentieth century.
tigerBL00D 9y ago
The full context for this decision includes Brexit.
pvaldes 9y ago
> Instead of embracing a referendum about independence they decided to flatly declare it illegal Not, this is a lie. Was not the government that declared it illegal. Were the judges of the hightest spanish tribunal, because in their opinion this is a disguised coup against constitution. > Once they had the massive yes vote the only way out to the evil government is to surrender and negociate... Another thousand times repeated lie. Because 2 million of votes (including X people voting n>1 times) is now the 90% of 46 million of people (including 7,5 million of catalonian people). Lets suppose, for example, that some people would want to reinstall the slavery to Louisiana, or to bring comunism to Nebraska. "Would be good for the economy" they say. So they require to ask people for "blah blah blah democracy". Let suppose that they declare that if the referendum is positive, all black people will lose their properties and be slaves again, "because blah blah blah, pacifism". And they want you to pay this circus with your tax money, because their shamelessness is infinite. And then some people ask that government should allow this, because voting is good. Should the government "embrace" this spoiled children acts and let them to steal millions of dollars in their face?. Everybody can promote a referendum to ask people their opinion about anything, but with their money, without using public buildings and resources and without shamelessly declaring that the results from the poll will trigger a chain of illegal abuses and changes for most of the people in the zone.
- RobertoG 9y ago
  Not sure why you feel the need to use slavery or communist as an example here, instead of, for instance, secessionist. Maybe you expect to elicit a sense of horror in your readers?
  - pvaldes 9y ago
    Well, some of the ingredients here are the comrades of the self claimed anticapitalist party Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) asking for some veeery peculiar things, (i.e. proposing to expropriate the Cathedral of Barcelona to make a market and a school of music there), and there was also a larvate (and sometimes not so larvate) racism and harassment against non indepentendist spaniards that last for years. Taking all of this in mind and much other things, I think that can be taken as a fair example. Not equal, but much closer than you could expect.
carlosrg 9y ago
A government doesn't declare things "illegal", judges are the ones that do it. According to our constitution, Spain is not divisible, plus regions can't decide something like that in a referendum because national sovereignty belongs to all Spanish citizens. I.e. regions aren't sovereign. Same as most if not all federal governments out there, by the way.
- mixmastamyk 9y ago
  Sounds illegitimate to me.
aminorex 9y ago
Despots rarely give up without a fight. I question whether Catalans are willing to pay with their blood to gain their freedom. Clearly Rajoy is happy to shed their blood in order to keep them in thralldom.
panglott 9y ago
The key point for me was when Spain announced that they were going to remove Catalonia's autonomy and dissolve its parliament. What did they expect Catalonia to do? This seems like an iconic example of what NOT to do when faced with an independence referendum. Compare the situation in Scotland or Canada, where AIUI the central government grudgingly permitted the referendum, campaigned on the issue locally, and offered symbolic concessions to local autonomy while focusing heavily on the pragmatic risks and costs of independence. In Catalonia by contrast we have plenty of images of the police violently disrupting the referendum and independence protesters, then pledging to end local autonomy altogether.
- ethbro 9y ago
  I get the sense it's the tail wagging the dog now in Madrid. They scored political points with the rest of the country keeping "those Catalonians" in line. Now that action is required, the rest of the country is so riled up there's little room for compromise.
- pvaldes 9y ago
  Some people does not understand that the independence referendum is a MacGuffin here. Not the main goal. Is just a symbol of power. Another step to bend the arm of the central government again, not the end of the agenda. Catalonian people had another referendum in 2016, plus one free elections in between. Is insane to keep asking for a referendum each 6 months until independence is forced
  - tassl 9y ago
    That's not true. There was no referendum in 2016 and there is no "keep asking for a referendum" because the only referendum held was 1-O, and did not come from an agreement with Spanish government. If Spain would have agreed on a referendum, the current situation would be very different.
    - pvaldes 9y ago
      You are right, it was in november 2014, not 2016. My bad. Time flies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_self-determination_referendum,_2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_self-determination_ref... Thanks for the correction
pakitan 9y ago
That's not how referendums work. Are you saying that if tomorrow you and few buddies decided to set up a new country, on a land you own, via a "referendum", the government should just go with it?
- smilekzs 9y ago
  More like you and a couple millions of buddies?
  - coryfklein 9y ago
    At exactly which number does democracy allow a group of people to secede?
  - pakitan 9y ago
    Why does the number matter? Lots of people here (including the person I was replying to) talk about the "right thing" to do, not about military power. If it's the right thing to allow for millions of peoples to secede, why isn't it the right thing for me and few buddies to secede? Are we inferior in some way? Where is the cutoff? Is it ok to secede if we are 1000 people? 10K? 100K?

