Archive for the ‘Spain’ Category
Catalunya Once Again.
Multi-racial Internationalists Say British Left.
Catalunya, Cataluña, or as we refer normally to it in Occitan, Catalonha, is still in the news all this week.
Support for Catalan nationalism has grown significantly in recent years. It’s estimated that about half of those who supported separatist parties in 2015 did not back secession a decade earlier. In 2015, Catalans elected a pro-independence majority in the Catalan parliament and a pro-independence president, Carles Puigdemont.
Like Scottish nationalism, the Catalan independence movement used to be dominated by middle class layers. On the Catalan national day (the Diada) in 2013, when protesters joined hands to form a human chain across Catalunya, “the parking lots were filled with BMWs and it really looked as if the Catalan bourgeoisie was having a fun day out,” observed one commentator, quoted in Raphael Minder’s recent book The Struggle for Catalonia (Hurst, 2017).
Yet the presence of conservative forces within Catalan nationalism should not overshadow the popularity of the cause among ordinary people – and not just Catalans. 2016’s Diada in the northern town of Salt,with its 40% migrant population made up of 70 nationalities, saw contingents participating from the town’s African, Latin American and Asian communities, with banners calling for independence in Arabic. There has also been growing involvement by poorer, working class young people, who see in the fight for independence an opportunity to escape the austerity policies of the Spanish state, much as similar sectors voted yes in Scotland’s 2014 indyref to opt out of Cameron’s Britain.
Mike Phipps.
Candidatura d’Unitat Popular – a Catalan Left, from Independent Republic to Leaving the European Union.
Països Catalans Today.
The CUP defines its economic platform as socialist and favours the nationalisation of all financial institutions, transportation and communication networks. It also promotes the complete independence of Catalonia from Spain and subscribes to the broad definition of Catalonia as incorporating the Catalan Countries (Països Catalans), which in addition to Catalonia proper include Spanish regions of Valencia and the Balearic Islands, the Catalan-speaking eastern franja or border region of Aragon and the Catalan-speaking region of southeastern France. The party also favours the withdrawal of an independent Catalonia from the European Union (EU) and from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
The French site of Ensemble describes CUP’s origins in currents such as the third-worldist, Marxist-Leninist and pro-Basque armed struggle group, the Partit Socialista d’Alliberament Nacional dels Països Catalans (PSAN) which has more splits and fusions than even the maddest of UK leftist faction and a Marxist Leninist groupuscule, coming from the armed organisation, called terrorist, Terra Lliure. They also list some of the more recent groups which joined in the CUP, some of whom it describes as Trotskyist, such as En Lucha (tied to the British SWP), Corriente Roja (section of the IWL, Morenoist), Lucha internacionalista (La Unidad Internacional de los Trabajadores (UIT-CI) and Revolta Global-Esquerra anticapitalist which has links with the Izquierda anticapitalista and the Mandelite Fourth International,various activist campaigning groups, the original and important Occupy Movement in Spain, the Indignados, (not the US counterpart), the peasant Pagesos per la Dignitat Rural Catalana. Okupas (Occupy, on housing and land issues), self-managed social centres, (CSOA), etc.
They also indicate the key role CUP played in the promoting the right-wing Carles Puigdemont, as President of the Catalan Representative body, the Generalitat.
Ensemble: Catalogne : Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP), une organisation « assembléiste » et indépendantiste.
France 24 concurs on their role in pushing the right-wing Puigdemont forward,
He’s the successor to Artur Mas who was pushed out by the far left after Mas was accused of implementing a policy of austerity.
They add, clarifying why he had got elected.
Puigdemont has had to forge a tenuous coalition of separatists (Junts pel Si), made up of a range of parties that extend from the far left to the centre-right, and vary widely on their positions on economic and social issues.
Politicians describe him as a savvy strategist.
“He’s a person who listens a lot then decides with total and absolute liberty,” says his friend and biographer Porta.
Puigdemont doesn’t worry too much about economic or social issues, says José Antich, director of El Nacional, a Catalan online newspaper.
“His priority is independence, independence, independence,” he adds.
