There are reports of people voting from two to 4 different schools. Wondering what methods authorities used to ensure there was no fraud on these referendum.
Sounds pretty amazing, with all the violence and militarized police abusing the voters, for some people to be dedicated enough to go through it four times
They organisers knew the courts had instructed police to stop it.
If they wanted to protest then they should've organised protests and demonstrations, which are perfectly allowed in Spain. That would be the democratic way. Not to insist on breaking the law and disobeying court orders.
First-hand experience: Paper census lists aside, you could only vote via a centralized web service where your National ID would be noted. You couldn’t vote twice, despite (one) montage claims so.
I voted. I can't talk about all the schools, but the ones I checked made sure (electronically) that you didn't vote twice, but of course there's a chance that some people did indeed vote more than once if for some reason they manually wrote down the name.
Do not disinform. Names were NEVER written down. Either you voted because you were on the list, or the system validated you were a voter who didn’t vote yet.
As much as I'd like to see Catalonians have a voice in this, given that the referendum is was ruled illegal it seems unlikely that the "no" vote would come out in droves. One crime in protest of another?
Calling a referendum is not a crime nor felony in Spain. For the No to win, nearly 80% of the census should have voted, and that’s assuming all new votes are for No. Absurd. Spain is over, it lost. Watch it live in the markets tomorrow.
How do you think externally forced legality factors into self-determination of a group of people encapsulated linguistically and geographically into a larger nation?
If this was a referendum in Tibet voting to leave China, would you have a different position?
Lot of people were stopped from voting though. Police shut down hundreds of polling stations and intervened in other stations trying to stop people from voting. 42% turnout under these drastic conditions when police is beating up people on streets is not low imho.
Yeah ... if you are willing to take a boot to the face to vote, you probably want to change the status quo. But the boots to the face then validate the results and the rest will be history.
Game theoretically, the fact that the Spanish government was so dead set against the vote implies that they thought there was a significant probability that it would be over 50% regardless. It seems like if a government resorts to violence to stop separatism movements, that violence is prima facie evidence that the separatist sentiment potentially represents the majority of a region.
I have actually been surprised by Spain's response to this. I have always assumed that self-determination was a principle that modern Europeans actually believed in, rather than something that was only a political convenience. I don't know that much about history, though, so perhaps I could be more cynical on the topic.
No western government believes in self-determination. They only believe in results that favour western hegemony. For example, Orange Revolution = good. Crimean referendum = bad. Arab Spring = good. Independent Kurdistan = bad. And so on.
I don't know if you have spent much time in Spain, but they have a tendency to be pretty heavy handed even when they don't need to be. It is a large contributor to the Basque separatist movement for example. I am still waiting to get better numbers on how many people voted etc. since the reports are wildly disparate, but I wouldn't be surprised if the move was more to send a message to other separatist movements than to deal with today in itself.
Regardless, I think the bigger take away from these events is that they have made their bed and now must lay in it. Almost any result of this vote could have been more easily dealt with in almost any other way they could imagine.
According to the article, 2.26 million Catalans voted out of 5.3 million registered voters, so the result is highly significant. Even if only 21% of the people who stayed at home would have voted yes (unlikely), "yes" would still have won.
You're right. I've never been to Spain, I know no one from Spain, and I don't really know anything about Spain, but I do know that using a militarized police force to stop an election, even one that is technically illegal, is pretty messed up and will only serve to further prove the separatists right. If you make peaceful protest illegal, you make violent revolution inevitable.
Even if it's illegal to declare independence, it should never be illegal to vote on anything. I have no stake in the outcome in any way, but at this point I'm rooting for independence. Spain has really proven that they're not worthy of ruling over Catalans if this is how they're treating them during a simple election.
What sort of democracy is it when you can just ignore court orders?
If they wanted to protest then they should've organised protests and demonstrations. If they really wanted to make a point, organise a symbolic voting and have someone face the charges.
To go ahead with the whole thing was reckless. The courts cannot afford to allow themselves to be ignored.
A court order to stop a vote, to me, is appalling. It should be ignored. A vote is just a protest, it is purely symbolic until it's implemented. Voting should never be illegal, even if implementing the law voted on would be illegal.
Marijuana is illegal in many places in the US. It's illegal at the federal level, and even if it's legal in some states, the federal government can still arrest you for having marijuana. But we constantly have votes to try to legalize it at the local or state level, knowing that it's still illegal at the national level.
