CATALUÑA BEFORE THE STORM
A Twitter joke began to do the rounds in Spain on Thursday. It said: “At 02:00 on Sunday the clocks go back . . . to 1936.” That was the year the Spanish Civil War began.
A few days ago, I wrote of what was happening in 'Wonderland'. So, I was pleased so see the word crop up in this excellent take by the Sunday Times on the October madness in Spain. I've underlined the most important sentences, which stress something many of us have been saying since the start of it all. Needless to say, the author concludes that, while no one has any idea how things will go from here, many of us are very fearful of the future:-
Catalonia
crisis: Ghosts of civil war march in Spain
The fear
that many in Spain harbour but few dare breathe the name of, other
than in jokes and nervous laughter, is that history may repeat itself
and the political crisis in Catalonia will spiral violently out of
control. A handful of politicians have warned of an “Ulsterisation”
of the region, of sectarian strife, not between Catholics and
Protestants but between two bands almost as bitterly opposed these
days: those against and those in favour of Catalan independence.
However, such politicians tend quickly to be shouted down. It is too
awful to contemplate the possibility of something even dimly
resembling Francisco Franco’s savagely cruel war happening again.
Yet the war’s shadow is there, hovering over Spanish minds.
All kinds
of images suggest themselves in the attempt to describe the
unnecessary, confusing and perilous mess in which Spain and Catalonia
have landed themselves. A bullfight, maybe; or a Barcelona-Real
Madrid match; or Alice in Wonderland, with a sprinkling of Monty
Python, Salvador Dali and Donald Trump.
Let’s
try the bullfight first, with Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish prime
minister, playing the bull and Carles Puigdemont, the separatist
president of the Catalan regional government since January last year,
the matador. The bull is not very imaginative and has little truck
with dialogue or compromise but does have clarity of purpose — in
this case to obliterate the Catalan independence movement.
The
matador lacks the strength to put the bull to the sword, so his best
hope is to dodge and weave, tiring the beast, exhausting its will to
fight. The matador is blind to his own weakness, though. He deludes
himself into thinking he is a match for the bull. As suicidal as he
is romantic, he wraps himself in the red and gold colours of Catalan
secessionism and invites it to charge.
That’s
what happened on Friday, the most politically action-packed day in
Catalonia since the civil war. Puigdemont unilaterally declared
Catalan independence — just the red rag Rajoy needed to invoke
article 155 of the Spanish constitution, impose direct rule on
Catalonia, order the overthrow of the Catalan government and call
regional elections on December 21. Late at night, a spokesman of
Rajoy’s centre-right Popular Party said Puigdemont’s arrest was
imminent.
Politics
is not primarily about persuasion for Rajoy: it is about enforcing
the law. No one had doubted how he would respond to Puigdemont’s
declaration of independence, but that did not stop the latter’s
supporters reacting to it with euphoria. “This is a dream come
true, a historic victory,” declared separatist politicians, as if
Barcelona had just beaten Real Madrid in a cup final, when all they
had done was score an early goal prior to an inevitable thumping.
All sides
seem to be living in Wonderland. The present crisis was sparked on
October 1 by a referendum that was never a referendum; it was a mass
demonstration with a dash of street theatre, with the people who
turned up and cast their symbolic, non-binding votes overwhelmingly
being those in favour of independence. Unsurprisingly, just 43% of
the electorate voted and 90% of them elected to leave Spain.
Puigdemont
and the coalition of separatists, anarchists and left-wing radicals
that gave him a narrow parliamentary majority judged this electoral
mirage to be sufficiently compelling to warrant Friday’s
declaration of independence.
Puigdemont
and company believe, like Alice’s Humpty Dumpty, that words mean
exactly what they choose them to mean. Rajoy and company could have
put their own interpretation on the “referendum”, seen it for
what it really was and ignored it. Instead, spoiling for a fight,
they took the separatists at their word, got terribly exercised about
their “illegal” and “unconstitutional” behaviour and sent in
the guardia civil, who proceeded to club old ladies over the head in
front of the world’s media. It was the worst day for Spain’s
global reputation since the rioting that followed the death of
Franco.