chrisbrowning 9y ago

That probably would have been the better move as far as "optics" are concerned, but the Spanish constitution states that this kind of referendum is illegal. In any case -- I think the ruling party in Spain wanted this to flare up so they could consolidate political support during the next election, since most of Spain is adamantly opposed to Catalan independence.

ryanlol 9y ago
Not true. It states that this kind of a referendum is invalid.
- chrisbrowning 9y ago
  I won't split hairs with you on that, but -- right or wrong -- Spain's Constitutional Court ordered the referendum stopped, and the Spanish government moved to enforce that order.
eumenides1 9y ago
As a Canadian kid, i never understood why they would let Quebec go through with a referendum. Seems insane to just "divorce" a country (for lack of better words). As i grew up, i thought it was pretty progressive to allow it. As an adult, it seems like the only logical tactical option. A lot of people will claim that it isn't legal. They will be right. But their constitution wasn't written with modern times in mind. <b>Without violence</b>, how is Spain going to stop Catalan from succeeding? What if Catalan gets violent? How will Spain respond? There are very few good moves left here for Spain.
- gsnedders 9y ago
  > But their constitution wasn't written with modern times in mind. 1978 really wasn't that long ago. I'd call 1978 modern times!
  - kobeya 9y ago
    It was coming out of a fascist dictatorship at the height of the Cold War. I’d say the context was pretty far removed from the modern EU, even if it was in living memory.
  - tomjen3 9y ago
    Counterpoint: it is only a year after their facist dictator died: Germany in 45 and 95 were very different places.
    - kgwgk 9y ago
      1978-1975=3
- pvaldes 9y ago
  > Without violence, how is Spain going to stop Catalan from succeeding? Empire of Law.

alvatar 9y ago

I keep reading this in international media. The Spanish government didn't declare the referendum illegal. It was the top court, which is independent from the government. The government ensures that the law is applied once that is decided. That said, I think Spain should have held a referendum (by changing the constitution). Everything would have been much easier.

ensignavenger 9y ago
Most definitions of government include the judicial system as part of government. I don't know much Spanish, maybe they have different words for the different parts of government, but no word that describes all of government in general, so maybe it is just a translation issue.
titanix2 9y ago
Who is paying the judges wages? For important matter like that, it is difficult to trust that the State and the government have totally no implication.
- gras 9y ago
  This, and: Who are funding the independence movement?
SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
In the US "the government" typically applies to either all three branches (courts, legislature, executive) or occasionally to the latter two only. The latter definition is typically only used in the case of a lawsuit involving the state. This is in contrast to parliamentary systems where the government is formed of the dominant political party or coalition in parliament, and also gets to act as the executive branch. The US almost always uses the first definition (all 3 branches are government), parliamentary systems almost always use the second (courts aren't government). In the first (more common) US-style sense, the government certainly did declare the referendum illegal.
- 9y ago

6t6t6t6 9y ago

> it seems can either turn into a civil war When only one of the sides have weapons, there can not be a civil war, only a genocide. I am convinced that there is a limit on the violations of Human Rights that Europe will be able to tolerate from a state member.