Having that vote is not illegal, even if following through with the results of the vote is illegal. Courts are not infallible and their orders are not always the best course of action.
Almost every declaration of independence throughout history has been considered illegal. They were reckless. They were against the rule of law. They still happened.
Regardless, a vote is a peaceful action. Responding to that peaceful action with violence is what is reckless and against the rule of law.
I guess there are still some freedoms we take for granted in the US that other countries have not yet granted themselves.
Spain is a relatively "young" democracy by Western standards. It took Franco's death in 1975 for Spain to start the transition to a modern democracy. That said, the Basque region has been trying to separate for awhile. Catalonia wanting to do so just happens to be a bigger fish.
I wonder, what would happen in the United States if California decided it wanted to secede, the Congress passed a resolution opposing it, the President said it was illegal, and the Supreme Court concurred and ruled the vote itself illegal.
Would the US allow the vote to proceed?
It certainly is illegal for any US State to secede, and we fought one of the bloodiest wars in the history of the world over it.
It'd be unconstitutional to interfere in California's referendum process. The referendum wouldn't have any legal force, so why bother interfering anyhow?
California probably will have a succession vote, along with several other West-Coast states, after the Rs gain control of 37 legislatures and pass a series of bigoted Constitutional amendments. I hope that such votes are not violently suppressed, and I'm glad we're seeing object lessons in how awful that tactic is. This isn't the 1860s; we don't have a Lincoln.
I suspect the first will be related to who may or may not use particular public restrooms, since that is an issue of particular interest to many of their supporters. After that, one could imagine something about police tactics, because after all there's nothing more important than the ease with which our boys in blue may brutalize unfortunates.
The details might vary, but this nation is off the leash now, if in fact a nation that gets in so many wars and brutalizes so many different subsets of its people could ever have been said to have been on one. Our rulers have always distracted us from their predations with shit like this, but as the stories get harder to keep straight the distractions have to get bigger.
The optics (at the moment) seem to be the most important issue here. Whether or not the vote is legitimate is quite irrelevant in immediate aftermath. This is a government using physical force against its citizens for, of all things, voting -- a core democratic principle.
Democracy must be tolerant of peaceful protesting. An "illegal" vote (depending who's lens we are viewing this from), to me, is a form of peaceful protest. Candor, mutual respect, and peaceful organizing are some of a few tools democracies have to solve problems without devolving to unrest and violence. If we assume we highly value avoiding violence (and we should), governments need to tolerate the use of these tools, from time to time.
By banning the use of these more moderate options, the national government is essentially promoting dissenters to even less desirable options so they have at least some form of expression. I think we should be surprised the national government chose to use such force when it had far less invasive means for dealing with the consequences of this vote, e.g., courts.
It was an illegal act, funded by public money. Had the government not acted, it would have set a bad precedent: that constitution doesn't hold weight in real life.
Maybe a court should be deciding whether or not it is illegal, not the police. Again, my comment was about using the proper response to a given situation.
I don't think the use of public money for the illegal act necessarily sets a bad precedent. The constitution didn't say to go out there and spray rubber bullets at civilians. So how a government can respond to this illegal act is a subjective choice.
Spain could have chosen to use less authoritarian methods to deal with the consequences of this ballot without setting any precedents. It could have been declared unenforceable by a court, which is a more appropriate venue.
I dare beating firemen for voting is more illegal than holding a vote itself, let alone attending/partaking in it. The use of violence by the state forfeits such claims and opens up an avenue for reciprocation by others, which is a terrible thing to enable all due to a vote.
>that constitution doesn't hold weight in real life
We will see what carries more weight, violence or paper.
It seems like the federal government had an issue with the local government. Your average citizen wasn't responsible for coordinating the voting effort -- those were public dollars. So why were the citizens held responsible for the local government's behavior? If the Spanish government was going to use physical force, it wasn't the Catalan citizen's fault for showing up to the polls -- it was the Catalan government.
