Spanish
life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
-
Christopher Howse: A
Pilgrim in Spain.
Cataluña: So,
What Happens Now?
Well, we could all play the guessing game but this
take from this morning's Times is as good as any:-
Why is Carles
Puigdemont in Brussels?
To try to steal back the political limelight from Madrid. The Catalan Republic lasted just a few hours before Madrid sacked Mr Puigdemont and his entire government, dissolved the parliament and called regional elections. He was left facing a possible 30-year jail term and questions about the survival of the independence movement, which is riven with divisions between hardliners and moderates over whether to fight in elections on December 21. His dramatic dash to Belgium is an attempt to portray himself as the victim of a politically biased justice system and to rally EU support.
To try to steal back the political limelight from Madrid. The Catalan Republic lasted just a few hours before Madrid sacked Mr Puigdemont and his entire government, dissolved the parliament and called regional elections. He was left facing a possible 30-year jail term and questions about the survival of the independence movement, which is riven with divisions between hardliners and moderates over whether to fight in elections on December 21. His dramatic dash to Belgium is an attempt to portray himself as the victim of a politically biased justice system and to rally EU support.
How long before he
goes home?
He has been summoned to testify to judges in Madrid tomorrow about his declaration of independence [charged with rebellion and sedition and of illegally using €6.2 million of public funds]. He says he will return when he can be sure of a fair trial, and appears to be remaining in Brussels for the foreseeable future. If he fails to answer the Madrid court’s summons he may apply for political asylum in Belgium to avoid extradition. That may prove to be a long drawn-out process and one that would lead to a potentially serious row between Spain and Belgium, two longstanding EU allies.
He has been summoned to testify to judges in Madrid tomorrow about his declaration of independence [charged with rebellion and sedition and of illegally using €6.2 million of public funds]. He says he will return when he can be sure of a fair trial, and appears to be remaining in Brussels for the foreseeable future. If he fails to answer the Madrid court’s summons he may apply for political asylum in Belgium to avoid extradition. That may prove to be a long drawn-out process and one that would lead to a potentially serious row between Spain and Belgium, two longstanding EU allies.
Isn’t this all a
bit contradictory?
Yes. Mr Puigdemont claimed yesterday to be still running a rebel Catalan administration, albeit from Brussels — yet he agreed to contest the regional elections in December, imposed by Madrid, and to abide by the result. So on the one hand he appears to want to continue to paint himself as the president of Catalonia while on the other he is accepting the mandate of the Spanish government.
Yes. Mr Puigdemont claimed yesterday to be still running a rebel Catalan administration, albeit from Brussels — yet he agreed to contest the regional elections in December, imposed by Madrid, and to abide by the result. So on the one hand he appears to want to continue to paint himself as the president of Catalonia while on the other he is accepting the mandate of the Spanish government.
Has Madrid gained
the upper hand?
Yes, for now. Madrid’s hardline interpretation of the law has triggered the dramatic spectacle of Mr Puigdemont fleeing the country and potentially running away from Spanish justice. He will find few friends in Brussels. No government will support him and even Belgium’s Flemish separatist party has distanced itself from him, despite senior figures suggesting he may be a candidate for asylum.
Yes, for now. Madrid’s hardline interpretation of the law has triggered the dramatic spectacle of Mr Puigdemont fleeing the country and potentially running away from Spanish justice. He will find few friends in Brussels. No government will support him and even Belgium’s Flemish separatist party has distanced itself from him, despite senior figures suggesting he may be a candidate for asylum.
What happens
next?
How long Mr Puigdemont remains in exile is anybody’s guess. Already jokes have started about him getting a job serving moules frites. He will be trying to concentrate on the election campaign, on which the future of independence hangs. Separatist parties have said they may stand as a coalition in December, but there are splits between moderate groups who favour negotiating an agreed referendum, like Scotland, and radicals for whom another unilateral declaration is the only answer. Mr Puigdemont may try to pull them together but the far-left Popular Unity Candidacy, which provided crucial support to give him power, has refused to stand and has distanced itself from the other two independence parties.