He also has to deal with the CUP, which is not part of the official coalition of right and nationalist left but is needed to get voting majorities through the Parliament.
One notes this, as the Financial Times puts it,
Despite its radical roots and positions (which include taking an independent Catalonia out of Nato and the EU), the CUP has so far made common cause with the more centrist, business-friendly elements of the independence movement.
One obvious reason for the alliance between self-styled leftists and the Catalan nationalist bourgeoisie is that although it makes much of being anti-capitalist the CUP puts the official promotion of the Catalan language and National Identity at the heart of its politics. Generously allowing for private use of other tongues, the reinforcement of the cultural texture of the “Països Catalans”, that is including the above “Catalan counties” beyond the existing legal borders, form the centre of its programme (item 5 out of 6).
La defensa de la llengua i la identitat nacionals. Promoció i oficialitat del català en tot el territori nacional sens perjudici de les parles de l’àmbit privat, garantia de la unitat de la llengua, indústries culturals pròpies i autocentrades, reforçament del teixit cultural d’arrel popular arreu dels Països Catalans.
Oddly, or perhaps not, this item is absent from their English language version, which contains this dithyrambic oration,
The CUP’s rupturist position is opposed to the hegemonic Catalanist position, as independence for the country without a breakaway from capitalist institutions is not something that the CUP’s revolutionary position would support. Significantly, the CUP is opposed to the reformist position of the other independentists, as it doesn’t desire social democratic reforms, rather a rupture from the capitalist system.
Other parts of the CUP’s International section include a few articles in Spanish and others in approximate English, (“a hooligan state policy by Bourbon orders”) and French (though I am rather fond of the ” le cinisme (sic) criminel qui nous protège en nous tabassant” though less endeared with “nous nous sommes rebellés contre l’Europe honteuse. En prenant l’humble décision de ne pas reculer”).
Although some claim that it is one of the biggest radical left groups in Europe its own site only lays claim to around 2,000 members, albeit with 385 councillors and 10 MPs in the Catalan Parliament.
D’aleshores ençà l’organització no ha parat de créixer, local, nacional i políticament. A hores d’ara ja compta amb quasi 2000 militants, 385 electes als municipis i més de 150 assemblees locals i assembles o nuclis de suport arreu dels Països Catalans. Les eleccions del 27 de setembre de 2015 van permetre l’entrada de 10 diputades i diputats al Parlament de Catalunya.
There is little doubt that there vote has grown over recent years.
Finally the CUP lays claim to social laws, all of which are laudable, although you can’t help being a bit reminded of European local councils in the 1980s who passed resolutions making their towns and cities “Nuclear free Zones”
The last fifteen laws we have passed in the Catalan parliament have been banned by the Spanish state. But these are not independentist laws — many of them are social laws: for example, a law about sanctuary for those fleeing persecution, a law banning energy companies from turning off people’s electricity, and a law for a higher minimum wage. We want to use our autonomy to improve people’s lives and we are forbidden. People see this and respond. They want to decide the future of Catalonia and that is not possible in the current arrangement.
Luc Salellas – councilor for the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP) in Girona and a member of the party’s national executive.
Excellent resolutions…..
Meanwhile the CUP have just demanded that sets a timetable to declare a Catalan Republic (
La CUP pide por carta a Puigdemont que proclame la república catalana)
You can listen or watch these events on the Madrid State’s official Catalan language Radio (Ràdio 4) and Television (TVE Catalunya) services.
More: Candidatura d’Unitat Popular
For more rational politics see:
Puigdemont Betrays National Cause of Catalonia – Socialist Worker.
Puigdemont: Betraying United Catalan National Cause, Say British Leftists.
El presidente de la Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, declaró este martes la independencia de Cataluña pero abogó por suspender durante varias semanas los efectos de esta declaración para lograr una mediación.
“La suspensión” of the full implementation of the declaration of independence was in all the media this morning.
You can watch the right-wing leader’s speech here.
It must have been easy for the SWP to write this, immediately.
Carles Puigdemont betrays hopes of Catalan independence – but the fight is not over
Today’s Socialist Worker.
Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has betrayed the hopes of the movement for independence from Spain by saying that “dialogue” must come first.
He told a session of the Catalan parliament on Tuesday night that he would “suspend the effect of the independence declaration” in “a gesture of responsibility in favour of dialogue.”
Before the referendum—held on 1 October in defiance of repression by Spanish cops—Puigdemont had vowed to declare independence within 48 hours of a yes vote.
Some 90 percent voted for independence. But Puigdemont did nothing until Tuesday, 48 hours and one week later.
By then he only said, “The voting said yes to independence and this is the way I’m going to follow”—eventually. First, “We have to start a dialogue because otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to reach our goal.”
But the Spanish government of Mariano Rajoy has shown no interest in dialogue, responding only with repression and blackmail.
Puigdemont urged politicians and the media to “calm” and “de-escalate” the bitter row rather than ratcheting it up. He called on businesses moving their legal headquarters from Catalonia to return.
His climbdown only hands the initiative back to Rajoy.
Outside the park that contains the parliament building, where thousands of demonstrators were watching the speech on big screens, many responded with anger and disbelief.
Members of the pro-independence anti-capitalist party CUP shouted, “Shame on you”. They warned Puigdemont’s party—whose government CUP props up, that “It’s the end of our patience”.
Others were more positive, telling reporters they hadn’t expect Puigdemont to risk a unilateral declaration of independence yet. One man told the Euronews channel it felt like “The first day without the king of Spain.”
The fight for independence clearly isn’t over, but Puigdemont’s speech is a major setback.
Senior European Union (EU) politicians may have helped broker the backsliding.
Socialist Worker ends this article by supporting the movement for “democracy and independence.”
Today the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular, CUP, demands that Puigdemont fixes a limit, a date, for negotiations to end.
Their twitter feed is full of demands that Catalan sovereignty be recognised, but little that is recognisably socialist.
The most recent declarations of the other main left nationalist group, Esquerra Republican, (Republican Left) also lacks any socialist dimension, referring vaguely to a “social” dimension to the Catalan republican ideal.
No doubt Catalan national unity, and demanding that Carles Puigdemont, a right-wing career politician, leads the struggle for Independence come what may, against the Spanish Government, and the European Union, is more important in the fight for the Nation than class struggle, or any form of socialism or social democracy.
Meanwhile, for entertainment, we note this: (Socialist Party).
- For a socialist republic of Catalonia!
- The workers can finish what Puigdemont won’t!
This groupuscle managed to see a working class moblisation at the centre of the Independence Campaign.. NO doubt the workers were hard at inside the main cultural force for independence, the wealthy, business and Catalan government funded Òmnium Cultural, not to mention…see below.
Meanwhile in the Catalan Parliament, Junts pel Sí (the bloc behind right-wing Puigdemont, which includes the so-called Republican left, has 62 seats, the CUP has 10.
Despite having only 10 of the Catalan parliament’s 135 MPs, this anti-capitalist force has become one of the central kingmakers in the process of self-determination conducted by the Catalan government. Its deputies are crucial for ensuring a separatist majority in the chamber, and so, while voting to put a pro-independence government into power, its radical anti-capitalist view has frequently clashed with the Catalan establishment and the liberal parties in charge of the Catalan government.
New Internationalist. Marc Almodóvar
That has not stopped the CUP setting aside such differences in the interest of the Catalan Nation and People and reaching an agreement to keep the right in power.
Government (62)
- JxSí (62)
Confidence and supply (10)
- CUP (10)
Opposition (63)
This another example of ‘left-wing’ drivel being circulated at the moment.
Update: SWP calls for international support for coalition of right and left fighting for an independent Catalonia.
Please organise yourselves. Set up united solidarity campaigns with Catalonia. Mobilise in support of democratic rights in Catalonia and against repression. If they smash us, they can smash you tomorrow. Everybody has a stake in this.”
Meanwhile about the only people speaking sense are Podemos.