Basically, when it comes to things like this there's a conflict between two international ideals: integrity of national borders and human rights. And there are some thought provoking ideas in the article. If you think about it, if all of Spain voted in this referendum (since this would affect the resources and borders of the entire nation), what would the result be? There are obviously major and critical differences, but if you look at another issue, Crimea, most people there would actually rather be with Russia. But obviously the rest of Ukraine didn't agree with that. And Crimea actually tried to hold referendums in the past that were blocked by the national government. The "referendum" that Crimea ended up holding (to legitimize the annexation) was declared illegal by the UN, but that's exactly what Spain's constitutional court did in the Catalan referendum.
Very complex issue and not as cut and dry as I had thought it to be.
I don't think it's appropriate to ask the citizens of the rest of the country if they support the secession. To create a simple analogy lets say you have a group of five people. One is a captive and four are the captors. Is it appropriate to have a referendum with all five people to vote on if the captive is allow to go free? No the four captors are always going to vote no. The captive has to escape without the support of the captors.
I'm sure if you went to any prison and polled the inmates, you'd find quite a bit of support for the inmate's freedom.
Without taking a position on Catalonia, I think one has to analyze the reasons they want to hold the referendum and decide if you find them compelling. When the USA seceded from the UK, the Declaration of Independence provided a reasonable list of reasons. By contrast, the main reason the CSA seceded from the USA - slavery - prevented their cause from being legitimate.
But you are not polling inmates, you are effectively polling wardens. How many wardens will poll to release the inmate their own jobs depend on? None.
Independentism is always a thorny subject, because most justification ends up being defined ex post. It’s like “resistance” movements against lawful but tyrannical governments: if they succeed they will be freedom fighters, if they fail they’ll be brigands and terrorists. Usually the threshold for legitimacy is overwhelming support from the population, something that happens sporadically (it happened in Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Kossovo, almost in Scotland, and of course in post-soviet republics all over the old federation). But once popular support is somehow made manifest, then the Wilson doctrine must be allowed to set the agenda.
The whole idea of a democracy is that the majority wins (which is why we need liberalism to offer protection for the minority). Every minority is a majority of itself.
This is one reason why trying to deal with secessionists in a democracy is so difficult (see also Canada, and Ireland).
Perhaps that's a point of failure in democracies as we have seen them implemented, in that a large group of people are sometimes beholden to a larger group of people with whom they don't identify.
Lately, I have the feeling that all this growing nationalism in the world will take care of itself within a decade or so. The logical end to having pride in your (ethnic or geographical) subgroup isn't a few hundred happy nations living separately in harmony. It's war :(
I tend to agree. But I do see a problem with political systems such as the one in the US that allows injustices like slavery or racial segregation to go on as long as they did. there is a real issue with minority groups being disenfranchised by representative democracy.
When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final.
Similarly, Catalonians and the rest of Spaniards approved their Constitution in 1978, which states that matters like this shall be voted in national referendum, once approved by congress.
This to me is essentially eternal political debate between the collective vs. the individual. Do we "put down" the individual in order to promote the well-being of the collective (read tyrannical majority rule) or do we value the rights of the individual regardless of they impact the collective? I am personally on the side of the latter.
Secession is by definition a break out from the collective. So considering what the collective wants seems to me like asking the majority to vote for their tyrannical interest (very biased way of doing things).
In a divorce, you don't require that all parties agree that divorcing is the right decision. If a single party wants to dissolve the relationship, that is sufficient.
There's more nuance when we're talking about entire states, but I believe the same principle should apply. This particular vote was irregular enough to not really be legitimate, but the Spanish government should recognize that some sort of Catalan referendum has a right to take place.
That may work between two people, but not for a large enough group. For example, if a group of people owned a large enough amount of land to be self sufficient, should they be able to separate their land from their country? Even if it is a few dozen people, and a few square miles?
But if you are the wealthier party, you will be required to pay support...
The problem with easy non-mutual dissolution is that a party with a temporary advantage can transform it into a long term gain at the other party's expense.
Integrity of national borders against infringement from outside is good because it prevents aggression. Separation within the borders can be violent or not; for instance, separation between Czech Republic and Slovakia was a slow and entirely peaceful process. Most of the time, though, there is a significant faction that does not want to let go of a part of "our land", even if they have no ties to it and never even visited it.
...that's extremely unlikely. Independence doesn't have anywhere close to 90% support in reality, it's just that the pro-Spain faction didn't turn out to vote.
As far as I can tell, US independence had minority support (~40 - 45% of the white population) they however where willing to fight. With others either neutral or Loyalists.