How long Mr Puigdemont remains in exile is anybody’s guess. Already jokes have started about him getting a job serving moules frites. He will be trying to concentrate on the election campaign, on which the future of independence hangs. Separatist parties have said they may stand as a coalition in December, but there are splits between moderate groups who favour negotiating an agreed referendum, like Scotland, and radicals for whom another unilateral declaration is the only answer. Mr Puigdemont may try to pull them together but the far-left Popular Unity Candidacy, which provided crucial support to give him power, has refused to stand and has distanced itself from the other two independence parties.
Meanwhile . . . . Back
in the real world of Spain . . . .
- A poll published by a Catalan government survey office yesterday found that 49% of Catalans now backed secession — the highest figure for three years. This rather highlights the risk Madrid is running in going with the only real option it had of early elections.
- There is a suggestion that the Catalan and Spanish governments are in secret negotiations under the aegis of the EU in Brussels. I suppose it could be true. But I happened to read this comment on conspiracy theories yesterday:- Conspiracy theories are seductive but they pollute politics by dressing up attacks on fact as striving for the truth. Conspiracy thinking involves a concerted attack on the truth dressed up as concern for the truth. And it hacks at the roots of political democracy, arguing that everything we think we know, we don’t. And that every institution we invest with authority is in fact organised to subvert our interests. The goodies are really the baddies.
- Speaking of conspiracy thinking . . . An anonymous group of Spaniards has asked whether Spain really is the democracy she appears to be. The fascinating article at the end of this post contains some well-known facts and some lesser-know claims. It might be true but it might also be a farrago of truth, half-truths and lies. Perhaps one or more of my more cynical - but knowledgable - Spanish readers could comment on it. If you can't be bothered to read the whole thing, this is the final para:- What the international community needs to understand, is that Catalonia is a modern developed nation that is prepared to embrace real democracy and yearning for it. The rest of Spain, on the other hand, is not and won’t be for a long while, if it ever gets there. So we need to stop seeing the Catalan sovereignty movements as “nationalists” an understand that for most Catalans it is as much a question of democracy as it is a question of identity. All those who believe and support democracy need to support Catalonia for it is the only way to ensure a peaceful transition towards a prosperous and democratic Catalan Republic. With time, we hope that this will help the Spanish people to reconsider their position and progressively embrace democracy. Otherwise, other regions are bound to follow the Catalan trail as soon as they become mature enough in democratic terms.
- Rather interesting is that this conclusion ignores the fact that Catalan governments over the years have been as corrupt as any other in Spain.
Life
in (normal) Spain
- Spanish companies openly advertise jobs at below the minimum wage. Presumably because they can get away with it. Yesterday, I clocked an ad for 'a highly qualified person' to manage the bookings in a holiday rentals business, at €800 a month plus accommodation. I wonder what they'd pay someone who wasn't 'highly qualified'.
- Five years after it was completed, Spain's 48th airport will soon have someone to operate it. This will be the partly state-owned AENA, which manages 46 of the other airports. The new one will be at Corvera in Murcia, close to 2 other airports. Not everyone is convinced it makes sense. HT to reader Sierrra for this news.
- Here's somewhere where you might not want to sleep, in Cardona. On the other hand . . .
Public Service
Advice
- If you get a product made in China and the instructions talk about 'loop and hook', this is what we Brits call 'velcro'. I guess the first of these is US law-suit-avoiding usage.
- If you're an over-50 Brit resident in Spain, this web page will be of interest.
- The phrase since he/she started his/her journey in 1990 merely means since 1990. 'Journey' has become one of those pointlessly obligatory words of today's journalism.
Finally
. . . You
don't get many headlines as loaded with irony as this one: Man
Charged With Killing Friend After Argument Over Biblical Forgiveness.
Today's
Cartoon:-
RECYCLING |
THE ARTICLE
Spain is not
a democracy
In its short history as
a nation-state, Spain has never been a democracy, it is not a
democracy and has no intention whatsoever of becoming one.