Francesc Xavier Doménech, deputy for Unidos Podemos, tells the Spanish government: “You are denying reality. This is a state crisis. This crisis cannot be resolved by applying the same measures taken to date, which are basically repressive measures.”
Accusations of Catalan Nationalists Circulating Fake Images as Podemos Shows Positive Alternative.
Parlem, hablemos!
Some light is beginning to appear on the Catalan issue,
Podemos’ Alternative for Catalonia. TXEMA GUIJARRO.
Amidst an increasingly-polarized climate, international press coverage has tended to overlook the position of En Comú Podem, the political alliance which has won the last two general elections in Catalonia. This grouping comprising Ada Colau’s Catalonia En Comú and Unidos Podemos has tried to carve out a middle road in the current confrontation.
It recognizes last Sunday’s vote as a legitimate political mobilization but doesn’t view it as a valid referendum. It also defends Catalonia’s right to decide but favors a plurinational, federal Spain. In this respect Colau, who is Barcelona’s mayor, voted in solidarity with those facing police repression but left her ballot blank.
We, as somebody who wishes the peoples of Spain well, can only endorse the conclusion of this interview,
At times I feel we are at the edge of an abyss. But we have to see the crisis as an opportunity to demonstrate to the Spanish people that there are alternatives. We are not condemned to this collision between Madrid and Catalonia. A key reference for me is Barcelona mayor Ada Colau whose handling of the crisis has been exemplary. She represents the only real point of intersection in the region between those in favor of independence and those opposed—bringing them together around a discourse defending civil rights and democratic freedoms. So yes, there is a positive way out of this conflict but it really depends on us being able to govern, to start changing things in this country from the executive.
But the forces of division and hatred continue to operate.
After the Catalan referendum El Pais published this report,
Fake images from the Catalan referendum shared on social media.
Some photos and videos that were widely circulated via social networks and appeared in the media were not taken on October 1.
Today there are many more accusations of fake images, after the far-right British Daily Mail and Julian Assange circulated claims of widespread Falangist participation in anti-Independence marches.
Le Monde has just published a break down of some of these these falsehoods:
Des images anciennes et des tweets manipulés ont circulé sur les réseaux sociaux pour discréditer les rassemblements de dimanche, selon les médias espagnols.
According to the Spanish media old images and manipulated tweets have circulated on social media in order to discredit Sunday’s marches.
The examples start with the use of photos taken in 2015, one taken in September this year, far from Sunday’s march, the use of a – real – image of people giving a Fascist/Franco salute, in a small group of around 30, to suggest a mass far-right presence, and the image spread by the far-right Mail, taken of a tiny band of extreme-right hooligans coming out of bar as if they were representative of the massive march. .
‘Fexists’ is Catalan for Fascists. This is particularly obvious fakery since the demonstrations took place during the day while this is taken during the night, and it turns out to come from a pro-Franco march, not authorised by the police, which occurred in Madrid during September 2015.
A Spanish Tweet account tries to distinguish the real from the ‘bulo’ false (fake, hoax).
Against Spanish Nationalism and the Catalan Independence Movement.
Left Should Not Pit One National Flag Against the Other.
Against Catalan Nationalism.
“The “nation” should have the “right” to self-determination. But who is that “nation” and who has the authority and the “right” to speak for the “nation” and express its will? How can we find out what the “nation” actually wants?”
Rosa Luxemburg. The National Question.
The Catalan referendum has burst on the European scene without, apparent, warning. That this is not in fact true can be seen in an informative article in the Socialist Workers Party journal, International Socialism, which concludes by putting the issue of Catalonia centre stage ( Héctor Sierra Podemos, Catalonia and the workers’ movement in the Spanish state Issue: 155) That it has been at the heart of Catalan politics for some time is well known; that there is a long history failed negotiation over recognition of the Catalan nation, and, perhaps, more pressing, calls for greater financial and political powers for the Generalitat, failing to recognise the laws that they passed, has become common knowledge in the last week. That the Rajoy government was prepared to act, brutally, on its threats against voting on independence, has stirred deep emotions, far beyond the Iberian Peninsula.