It's a bit early to call both the Kurdish as well as the Catalan referenda 'succeeded'. The Kurds will face difficulties with Turkey and Iraq. The Catalans will have their very own set of problems, I don't think anything is decided right there.
No it's not miniscule. That's 36% of all eligible voters. Donald Trump won election with 26% of eligible voters. Obama and GWB won with around 30%.
Also given the circumstances where police shuts down hundreds of polling stations, seizes ballot boxes, imprisons local authorities and starts beating people on the streets, that's a good turnout.
I understand the freedom argument but it's probably coming at a very high price for little practical gain. It seems a form of Brexit, based largely on emotions without a clear path forward.
Catalonia becomes a nation state and then what? Are they now an island in the EU? Easy trade with all other regions in Spain now has to go through taxes and trade agreements? How much is debt increasing?
I think it’s more similar to the Scottish independence referendum than to Brexit.
Even if there was no good reason for independence to begin with, police violently trying to stop the referendum makes now the best argument for independence.
Edit: And I say that as a strong supporter of a tightly unified Europe with a single constitution, government and all.
I feel a little bit disappointed with hacker news having this superficial and anti-analytical article in the front page.
As a Spaniard id like to address some points brought up here in the comments. I've read people comparing this with Crimea, thoughts on self determination, thoughts on the repression by the government, etc.
The first thing is to question the referendum itself: there was no census, there are people from Madrid voting, people voting twice, people inserting 4 votes at once, etc. The percentage of Catalan people voting this probably doesn't even get to 15%.
And the people how came to vote were the only the ones who believed this referendum was democratic (99.9% of people who want the independence).
Then there's the legitimacy of this referendum. In order to make this referendum, the catalan parliament approved new laws without majority and breaking the Catalan laws in a dictatorial disgraceful manner. This referendum is illegal and unconstitutional. There are millions of public money and public space used in order to carry on with "crime of sedition", using the political force against the law in order to rebel against the institutions.
If anybody recalls past dictatorships, many of them had these kind of referendums.
After knowing how this referendum was done and why it was illegal and anti democratic, I'd like to address the people who can't conceive liberty with rules.
Referendums on self determination are unconstitutional by law in Spain, I can agree on a change on the constitution. But to change the constitution in order to allow these referendums you need a national referendum, because your changing the constitution of all the country, not just Catalonia .
I will finally argue on self determination and try to clear some superficial comments I've read.
The first and impulsive thought all of us have is to think that everybody should decide about everything. But in reality, that extreme liberty can take on someone else's liberty.
If you allow catalonia to self determine their independence and then they do get independent, the next will be país vasco, then Galicia, then Madrid, and so on.
The problem with this is not that the country would disappear (I'm not very patriotic) the problem is you're creating extreme inequality by regions. If Madrid gets independent they become rich because they give a great percentage of their gdp to Spain in taxes. But andalucia or Extremadura would become extremely poor. If you have a little bit of socialistic view, you can understand this is wrong. It's against redistribution, against equality, against globalization, and pro-isolation, xenophobia and discrimination.
Also, Catalonia can never be compared with Scotland, their history is null in contrast. Their identity is as special as many other regions of spain.
[0]Here are some tweets on how the referendum was done:
> This referendum is illegal and unconstitutional. There are millions of public money and public space used in order to carry on with "crime of sedition", using the political force against the law in order to rebel against the institutions.
Since the referendum doesn't have any legal force anyway, why did your government send out cops to use force to keep people away from the polls?
I'm not defending the government here. I agree they over reacted.
Just a couple of things: it was the judicial institutions the ones ordering the repression. And the repression wasn't as big as the international press says, 96% of the schools were opened.
The only two autonomous communities I could see leaving are Catalonia and Basque Country. Madrid, despite being rich, has many more privileges than Catalonia.
What makes you think less than 15% of people voted? Did you by any chance get these numbers from the extremely objective and impartial newspapers abc, el mundo, or la razon?
I don't feel like arguing at 3am, so I will leave it at that, but reading things like our history is null makes me pretty sad.
And finally, I'm very sorry if I offended you, I'm just saying that the difference between someone from Madrid and someone from Barcelona es less than someone from Madrid and Cadiz or many other cities. There is no special identity nor history compared to other regions. Your claiming the crown of Aragon, which was pretty much half of Spain...