Here, we will intend to
explain how we have arrived to such conclusion, but, first, a…
DISCLAIMER
Of course, we won’t
ask you to take our word for the contents of this article. Instead,
we encourage you to do your own research and to draw your own
conclusions. We are aware that this is going to sound like a
ludicrous conspiracy theory. This has been written in a rush, the
English sucks, references are not provided and one shouldn’t expect
a hundred percent accuracy, however, we have tried to keep the
contents of this article as historically factual as possible. Mere
conjectures are explicitly or implicitly highlighted as such. The
rest comes straight from several decades of conversations with
first-hand witnesses, press-reading and dot-connecting.
This article is
anonymous and has been published using the Tor infrastructure. This
makes the identities of the authors hard, but not impossible, to
trace/guess. We kindly request you to refrain from any speculation
regarding such identities. Please, keep in mind that if you point
your finger to someone, that person would be facing jail, or worse…
We are Spaniards. Not
Catalans, not Basques, plain Spaniards. We are not affiliated with
any political party or organization. We have no structured ideology.
We are not nationalists and we are not
communists/socialists/anarchists. Nothing. We have no agenda. We are
just normal citizens who are sick of corruption, lies and
totalitarianism. We stand for democracy. That’s all.
THE INVENTION OF SPAIN
Wait a minute, have we
said “short history”? Isn’t Spain one of the oldest nations in
Europe? No, it isn’t. Spain, as such, exists only since 1833 when
the Castilian queen Elisabeth II dictated by royal decree that,
thenceforth, all of her kingdoms, colonies and other possessions
should be collectively known as Kingdom of Spain.
At that time, the
Kingdom of Portugal submitted an official diplomatic complaint
because, having been Spain a geographical denomination up to then,
Portugal accused the Kingdom of Castile of trying to usurp a name
that belonged to all the nations in the Iberian Peninsula. Indeed,
this was like if, at some point in history, the king/queen of England
had decided to group his/her kingdoms under the collective
denomination of Kingdom of Britain.
It was also at about
this time, 1833, when the administrative reforms mandated by the
Cadiz Constitution of 1812 (a bad copycat of the French Constitution)
started to be enforced and the Spanish “nation” to be
constructed.
Prior to 1833, however,
there was no “Spain”, at least not officially. There was the
Kingdom of Castile and other annexed kingdoms and colonies (such as
Galicia, Navarre and Aragon). Spain is, therefore, as a nation-state,
younger than the United States of America. It is true that,
informally, the Iberian kingdoms submitted to the rule of the
Castilian monarch were referred to as “Spain” and his subjects as
“Spaniards” or “Spanish”, but this is the same as referring
to the USA as “America” and to the USA citizens as “Americans”,
obviating the fact that the Mexicans or the Brazilians are also
American, in the same way that the Portuguese were “Spanish”
prior to the usurping of the name by the Castilian crown in 1833.
Needless to say, these
historical trifles are neither taught in Spanish schools nor
mentioned in the Spanish Wikipedia. Myths are used instead.
THE REPUBLICS
All the history of
Castile/Spain, from the times of the Spanish Inquisition to our days,
is tainted with totalitarian fanaticism. It’s true that the liberal
winds coming from France and the United Stated inspired some
Spaniards to try and make a democratic republic out of the kingdom.
However, both endogenously-driven attempts were so precarious and
short-lived (1873-1874 and 1931-1936, some will say 1939, never mind)
that they hardly deserve to me mentioned. Except, maybe, for the fact
that both were violently ended by military coup d’états. Indeed,
the Spanish elites have always been, and still are, absolutely
allergic to democracy. And here we are not talking only about the
military elites, but, primarily about the economic elites. Just a
hint: Franco, like Hitler, was just a puppet. If we are to understand
politics, as we’ll see later, we always need to follow the money.
The second Spanish
Republic resulted, as we all know, in a “civil” war and a
sanguinary fascist dictatorship that lasted 40 years. And here is
where things get interesting.