jcadam 9y ago
If the alternative is direct military intervention by the other member states, I suspect they're prepared to tolerate quite a bit.
simias 9y ago
"civil war", "genocide". Come on people, don't throw these words willy-nilly, leave that to bad news outlets. Yes, the spanish government was quite brutal in its attempt to stymie the referendum (probably unnecessarily so) but we're not on the verge of a catalan genocide in any way, shape or form. If you keep abusing words they end up losing their meaning.
- narag 9y ago
  Yes, the spanish government was quite brutal in its attempt to stymie the referendum That's wrong. There were a handful of injured, don't believe the propaganda. Most international media that were fooled by that lies have acknowledged this much.
  - 6t6t6t6 9y ago
    I will just leave this here: https://spanishpolice.github.io/ https://spanishpolice.github.io/
    - microcolonel 9y ago
      It's interesting to see how quickly people will downplay and deny the actions of the Guardia Incivil. If the referendum is illegitimate, why suppress it? ;- )

simion314 9y ago

But the referendum was invalid because of the constitution, you can't ignore the constitution because you want, you need to change the constitution.

ryanlol 9y ago
>you can't ignore the constitution because you want Uh? Why not? This has been done countless of times in history.
- johannes1234321 9y ago
  If a government renders the government irrelevant they take away their own legitimation. Sure in past that append a common term for that is "revolution" or "coup".
  - fixermark 9y ago
    ... and Catalan doesn't have a military position to enforce its influence. The United States was an exception, but it was an exception borne of geographic distance and fighting against a parent already beset by its adjacent neighbors. Catalan will have no such military advantages if people try to settle this dispute via civil war.
psadri 9y ago
Everyone keeps talking about the constitution as if it is set in stone. The constitution was made by people, 50 years ago. It can and should be changed to reflect new realities.
- mtmail 9y ago
  And those people probably put in rules on how to change it, e.g. two-third majority vote.
- nemo44x 9y ago
  Then change the constitution instead of blithely ignoring it and conducting an illegal election.

harperlee 9y ago

> If they initially embraced the referendum they could have won They could have also lost in that case. There has been a huge for-independance campaign spanning 20+ years and including indoctrination of former children that now can vote. The last governments should not have ignored the problem, making instead an effort to provide objective information on what an independence entails. This is not something that you can level with a couple of months of "No" campaign. My take on this is that we end up having to open a process to change the Constitution with an ensemble of unprepared politicians (on all sides of the table) that blocks the country for a couple of years (for reference, we have recently spent 18 months with a government in functions because we could not manage to vote the new president). EDIT: It seems that some people didn't like "indoctrination". Ignore the word, my comment remains the same: education has been strongly focused on building a Catalan identity. It is not something that you level in a short term campaign. In Rajoy's shoes, this is something against his position.

_jal 9y ago
> indoctrination of former children that now can vote. That's an odd way to refer to that thing parents do when raising their kids. We call it 'talking' to them. You make it sound so sinister - almost like parents were passing on their religion or something.
- gonvaled 9y ago
  Only the other side indoctrinates, didn´t you know that!?
  - ben_w 9y ago
    It’s one of those irregular verbs, isn’t it? I pass on my values, you tell fairytales, they indoctrinate their young.
    - gonvaled 9y ago
      Excellent! Do you have more irregular verbs?

yeukhon 9y ago

Why would the Spanish government let the Catalans declare independence regardless of the outcome of the illegal referendum?