I don't think you could claim independence just because you belonged to something else (as every region before the formation of Spain) in the past...
The only real argument is to say: a lot of people want it.
I stated my points on that in my comment.
(I did not downvote you, for the record) Don't feel bad for offending me. I have been getting easily triggered quite a bit lately due to the lack of objectiveness of a lot of the Spanish media (you could say the same about Catalan media). I shouldn't really talk in these threads to be honest.
It's true that Madrid is richer, but they also have, for example, the privilege of being the capital of Spain, which naturally helps with their economy.
Regarding the multiple votes, I could also add that other people tried[1] voting twice and weren't allowed. That is not to say that it wasn't possible at certain places, but I think that stating that less than 15% of the real population voted when the released data said that more than two million IDs were registered electronically is a bit ingenuous. Furthermore, TVE, the Spanish national TV channels, manipulated data and were really biased, as stated by multiple journalists working there[2].
I agree with you on the media being biased (by both sides). But I don't think this should be about the numbers. I only stated that percentage to make clear the point that there was no census and multiple ways to hack the polls...
In any case, my arguments apply wether that percentage is 15 or 50.
Also, I believe we shouldn't differentiate between regions that could have the privilege of voting and regions who wouldn't have it (specially when the reasons aren't solid) , it just intensifies the feeling of false superiority and xenophobia between different populations.
I could agree on the possibility of self determination for any region (or city), but I'd like people to think a little bit more about what that could mean in the long term and if that's something good for the world overall.
Sorry again if I was too arrogant, I fully respect your love for your hometown and your people.
I think a lot of non-Catalans have the perception (perhaps portrayed by the media) that we dislike Spain or the people, but frankly, the big issue is that we are fed up with the government (and certain branches of the govt.), probably like a large amount of Spaniards, with the difference being that we are able to express it through the pro-independence movement, which has always existed, though admittedly it had never been close to as strong as it is nowadays, and which allows us to put much more pressure into the govt. for changes. There is no hate at all; we just want the best for our land, like everyone. It's good that parties like Podemos have been growing, even if one doesn't feel identified with their ideals, because it shows that people are fed up with the situation.
> The first thing is to question the referendum itself: there was no census, there are people from Madrid voting, people voting twice, people inserting 4 votes at once, etc. The percentage of Catalan people voting this probably doesn't even get to 15%. And the people how came to vote were the only the ones who believed this referendum was democratic (99.9% of people who want the independence).
If that's the case, this is really only the fault of Madrid for not allowing the referendum to take place in a calm, reasonable and controlled manner. I don't think you can disrupt an attempt at a democratic process (I know it is debatable, but you can not deny that for many people voting yes, they saw that as a democratic action) and then claim it is invalid because it was disrupted. By organising this disruption, the Spanish state has lost a lost of legitimacy in the minds of people who were already defiant.
It's a clear loss for everyone, and as the force that is legally in charge, the Spanish government is undeniably the one responsible for it.
Seeing threads like this makes me want to go back, and ask for forgiveness for all the occassions in which I strongly voiced an opinion in matters I had absolutely no background, and for which I was utterly unqualified to talk about.
Because it's clear that most people here have no clue about how Spanish constitution works, how it was ratified in 78/79, including Catalonia, what are the consequences of using public funding for illegal activities, including polling, and how states have a say in their whole, and each of their parts.
Since the referendum was illegal according to the Spanish government, and involved violent clashes with police, it wouldn't be surprising if 90% of the people who actually showed up and voted anyway were separatists.
Wow, I didn't expect a sensationalist headline like this would sneak its way in in Hacker News. Be aware of fake and this kind of headlines before posting in HN!
94 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 188 ms ] threadIf they wanted to protest then they should've organised protests and demonstrations, which are perfectly allowed in Spain. That would be the democratic way. Not to insist on breaking the law and disobeying court orders.
https://twitter.com/key_opinions/status/914529367543382016
https://twitter.com/juanmalamet/status/914448261964029957
https://twitter.com/yuyudecai/status/914577981812674566
If this was a referendum in Tibet voting to leave China, would you have a different position?
I have actually been surprised by Spain's response to this. I have always assumed that self-determination was a principle that modern Europeans actually believed in, rather than something that was only a political convenience. I don't know that much about history, though, so perhaps I could be more cynical on the topic.