THE SPANISH TRANSITION
(THE SECOND BOURBONIAN RESTORATION)
By the end of the 1960s
a tsunami of civil rights movements seemed to be swiping the planet,
which, needless to say, made people on top a bit nervous. After four
decades of NATO-sponsored fascist dictatorships in Portugal and
Spain, it was obvious that the party was coming to an end. The
dictators were old and a new generation of youngsters and workers
inspired by the international civil rights movements was starting to
give them grieve. Plus, let’s not forget, the Soviet Union was
still strong. It was crucial for NATO to control these countries’
transition into democracies, lest people started to have their own
(wrong) ideas…
So the CIA and its
client secret services, namely France’s and Germany’s, started to
lure key figures of the Spanish regime into the notion of change. We
imagine it would be something like: “listen pal, things are going
to change that you like it or not, so either you help us and
thrive/save your sorry ass or oppose us and sink”. In modern
language we would refer to this kind of persuasive rhetoric as
“change management” and, as we know, it worked pretty well in
Spain (also in Portugal, with some frights).
The problem of this
strategy was that, with few people on the leadership willing to get
their hands dirty with blood, it left the Spanish regime very
vulnerable in extremely sensitive circumstances. Which led to the use
of…
PARAMILITARY TERRORISM
State-sponsored
far-right organizations like Guerrilleros de Cristo Rey (Christ King
Guerrillas) were in charge of doing the dirty job of controlling the
streets and, namely, of intimidating worker and student union
leaders. There were quite a few of such paramilitary organizations
and, combined, they assassinated numerous people.
The reason why we
mention the Guerrilleros in particular is because the current
director of the Spanish Guardia Civil (the oldest law enforcement
order in Spain), Arsenio Fernández de Mesa y Díaz del Río was an
active member of that group. There is no evidence that Fernández de
Mesa took part in any killing, but, along with other guerrilleros, he
participated in the brutal aggression with metal chains against a
16-year-old girl, which happened to be a student union leader at the
local female high school.
No wonder this is one
of the men who sent law enforcement to steal votes and beat old
ladies during the referendum in Catalonia…
Like Fernández de
Mesa, several policemen and members of far-right organizations with
blood in their hands have been since promoted and occupy nowadays
preeminent positions within the Spanish regime.
THE (FORMER) KING
Juan Carlos I, the
former king of Spain is often praised as a savior of the Spanish
democracy due to his alleged involvement in Tejero’s attempt of
coup d’état of 1981 (23F).
The first thing we need
to understand is that 23F was not a real coup d’état. During
the Spanish transition there were big tensions between the more
extremists elements of the regime, those who supported a real
“ruptura democrática” (democratic breakdown) and those willing
to compromise (including the foreign secret services that controlled
the process). The first were particularly worried about separatists
and communists, but, mainly, about the possibility of the former
regime leaders and those who engaged in violent repression having to
stand trial. 23F was their way of tracing a line on the sand and
making everybody willing to compromise and forget. By means of
scaring the population to the bone, obviously. It was subsequently
used as the axis of a huge marketing campaign aimed at washing Juan
Carlos’ image and presenting him as a hero.
He wasn’t. In fact,
Juan Carlos was literally adopted by Franco as a young boy, when his
family was exiled in Portugal. He was the chosen one and was groomed
by the dictator himself to be his successor. No wonder Juan Carlos
always talks about Franco with love and respect, as it he was his
real father.
There are plenty of
other things we could mention about this controversial figure like
how he “accidentally” killed his brother by shooting him in the
head when he was visiting his family for Christmas. And that wasn’t
the only member of the family well-positioned for succession who died
in mysterious circumstances… Finally, investigating the origin of
his and his family fortune would provide enough material for several
books.
THE POLITICAL PARTIES
The classical
free-market democracy party structure, one conservative-liberal (UCD)
party and one social-democrat party (PSOE) alternating in power,
could not work in Spain. There was a reason for that, as well as an
anomaly.
The reason was that
Catalonia and the Basque Country had their own nationalist
bourgeoisies, which made it impossible for the Spanish right-wing to
ever become hegemonic in these regions. These made necessary a
ménage-à-quatre, which brought two additional parties to the list
of systemic organizations. Thus, we should have ended up with UCD,
PSOE, CiU and PNV.