barrkel 9y ago
Because the alternative is forcible oppression and denial of the right of self-determination. Read more about the right of self-determination here: http://www.unpo.org/article/4957 http://www.unpo.org/article/4957
- narag 9y ago
  That right is only for colonies or genocide, not the case of Catalonia at all. They're one of the richest spanish regions. Edit: they've neve been independent, that's more of the bs that we're hearing these days.
  - ben_w 9y ago
    What is the fundamental difference between a colony and any other patch of territory?
    - narag 9y ago
      Are you serious?
      - ben_w 9y ago
        Yes, I am. While people displaced by a colony are obviously disadvantaged, the colony itself and its residents are not.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        > While people displaced by a colony are obviously disadvantaged, the colony itself and its residents are not. I think you may be confusing the pattern of colonization in British North America with colonization more generally; the pattern elsewhere was more often of subordination to an imported elite rather than displacement.

marcosscriven 9y ago

They can’t really claim a mandate for leaving when those who wanted to stay boycotted the vote. That said, it would have been much less divisive if a proper referendum had been sanctioned.

frobozz 9y ago
They have a better mandate than UK leaving the EU: 92% pro, from a 43% turnout = 39.56% of the electorate in favour of Catalan independence. Compare to 52% of 72% = 37.44% of the electorate in favour of Brexit.
- marcosscriven 9y ago
  I see I have been down voted. As someone born in Barcelona, with dual Spanish/British nationality, all I can say with certainty is that I’m deeply saddened to lose not one, but possibly now two connections to my European neighbours.
  - lllllll 9y ago
    Looking at the silver lining, you gain a new citizenship, being Barcelona born. :)
  - marcosscriven 9y ago
    Crazy. Even just expressing my own feelings on the matter is worthy of someone down voting. So very peculiar. Someone doesn’t agree I am deeply saddened?!
    - marcosscriven 9y ago
      There’s one seriously pathetic lone down voter out there.
    - dang 9y ago
      These comments are breaking the site guidelines. Would you please read them and follow them when commenting here? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

whorleater 9y ago

>It seems the Spanish government messed up massively here. Instead of embracing a referendum about independence they decided to flatly declare it illegal and attempt to ignore the problem. Did they? The EU doesn't support Catalan independence, the US doesn't support the movement, the Catalan independence has 0 backing from any outside source, while most countries see this as an internal affair within Spain. Madrid even loosened rules on Spanish companies, allowing them to easily move their headquarters to Madrid, triggering an exodus out of Barcelona. The response was certainly heavy-handed, but the table is definitely in Madrid's favor. >Here we are as Catalan declares independence, which it seems can either turn into a civil war, a flat-out failure with everyone arrested, Spain eating some humble pie to get them back to the table, or Spain just accepting Catalan is gone. Catalan has 0 outside support and the support within the region is fractured as well, with Barcelona split on opinion. Many major companies have already moved their headquarters from Barcelona to Madrid. Spain has constitutional powers vis-a-vis Article 155 to impose authority. All signs point to this independence movement being a flop.

celticninja 9y ago
You dont need outside support to declare independence, it is of no concern to those in Catalan what the US or anyone else thinks. The best course of action for the Catalan parliament would have been to call an election and then if they won it with a decent majority used that as their mandate to declare independence. As it is they dont have a solid mandate so it is easier for Spain and the EU to ignore them, however all those Catalans who didnt support independence may well change their minds if the spanish army comes rolling into Barcelona.
- fixermark 9y ago
  "You don't need outside support to declare independence" is a philosophically pleasing but politically unsound idea. It's the sort of thing that leads to martyred revolutionaries instead of redrawn boundaries on a map.
- notyourday 9y ago
  > You dont need outside support to declare independence, it is of no concern to those in Catalan what the US or anyone else thinks. Good luck without being self-sufficient.