All
this could have been avoided five years ago, when the independence
movement burst from obscurity into light. The present crisis, and
indeed, the rise to power of the Puigdemont crowd, would never have
come about had Rajoy responded with the requisite political nous to a
demonstration in September 2012 that saw 1m people fill the streets
of Barcelona, clamouring for independence. That is a lot in a Catalan
region with a total population of 7.5m.
At the
very least, Rajoy could have begun formal discussions on granting
Catalonia greater autonomy — at best he would have granted
the Catalans a Scottish-style referendum, which the “no” vote
would most certainly have won, putting to bed the whole problem for a
generation. Instead, he looked the other way, refusing to entertain
talks with the pliable and naturally deal-making centre-right Catalan
government in place at the time. Rajoy retreated into a make-believe
world in which — never mind the evidence on the streets — Catalan
independence was the province of a small bunch of radical agitators.
The prime
minister does not seem to have budged from this comforting delusion.
Last week, he blithely described the imposition of direct rule from
Madrid as a move designed “to restore democracy”, “restore
peaceful co-existence” and, remarkably, “restore Catalan
autonomy”. He regards the December elections he has called as an
exercise that will clear the air and bring Catalonia cheerfully back
into the Spanish fold, ignoring the strong possibility that, with
Puigdemont and his people absent from the ballot papers — and
possibly in jail by then — such elections will lack legitimacy in
the eyes of half the Catalan population.
A lot can
happen between now and then. Rajoy’s bet is that the Catalan
separatists will succumb to battle fatigue. Yet only last Saturday,
450,000 people filled the streets of Barcelona in protest at the
jailing of two almost unknown Catalan politicians who had helped
organise the October 1 festivities.
How would
they respond to the jailing of Puigdemont? How, for that matter,
would the 17,000-strong Catalan police force, hitherto responsible
only to the Catalan government, react to being told they must
forcefully impose the new Madrid order? Will they clash with the
Spanish guardia civil and Spanish policia nacional?
More
dangerous yet, will the idea take hold among the highly energised
independence-seeking youth that they have been the victims of a
Franquista coup d’état? Will the inevitable demonstrations turn
ugly, with people throwing stones at police? Will there be a death?
Will the Catalan independence movement have its first martyr?
Goaded
into a hardline response by Puigdemont, whose declaration of
independence was as irresponsible as it was illegitimate, Rajoy
has the law on his side — but he is playing with fire.
So . . . In the short term, Cataluña is to be run by Rajoy's traditional stand-in, mouthpiece and enforcer - Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría - a 46 year old lawyer whose entire working experience has been as a civil servant. And who's rather unkindly known as The Poisoned Dwarf.
God help Spain. Not that He helped much last time round. Unless you were a fanatical Catholic, of course. And look how that ended up.
This time round, He again seems to be on the side of the mad right-wing extremists of the PP party, many of whose politicians are said to be the sons and daughters of Franco ministers. And members of the Catholic secret(ive) society Opus Dei.
Those who don't study history . . .
Finally . . . A book title of the 1950s keeps coming back to me . . . Cry, the beloved country.
Today's Cartoon:
Also from The Sunday Times . . .
So . . . In the short term, Cataluña is to be run by Rajoy's traditional stand-in, mouthpiece and enforcer - Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría - a 46 year old lawyer whose entire working experience has been as a civil servant. And who's rather unkindly known as The Poisoned Dwarf.
God help Spain. Not that He helped much last time round. Unless you were a fanatical Catholic, of course. And look how that ended up.
This time round, He again seems to be on the side of the mad right-wing extremists of the PP party, many of whose politicians are said to be the sons and daughters of Franco ministers. And members of the Catholic secret(ive) society Opus Dei.
Those who don't study history . . .
Finally . . . A book title of the 1950s keeps coming back to me . . . Cry, the beloved country.
Today's Cartoon:
Also from The Sunday Times . . .
You'll have noted that the bull - wagged by its tail - is goring itself . . . .
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