However, as we
mentioned, there was also an anomaly. A former Franco minister with
plenty of blood in his hands had created his own political party,
Alianza Popular (AP, nowadays, Partido Popular, PP). Initially, AP
was a far-right party which didn’t even vote the constitution and
was not accepted in Europe. This stubborn fascist was called Manuel
Fraga and he ended up successfully competing with the, also former
Franco minister, Adolfo Suarez (UCD) for the same political base and
beating him at his own game.
Today, the party he
founded, the Popular Party (PP), has the complete hegemony of the
Spanish right-wing, from the far-right to the liberal center and it
is the main political party in Spain.
In summary, at
the end of the day, we ended up with four systemic parties: PP, PSOE,
CiU, PNV. The idea was the rotation of CiU/PSOE in Catalonia, of
PNV/PSOE in the Basque Country and of PP/PSOE in the rest of the
Spain.
This system worked
pretty well (for them) until another former fascist that goes by the
name of José María Aznar decided to blow everything up. First by
creating far-right media in order to make Spain turn to the to the
far right and then by pissing the Catalans off as much as he possibly
could, Aznar put into serious risk the “consensus” inherited from
the transition. But that’s another story…
SE TUTTI I CORROTTI
PORTASSERO UN LAMPIONE…
These four parties were
initially funded by several secret services (including the Spanish
one) and were subsequently given carte blanche to find any other
sources of funding they could possibly imagine, be them legal or
illegal.
The idea was to secure
the absolute hegemony for this quartet and make sure that none of the
non-systemic parties stood any chance. Needless to say, in a
free-market democracy, it’s (almost) all about money.
This absolute impunity
gave rise to the most corrupt political system in Europe. One that is
intrinsically corrupt and that, logically, attracted every
unscrupulous opportunists in the country.
There is corruption and
corruption, though. The most fascinating event in Spanish politics is
precisely how the PP founder, Manuel Fraga was able to find the money
in order to gather around him the bulk of the Spanish right-wing.
But, before we go into that, a word about his competitors, the PSOE.
PARTIDO SOCIALISTA
OBRERO ESPAÑOL (PSOE)
The Socialist Party.
One might be tempted to think, well ,they are as corrupt as the
Popular Party but at least they are not the direct heirs of a fascist
regime…
Think twice. They are
exactly the same people, only with, initially, lower profiles. Fraga
and Suárez were visible faces of the regime. Felipe González,
former leader of the PSOE and First Minister for 16 years, wasn’t.
However, like Aznar and numerous others, in his youth González was a
very active and radical member of a fascist organization, the Falange
Española. And he was far from being the only one within the
leadership of the party.
In order to make the
Socialist Party palatable for the most extremist elements of the
Spanish regime and to purge any real socialist from the leadership,
the French/German/American secret services had a brilliant idea. To
almost entirely replace the leadership with low-profile young and
bright fascist elements like González himself and several others.
In order to accomplish
this, they celebrated a party congress in 1974 as far from Spain as
they could afford. They chose the French commune of Suresnes, north
of Paris.
Who could afford
traveling to Paris? Who was allowed to leave the country? The chosen
ones… A marvelously orchestrated “coup de partie” which
resulted in former falangistas de facto controlling the PSOE (the so
called “barones”).
PARTIDO POPULAR (PP)
We are getting to it
now. How was old cunning Fraga able to defeat a younger, more
moderate and handsomer Suárez on his quest for the hegemony of the
Spanish right-wing?
Well, do you remember
the far-right organizations we mentioned above? As the regimen “fell”
or, should we say, “evolved”, they had to look for funding
elsewhere. Their entrepreneurial spirit led them to focus on three
lucrative business models: private security, drug trafficking, and
prostitution.