Косово је Србија = bad
Regardless, I think the bigger take away from these events is that they have made their bed and now must lay in it. Almost any result of this vote could have been more easily dealt with in almost any other way they could imagine.
Good job Spain, you just legitimised the referendum and gave Catalonia a ton of international sympathy.
Even if it's illegal to declare independence, it should never be illegal to vote on anything. I have no stake in the outcome in any way, but at this point I'm rooting for independence. Spain has really proven that they're not worthy of ruling over Catalans if this is how they're treating them during a simple election.
There was a court order to stop that action.
What sort of democracy is it when you can just ignore court orders?
If they wanted to protest then they should've organised protests and demonstrations. If they really wanted to make a point, organise a symbolic voting and have someone face the charges.
To go ahead with the whole thing was reckless. The courts cannot afford to allow themselves to be ignored.
That's the very opposite of the rule of Law!
Marijuana is illegal in many places in the US. It's illegal at the federal level, and even if it's legal in some states, the federal government can still arrest you for having marijuana. But we constantly have votes to try to legalize it at the local or state level, knowing that it's still illegal at the national level.
Having that vote is not illegal, even if following through with the results of the vote is illegal. Courts are not infallible and their orders are not always the best course of action.
Almost every declaration of independence throughout history has been considered illegal. They were reckless. They were against the rule of law. They still happened.
Regardless, a vote is a peaceful action. Responding to that peaceful action with violence is what is reckless and against the rule of law.
I guess there are still some freedoms we take for granted in the US that other countries have not yet granted themselves.
Would the US allow the vote to proceed?
It certainly is illegal for any US State to secede, and we fought one of the bloodiest wars in the history of the world over it.
It'd be unconstitutional to interfere in California's referendum process. The referendum wouldn't have any legal force, so why bother interfering anyhow?
Any specific amendments you'd care to share? I haven't heard of any such plans.
The details might vary, but this nation is off the leash now, if in fact a nation that gets in so many wars and brutalizes so many different subsets of its people could ever have been said to have been on one. Our rulers have always distracted us from their predations with shit like this, but as the stories get harder to keep straight the distractions have to get bigger.
Democracy must be tolerant of peaceful protesting. An "illegal" vote (depending who's lens we are viewing this from), to me, is a form of peaceful protest. Candor, mutual respect, and peaceful organizing are some of a few tools democracies have to solve problems without devolving to unrest and violence. If we assume we highly value avoiding violence (and we should), governments need to tolerate the use of these tools, from time to time.
By banning the use of these more moderate options, the national government is essentially promoting dissenters to even less desirable options so they have at least some form of expression. I think we should be surprised the national government chose to use such force when it had far less invasive means for dealing with the consequences of this vote, e.g., courts.
I don't think the use of public money for the illegal act necessarily sets a bad precedent. The constitution didn't say to go out there and spray rubber bullets at civilians. So how a government can respond to this illegal act is a subjective choice.
Spain could have chosen to use less authoritarian methods to deal with the consequences of this ballot without setting any precedents. It could have been declared unenforceable by a court, which is a more appropriate venue.
>that constitution doesn't hold weight in real life
We will see what carries more weight, violence or paper.
Nobody expected them not to react to the referendum. Using cops with clubs instead of lawyers was disappointing.
Spain has separation of powers. The courts declared the action illegal and directed the police to end it.
The organisers knew of the court's decision and still went ahead. That is reckless.
If they wanted to protest they could've organised demonstrations and protests - which are perfectly allowed in Spain.
Basically, when it comes to things like this there's a conflict between two international ideals: integrity of national borders and human rights. And there are some thought provoking ideas in the article. If you think about it, if all of Spain voted in this referendum (since this would affect the resources and borders of the entire nation), what would the result be? There are obviously major and critical differences, but if you look at another issue, Crimea, most people there would actually rather be with Russia. But obviously the rest of Ukraine didn't agree with that. And Crimea actually tried to hold referendums in the past that were blocked by the national government. The "referendum" that Crimea ended up holding (to legitimize the annexation) was declared illegal by the UN, but that's exactly what Spain's constitutional court did in the Catalan referendum.
Very complex issue and not as cut and dry as I had thought it to be.