Erikun 9y ago

Not quite that simple from what I understand. A week before the vote the Catalan parliament passed two laws, one that a referendum should be held and one that if yes to independence won, regardless of turnout, independence would be unilaterally declared. No way that the spanish government could allow that to go ahead unchallenged. Its worth noting that they have allowed nonbonding votes previously, there was one in 2014 with similar results and turnout. Its the fact that this one was binding that caused the crisis. https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/09/economist-explains-17 https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/09/e...

vilmosi 9y ago

>>> If they initially embraced the referendum they could have won The UK government thought like you. It allowed the people to vote for Brexit, thinking it would never pass. And here we are today.

johnnyfaehell 9y ago
The UK government did exactly that and got a no vote to the Scottish independence. The Brexit vote was full-on farce, people literally had no idea what they were voting yes to. How could they, there was no plan.
- PeachPlum 9y ago
  The plan was laid out clearly. The question asked of the electorate was also clear. February 2016 The process for withdrawing from the European Union Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs by Command of Her Majesty https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/504216/The_process_for_withdrawing_from_the_EU_print_ready.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm... 2.1 The result of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union will be final. The Government would have a democratic duty to give effect to the electorate’s decision. The Prime Minister made clear to the House of Commons that “if the British people vote to leave, there is only one way to bring that about, namely to trigger Article 50 of the Treaties and begin the process of exit, and the British people would rightly expect that to start straight away”. The referendum question, June 2016 : --- Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union? [ ] Remain a member of the European Union [ ] Leave the European Union --- Of the votes cast 51.9% Leave (17,410,742), 48.1% Remain (16,141,241) Electorate 46,501,241 37.4% of the electorate voted to leave 34.7% of the electorate voted to remain
  - marcosscriven 9y ago
    I don’t think it’s valid to claim the non voters in an aggregate 65%. Otherwise you could say 68% of the country didn’t vote to leave. Which presumably means it was a stronger position. Edit - I see you removed that claim.

flexie 9y ago

I cannot imagine that it ends in a civil war. Civil wars happen when you have 1) a lot of young men, 2) who have little to lose, and 3) who are used to living a life with not much more comfort than that of a soldier (maybe even less) The young generation in Catalonia is small, they have a lot to lose, and they live very comfortable lives. I don't see them taking up arms. Maybe they will take to the streets for a few days, but they are not willing to fight in great numbers, or give up studies or jobs. In the last civil war in Spain or the one in America or the ones in the Middle East, those conditions were present.

dragonwriter 9y ago
Those factors make war of any kind more likely, but are not necessary for it, civil or otherwise.
epmatsw 9y ago
Doesn’t Catalonia have a 13% unemployment rate? And a ~40% unemployment rate among young people? Seems like that fits those criteria pretty well...
- flexie 9y ago
  There is a huge difference between the well educated but for now unemployed Catalan, 28 year old, only child (or with one or two siblings), always well fed, always warm, maybe living with his parents, maybe sharing a flat somewhere, all his life feeling safe, spending his days playing Xbox, surfing the Internet, chasing girls, hanging out on cafes or bars or going to Camp Nou to watch games, going skiing in January, to the beach in the Summer and then your young, angry Arab man, third son in a family of 5, little education, no girls, no fun, no safety, no future.
  - scientistem 9y ago
    It actually sounds like you’re describing the leadup to wwi. These conditions lead to war, not against it. I’d love to hear a contrary opinion for the downvote I got: gross economic disparity and a large populace that has forgotten war sounds a lot like the early twentieth century.

tigerBL00D 9y ago

The full context for this decision includes Brexit.

pvaldes 9y ago

> Instead of embracing a referendum about independence they decided to flatly declare it illegal Not, this is a lie. Was not the government that declared it illegal. Were the judges of the hightest spanish tribunal, because in their opinion this is a disguised coup against constitution. > Once they had the massive yes vote the only way out to the evil government is to surrender and negociate... Another thousand times repeated lie. Because 2 million of votes (including X people voting n>1 times) is now the 90% of 46 million of people (including 7,5 million of catalonian people). Lets suppose, for example, that some people would want to reinstall the slavery to Louisiana, or to bring comunism to Nebraska. "Would be good for the economy" they say. So they require to ask people for "blah blah blah democracy". Let suppose that they declare that if the referendum is positive, all black people will lose their properties and be slaves again, "because blah blah blah, pacifism". And they want you to pay this circus with your tax money, because their shamelessness is infinite. And then some people ask that government should allow this, because voting is good. Should the government "embrace" this spoiled children acts and let them to steal millions of dollars in their face?. Everybody can promote a referendum to ask people their opinion about anything, but with their money, without using public buildings and resources and without shamelessly declaring that the results from the poll will trigger a chain of illegal abuses and changes for most of the people in the zone.