At the same time, the
entrepreneurs who had been smuggling tobacco through the southern
Galician shores started to think bigger and made of Galicia the main
import hub for Colombian cocaine in Europe. A happy marriage then
took place and some of that imported white powder started to be
distributed to the national market via the brothels and networks
managed by the former far-right paramilitary elements, now turned
into businessmen. This is what some people call the “narco-Nazi”
connection, not very different from Colombia itself…
Seeking political power
and respectability, some narcos went into politics and become elected
representatives by the Popular Party (PP), including majors of small
towns. This all happened in the Galician province of Pontevedra,
being the provincial president some Mariano Rajoy, who would later
become the First Minister of Spain. Unfortunately, a few of these
popular narcos ended up being arrested and sentenced, along with the
regional treasurer of the Galician PP, Rosendo Naseiro, accused of
finding as creative as illegal ways of funding the party. The
connection between the irregular funding the the drug trafficking,
however, was never established by the judges. As we explained above,
the four systemic parties enjoyed full immunity, they were
untouchable (for this was strictly required for the “stability”
of the regime), and therefore the investigations were stopped when
they had just started to scratch the surface. Impunity, was a state
affair.
At that point, the PP
realized that having their own narcos in-house was too risky and they
decided to use the connections previously established by their
friends from the far-wing organizations. If Rajoy was the liaison in
Pontevedra, in the capital, Santiago de Compostela, a young bright
fellow was appointed to the task. He goes by the name of Alberto
Núñez Feijóo and, guess what, he is nowadays the regional
president of Galicia and a strong candidate for the succession of
Mariano Rajoy as party leader and, potentially, First Minister.
At the time, he was head of the regional health department and the
protégé of an Opus Dei man, Romay Beccaría, then “minister” in
the regional government. NOTE: The Opus Dei is a catholic
organization created by Spanish fascists to mimic the efficient
Freemasonry’s traffic of influences networks, even if they hated
Freemasons…
The regional government
hired a former Guerrillero de Cristo Rey, Manuel Cruz, as chauffeur.
Manuel Cruz was also a very good friend and fascist comrade of the
previously mentioned Arsenio Fernández de Mesa (now director of the
Guardia Civil, as we said) until his tragic dead in a car crash. He
was also the middleman between the Spanish far-right movements and
the Arousa cartels, chiefly, drug-trafficker Marcial Dorado. Now,
when the famous photographs of Feijóo and Dorado in the latter’s
yacht were leaked to the press (from confidential court documents,
presumably due to an internal war in the regional PP between Feijóo
and the Baltar clan), Feijóo stated that he was not aware that
Dorado was a narco when they were friends and that it was Cruz who
had introduced him to Dorado. When further pictures of the president
and the narco were leaked, this time skiing, Feijóo didn’t want to
remember where the photos were taken. He said, “maybe Picos de
Europa”. It wasn’t Picos de Europa, it was Andorra, a tax haven
on the French/Spanish border well known of money launderers… In
summary, Manuel Cruz presumably transferred the narco connection from
the far-right movements to Feijóo and the Popular Party.
Pictures of Rajoy
himself pronouncing a discourse during a political campaign on board
of a fishing boat belonging to another famous narco have also
appeared in the press. Sometimes non-Spaniards are amazed that such
pictures hadn’t seem to have any effect on the political careers of
either of these two men. People reason that they are presidents “in
spite of” the pictures and their friendships with narcos. The truth
is that they are presidents precisely because, by acting as liaisons
between the party and the narcos, they enabled the PP to become what
it is today. They are powerful because they took the risk and they
know too much. They are untouchable.
As we also mentioned
prostitution, on a more anecdotal note, it is worth remembering the
friendship between the party founder, Manuel Fraga, and the famous
businesswoman and madam Karina Falagán. Falagán owned numerous
establishments (including, of course, brothels) in Vigo and it was
inconceivable for Fraga, then President of Galicia, to visit the town
without paying a visit to his old friend Karina. This was good for
business, for it provided Falagán’s establishments with fame and
respectability and doubtlessly increased their cache. We wonder what
share of that increased margin of profits ended up funding the
party’s campaigns…
THE SECOND TRANSITION
Because corruption is
intrinsic to the Spanish regime emanated from the Bourbonian
restoration or Spanish transition, we could keep talking about it
forever. The party-builders connections, the revolving doors, etc.