Without taking a position on Catalonia, I think one has to analyze the reasons they want to hold the referendum and decide if you find them compelling. When the USA seceded from the UK, the Declaration of Independence provided a reasonable list of reasons. By contrast, the main reason the CSA seceded from the USA - slavery - prevented their cause from being legitimate.
Independentism is always a thorny subject, because most justification ends up being defined ex post. It’s like “resistance” movements against lawful but tyrannical governments: if they succeed they will be freedom fighters, if they fail they’ll be brigands and terrorists. Usually the threshold for legitimacy is overwhelming support from the population, something that happens sporadically (it happened in Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Kossovo, almost in Scotland, and of course in post-soviet republics all over the old federation). But once popular support is somehow made manifest, then the Wilson doctrine must be allowed to set the agenda.
Invading a country to abolish slavery is morally justifiable, invading a country because you want to tax them isn't.
This is one reason why trying to deal with secessionists in a democracy is so difficult (see also Canada, and Ireland).
When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final.
Similarly, Catalonians and the rest of Spaniards approved their Constitution in 1978, which states that matters like this shall be voted in national referendum, once approved by congress.
Who gets to decide if the Principality of Hutt River (75 square kilometers, so larger than San Marino) can secede from Australia?
Only those who live there? Or can other Australians be involved?
Secession is by definition a break out from the collective. So considering what the collective wants seems to me like asking the majority to vote for their tyrannical interest (very biased way of doing things).
There's more nuance when we're talking about entire states, but I believe the same principle should apply. This particular vote was irregular enough to not really be legitimate, but the Spanish government should recognize that some sort of Catalan referendum has a right to take place.
Interestingly enough you will find that this is not the case in all jurisdictions.
The problem with easy non-mutual dissolution is that a party with a temporary advantage can transform it into a long term gain at the other party's expense.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/01/dozens-injured...
What a disgrace.
Kurdish referendum: suppressed, succeeded
Catalan referendum: suppressed, succeeded
It's a little too early to call it a pattern, but it has the appearance of one.
Also given the circumstances where police shuts down hundreds of polling stations, seizes ballot boxes, imprisons local authorities and starts beating people on the streets, that's a good turnout.
Catalonia becomes a nation state and then what? Are they now an island in the EU? Easy trade with all other regions in Spain now has to go through taxes and trade agreements? How much is debt increasing?
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/21/heres-how-bad-economically-a...
https://thinkprogress.org/assange-catalonia-independence-0a8...
http://www.smh.com.au/world/on-catalan-independence-julian-a...
Seems to be modest pattern emerging.
Even if there was no good reason for independence to begin with, police violently trying to stop the referendum makes now the best argument for independence.
Edit: And I say that as a strong supporter of a tightly unified Europe with a single constitution, government and all.
As a Spaniard id like to address some points brought up here in the comments. I've read people comparing this with Crimea, thoughts on self determination, thoughts on the repression by the government, etc.
The first thing is to question the referendum itself: there was no census, there are people from Madrid voting, people voting twice, people inserting 4 votes at once, etc. The percentage of Catalan people voting this probably doesn't even get to 15%. And the people how came to vote were the only the ones who believed this referendum was democratic (99.9% of people who want the independence).
Then there's the legitimacy of this referendum. In order to make this referendum, the catalan parliament approved new laws without majority and breaking the Catalan laws in a dictatorial disgraceful manner. This referendum is illegal and unconstitutional. There are millions of public money and public space used in order to carry on with "crime of sedition", using the political force against the law in order to rebel against the institutions. If anybody recalls past dictatorships, many of them had these kind of referendums.
After knowing how this referendum was done and why it was illegal and anti democratic, I'd like to address the people who can't conceive liberty with rules. Referendums on self determination are unconstitutional by law in Spain, I can agree on a change on the constitution. But to change the constitution in order to allow these referendums you need a national referendum, because your changing the constitution of all the country, not just Catalonia .
I will finally argue on self determination and try to clear some superficial comments I've read.
The first and impulsive thought all of us have is to think that everybody should decide about everything. But in reality, that extreme liberty can take on someone else's liberty.