RobertoG 9y ago
Not sure why you feel the need to use slavery or communist as an example here, instead of, for instance, secessionist. Maybe you expect to elicit a sense of horror in your readers?
- pvaldes 9y ago
  Well, some of the ingredients here are the comrades of the self claimed anticapitalist party Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) asking for some veeery peculiar things, (i.e. proposing to expropriate the Cathedral of Barcelona to make a market and a school of music there), and there was also a larvate (and sometimes not so larvate) racism and harassment against non indepentendist spaniards that last for years. Taking all of this in mind and much other things, I think that can be taken as a fair example. Not equal, but much closer than you could expect.

carlosrg 9y ago

A government doesn't declare things "illegal", judges are the ones that do it. According to our constitution, Spain is not divisible, plus regions can't decide something like that in a referendum because national sovereignty belongs to all Spanish citizens. I.e. regions aren't sovereign. Same as most if not all federal governments out there, by the way.

mixmastamyk 9y ago
Sounds illegitimate to me.

aminorex 9y ago

Despots rarely give up without a fight. I question whether Catalans are willing to pay with their blood to gain their freedom. Clearly Rajoy is happy to shed their blood in order to keep them in thralldom.

panglott 9y ago

The key point for me was when Spain announced that they were going to remove Catalonia's autonomy and dissolve its parliament. What did they expect Catalonia to do? This seems like an iconic example of what NOT to do when faced with an independence referendum. Compare the situation in Scotland or Canada, where AIUI the central government grudgingly permitted the referendum, campaigned on the issue locally, and offered symbolic concessions to local autonomy while focusing heavily on the pragmatic risks and costs of independence. In Catalonia by contrast we have plenty of images of the police violently disrupting the referendum and independence protesters, then pledging to end local autonomy altogether.

ethbro 9y ago
I get the sense it's the tail wagging the dog now in Madrid. They scored political points with the rest of the country keeping "those Catalonians" in line. Now that action is required, the rest of the country is so riled up there's little room for compromise.
pvaldes 9y ago
Some people does not understand that the independence referendum is a MacGuffin here. Not the main goal. Is just a symbol of power. Another step to bend the arm of the central government again, not the end of the agenda. Catalonian people had another referendum in 2016, plus one free elections in between. Is insane to keep asking for a referendum each 6 months until independence is forced
- tassl 9y ago
  That's not true. There was no referendum in 2016 and there is no "keep asking for a referendum" because the only referendum held was 1-O, and did not come from an agreement with Spanish government. If Spain would have agreed on a referendum, the current situation would be very different.
  - pvaldes 9y ago
    You are right, it was in november 2014, not 2016. My bad. Time flies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_self-determination_referendum,_2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_self-determination_ref... Thanks for the correction

pakitan 9y ago

That's not how referendums work. Are you saying that if tomorrow you and few buddies decided to set up a new country, on a land you own, via a "referendum", the government should just go with it?

smilekzs 9y ago
More like you and a couple millions of buddies?
- coryfklein 9y ago
  At exactly which number does democracy allow a group of people to secede?
- pakitan 9y ago
  Why does the number matter? Lots of people here (including the person I was replying to) talk about the "right thing" to do, not about military power. If it's the right thing to allow for millions of peoples to secede, why isn't it the right thing for me and few buddies to secede? Are we inferior in some way? Where is the cutoff? Is it ok to secede if we are 1000 people? 10K? 100K?