But that is something that happens in most countries so everyone
knows how it goes. In recent years, the tip of the iceberg of that
corruption has finally reached the courthouses. A number of trials
have taken or are taking place and a number of people have been
sentenced (including businessmen, politicians, and even the king’s
family). No one seems to stay in jail for long, if they go at all,
but the trials may be perhaps interpreted as a symptom of the will of
putting an end to impunity.
Yes, because, even if
that impunity was an essential and intrinsic element of the regime
for it assured that the systemic parties, and only the systemic
parties, were able to acquire significant power in the institutions
of the kingdom, it has also lead to levels of corruption that make
the Spanish state not only completely inefficient but, simply,
unviable. In a few words, the Spain emanated from the transition is a
failed state.
A question arises,
though, in a country that is intrinsically and completely corrupt,
who would have the power and the will to fight corruption. We suspect
that, this “second transition” is being exogenously-induced, as
it was the first. We believe it is probably the European Union who is
trying to get Spain out of the corruption black hole it is sunk into.
In order to do so
however, we need new systemic parties that would be able to
capitalize on people’s disenchantment with corruption but that,
being new, are still clean from that corruption. So we have
Ciudadanos (C’s), which is the new PP and Podemos, which is the new
PSOE.
So, is there hope for
Spain? We don’t think so, not at least in the short/medium term. On
the one hand, the new parties don’t seem to be able to actually
replace the old ones. They are in fact becoming political hinges
that, by supporting the mayor systemic parties, will end up sunk into
corruption and totalitarian practices. On the other hand, as we have
seen in the Spanish response to the Catalan referendum, explicit
fascism in Spain is still very strong. Each time that there is a risk
of Spain becoming a somehow democratic country, they are on the
streets provoking violence and exhibiting their fascist symbols and
Nazi salutes. In Barcelona, for instance, both major parties, PP and
PSOE, enabled these extremist elements to take absolute ownership of
the demonstrations and the discourse.
It’s not that they are back.
They have always been there. They are just used when needed. Finally,
as all Spanish First Ministers except for Zapatero (all Suárez,
González, Aznar and Rajoy), the leader of Ciudadanos, Albert Rivera,
has also been a member of far-right organizations. It would seem that
the Spanish right-wing only trusts people with a proven fascist
pedigree to be their leaders…
CATALONIA
Then, there is also the
problem in Catalonia. So far the Basque PNV stays loyal to the
(first) transition agreements and so the Basque country is expected
to remain in Spain via a rotation between the PNV and a coalition of
all the Spanish nationalist combined (PP/PSOE/C’s). However, in
Catalonia, the major party (the former CiU) was kicked out from the
agreement by Aznar (followed by Zapatero), who tried to crush them by
exposing the corruption of the Pujol’s era, obviating the fact that
that was state-sponsored corruption. There is absolutely no way than
there can be any stability in the region without including a
legitimate representation of the Catalan middle-classes. Furthermore,
the complete lack of respect towards Catalonia shown by the Spanish
government, followed by the police brutality and the
government-sponsored fascist demonstrations in Barcelona, have very
likely pushed the Catalan people definitively away from wishing any
kind of involvement the Spanish project.
What the international
community needs to understand, is that Catalonia is a modern
developed nation that is prepared to embrace real democracy and
yearning for it. The rest of Spain, on the other hand, is not and
won’t be for a long while, if it ever gets there. So we need to
stop seeing the Catalan sovereignty movements as “nationalists”
an understand that for most Catalans it is as much a question of
democracy as it is a question of identity. All those who believe and
support democracy need to support Catalonia for it is the only way to
ensure a peaceful transition towards a prosperous and democratic
Catalan Republic. With time, we hope that this will help the Spanish
people to reconsider their position and progressively embrace
democracy. Otherwise, other regions are bound to follow the Catalan
trail as soon as they become mature enough in democratic terms.
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