Catalonia’s Constitutional Crisis
Catalonia’s surge for independence from Spain reached its climax late last year, leaving countless families and indeed, the entire nation, bitterly divided. Hundreds of thousands of people have regularly taken to the streets in Madrid and Barcelona as the war of words escalated between the central Spanish government and Carles Puigdemont’s separatists.
As a half-Spaniard, I am angered by the tumultuous situation we now find ourselves in. The severe lack of dialogue and egotistical manner of the opposing leaders made haste to polarize the nation and rekindle a historic division in Spanish politics. As more than two million Catalans came out to vote in an unconstitutional referendum, a scandalous election day unfolded that ended with polling stations under siege and citizens being brutally assaulted by Spanish police. Such democratic repression and pre-emptive militarised force against its own people echoes a Spanish totalitarian history most would wish to forget.
Only weeks after the controversial vote and the autonomous Catalan parliament declared its independence from the rest of Spain with a highly questionable mandate. Although 90% of counted votes from the referendum supported independence, around 2.5 million Catalans did not vote — hardly an overwhelming majority. The government in Madrid was then forced to intervene and take direct control of the region by triggering Article 155 of its constitution. Such was the desperation to keep the union together that the King of Spain, Felipe VI broke out of political impartiality describing the actions of the Catalan parliament as “irresponsible” in a rare television interview that only served to add fuel to the flame.
As Spain now imposes its rule over the region, various top Catalan officials including Puigdemont himself have fled to Brussels as Spanish courts seeks to trial them for rebellion. We should all be greatly alarmed by this. We are talking about democratically elected politicians in a modern European country that fear their own state on the basis of political persecution. Imagine the calamitous situation if David Cameron had not only denied the Scottish people a referendum, but condoned violence against voters and arrested Alex Salmond for rebelling against the UK. There would undoubtedly be uproar.
Mariano Rajoy’s government has since called for local elections to settle the matter as he hopes Madrid-backing representatives will replace the hunted separatists. However, should the Catalan people again vote in an independence-backing majority in December, then the case for a legitimate referendum will be indisputable. In this possible situation, the Spanish government would be under serious pressure to allow Catalonia to choose its future.
If a subordinate Catalonia is what Rajoy is after, then history is against him. Catalonia’s relationship with the rest of Spain has been somewhat brushed aside in recent discourses, yet it remains the most important reason why the region seek independence. The end of the War of Spanish Succession in 1714 marked the centralization of the Kingdom and thus the loss of any regional autonomy. Nonetheless, Catalans have retained a fierce sense of identity, cultural tradition and their own language despite various attempts to oppress these sentiments. The Catalan language was officially banned in Francoist Spain (1939–75) along with the traditional dance — La Sardana. Of course, in the wave of democratic change after this period, the region once again thrived under Spanish dominion. However, a sense of cultural and political oppression has long manifested the minds of many Catalans and has certainly evoked feelings of separation in the past.
For the past six years, Catalonia’s national day — La Diada, has been used as political rally by pro-independence supporters to call upon the central government to give them a referendum. In homage to the Siege of Barcelona in 1714, the 11th September frequently attracts a million people to Barcelona’s streets. As a regular protestor at La Diada, Santi Ponce, a historian and professor at the University of Vic says, “after 300 years, it’s time we celebrated a victory”. From Madrid’s point of view, it is easy to see why these calls haven’t been heeded — the region accounts for 25% of Spain’s exports and 19% of GDP.
There is of course more to this story than past divisions. According to most polls, the majority of Catalans do not want independence, so why has this flame been ignited in recent years? Firstly, to borrow a phrase, ‘the will of the people’ has been utterly ignored. Most Catalans want greater autonomy but to remain within the union. Had attempts been made earlier to devolve further powers to Catalonia then radical ideas of succession would not have taken flight in the way that they have. To completely ignore the historical context and sensitivity of the issue is ignorant and frankly arrogant on part of the Spanish government. Secondly, left-wing and right-wing politics in Spain have hardened since the 2008 economic crash. Rajoy presides over an authoritarian conservative government that is hell-bent on a harsh austerity programme along with the Catalan government widely accused of corruption at the highest level. In response, pockets of left-wing movements have sprung up across the country and nowhere more prominently than in Barcelona where the radical Ada Colau was elected major in 2015. Similar to Scotland, the region’s traditional working class has been left behind, and with no signs of the cut backs coming to an end and political sclerosis widespread, the idea of an autonomous nation became hugely attractive.
The current turbulent political climate in Spain and the existing divisions suggest that the question of Catalan self-determination is unlikely to go away any time soon. Personally, I am not a supporter of Catalan independence but I do believe they should be allowed to choose for themselves, just as the Scottish people were. Whether we, in Britain, support it or not is actually irrelevant, but surely what we can all agree upon is the right to democracy. This right can not be undermined and stripped away from people in the manner in which has happened. A whole generation saw social justice wrapped up with a desire for greater autonomy that has so far been denied to the Catalan people, using force as a means to quell that movement cannot be the answer. Negotiation and dialogue must be the way forward.
Available on: Chalkboard Journal, 2018