If you allow catalonia to self determine their independence and then they do get independent, the next will be país vasco, then Galicia, then Madrid, and so on. The problem with this is not that the country would disappear (I'm not very patriotic) the problem is you're creating extreme inequality by regions. If Madrid gets independent they become rich because they give a great percentage of their gdp to Spain in taxes. But andalucia or Extremadura would become extremely poor. If you have a little bit of socialistic view, you can understand this is wrong. It's against redistribution, against equality, against globalization, and pro-isolation, xenophobia and discrimination.
Also, Catalonia can never be compared with Scotland, their history is null in contrast. Their identity is as special as many other regions of spain.
[0]Here are some tweets on how the referendum was done:
Guy votes 4 times https://twitter.com/key_opinions/status/914529367543382016
People voting https://twitter.com/juanmalamet/status/914448261964029957
Fake census on a small town https://twitter.com/yuyudecai/status/914577981812674566
Since the referendum doesn't have any legal force anyway, why did your government send out cops to use force to keep people away from the polls?
Just a couple of things: it was the judicial institutions the ones ordering the repression. And the repression wasn't as big as the international press says, 96% of the schools were opened.
What makes you think less than 15% of people voted? Did you by any chance get these numbers from the extremely objective and impartial newspapers abc, el mundo, or la razon?
I don't feel like arguing at 3am, so I will leave it at that, but reading things like our history is null makes me pretty sad.
What makes me think about the real percentage of people that voted is not any newspaper but things like this: https://twitter.com/key_opinions/status/914529367543382016
https://twitter.com/juanmalamet/status/914448261964029957
https://twitter.com/yuyudecai/status/914577981812674566
And finally, I'm very sorry if I offended you, I'm just saying that the difference between someone from Madrid and someone from Barcelona es less than someone from Madrid and Cadiz or many other cities. There is no special identity nor history compared to other regions. Your claiming the crown of Aragon, which was pretty much half of Spain... I don't think you could claim independence just because you belonged to something else (as every region before the formation of Spain) in the past... The only real argument is to say: a lot of people want it. I stated my points on that in my comment.
It's true that Madrid is richer, but they also have, for example, the privilege of being the capital of Spain, which naturally helps with their economy.
Regarding the multiple votes, I could also add that other people tried[1] voting twice and weren't allowed. That is not to say that it wasn't possible at certain places, but I think that stating that less than 15% of the real population voted when the released data said that more than two million IDs were registered electronically is a bit ingenuous. Furthermore, TVE, the Spanish national TV channels, manipulated data and were really biased, as stated by multiple journalists working there[2].
[1] https://twitter.com/orioldebalanzo/status/914526879582998528.
[2] https://twitter.com/vanesabenedicto/status/91448136228718592...
In any case, my arguments apply wether that percentage is 15 or 50. Also, I believe we shouldn't differentiate between regions that could have the privilege of voting and regions who wouldn't have it (specially when the reasons aren't solid) , it just intensifies the feeling of false superiority and xenophobia between different populations.
I could agree on the possibility of self determination for any region (or city), but I'd like people to think a little bit more about what that could mean in the long term and if that's something good for the world overall.
Sorry again if I was too arrogant, I fully respect your love for your hometown and your people.
Thank you for the kind words. Likewise to you <3.
Were it Aragon calling for independence then his comparison would not make sense. But it isn't, is it?
I’m curious what you mean here, do you mind expanding on your opinion?
The comparison with Scotland would be apt if it were Aragon wanting independence, not a region thereof.
> The first thing is to question the referendum itself: there was no census, there are people from Madrid voting, people voting twice, people inserting 4 votes at once, etc. The percentage of Catalan people voting this probably doesn't even get to 15%. And the people how came to vote were the only the ones who believed this referendum was democratic (99.9% of people who want the independence).
If that's the case, this is really only the fault of Madrid for not allowing the referendum to take place in a calm, reasonable and controlled manner. I don't think you can disrupt an attempt at a democratic process (I know it is debatable, but you can not deny that for many people voting yes, they saw that as a democratic action) and then claim it is invalid because it was disrupted. By organising this disruption, the Spanish state has lost a lost of legitimacy in the minds of people who were already defiant.
It's a clear loss for everyone, and as the force that is legally in charge, the Spanish government is undeniably the one responsible for it.
Because it's clear that most people here have no clue about how Spanish constitution works, how it was ratified in 78/79, including Catalonia, what are the consequences of using public funding for illegal activities, including polling, and how states have a say in their whole, and each of their parts.
Lesson learned. I'm sorry.