But perhaps a sign of the lack of urgency the issue recently evoked in Spain itself can be seen in the exchange between a leading figure in Podemos, Iñigo Errejón and member of the country’s right-wing government, José María Lassalle on the latter’s Contra el populismo (2017) in El País (9.9.17 and 16.9.17) at the beginning of September.
In this erudite discussion, the Minister of State cites Laclau, Gramsci and Stuart Hall in support of his view that the affective and political “people” has not been broken, and that the “institucionalidad democrática” remains open to the “admirado Errejón”. In Lassalle’s recognition of democratic dysfunctions, alongside a eulogy of European social peace, there is no mention of Catalonia, or of any method of dealing with those his boss considers less “admirable”.
National Popular.
It takes, nevertheless, little imagination to see how many of the ideas circulating in Podemos, of the People, of the National Popular, taken from Laclau, and used, as Lassalle suggests, as a kind of political “cartography”, would become important during the Catalan crisis. Within Podemos the current, Anticapitalistas, “Podemos en Movimiento” (13% at the February 2017 Congress), have long criticised the “populism” of its leadership, which seeks to ‘federate the people” of Spain against the ruling political ‘Casta”. A central charge it that they, both the Errejón tendency (Recuperar la Illusion, bring back the Hope), 34%) and the leader Pablo Iglesias’ grouping, (Podemos para Todas, 51%), have failed to recognise that there are effectively many “peoples” in Spain. (1)
In dialogue with Chantal Mouffe Errejón, has called for a “new democratic national-popular identity”. ”The issue in Spain is whether it’s possible to build a national narrative at the service of subaltern majorities that is also respectful of pluri-nationality and the right to decide.” (2) Translated into the present, this has involved the, entirely reasonable, attempt to open dialogue between the pro-independence forces in the Assemblea Nacional de Catalunya (ANC) and the central government. What this clearly does not do is encourage people to separate, to form a distinct “us” in Catalonia, aside from the wider struggle for an “emancipatory and radically democratic project” and “popular sovereignty”.
It would be interesting to trace how supporters of Catalan’s own path to “popular sovereignty”, or as it would better be described, ‘sovereigntistism’ the belief that the major political social and economic problems of the day be solved by getting one’s hands on the sovereign powers of a state, could perhaps defend some of the original axioms of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s ‘post-Marxism’. That is, the idea that the working class is not the dominant political subject of emancipatory politics, but only one element in the “plurality of agents” brought together by “relations of equivalence” constituting democratic movements and demands, making up the figure of these Peoples pitted against the Spanish State. Some may radicalise the later Mouffe. That the Catalan partisan collective will has overflowed the boundaries of one state, created its own “relations of exclusion” against the institutions of ‘Madrid’. It would be free to create its own agonistic site where, it can create its own “agonistic democracy”, and let the fight against neo-liberalism begin on a new terrain (3)
Collective Will.
But in fact we now have a free for all for those wishing to build a “collective will” against the said administrative structure. Appealing for international support for their cause some Catalan enthusiasts have not hesitated to describe the Spanish state as ‘fascist’ ‘Francoist’, full of loathing for ‘Madrid’, no doubt hinting that one of George Orwell’s most celebrated books was Homage to Catalonian Independence. Perhaps they trust to at least some of their audience’s ignorance of the Siege of Madrid, which fell some months after Barcelona.
Others, apparently more reasonable, have wheeled out the view that Catalan nationalism is welcoming, “Catalan national feeling is like Scottish in that it is “civic”, non-violent, opening impatiently to the new global world. It’s unlike Scotland – and more “ethnic” – in its passionate emphasis on Catalan language, history and culture.” It will not be source of exclusion, but will find its way back to “intimate” ties with Spain. (Neil Ascherson. Catalans are not alone. Across the world, people yearn to govern themselves .Observer. 24.9.17)
Laclau’s study On Populist Reason (2005) deals with the “nature and logics “ of collective identities. He envisaged the possibility of a People out of a plurality of ‘ethnic identities’, as well as its opposite, “ethno nationalism”. Podemos would not be untrue to this way of thinking to attempt the former. (4)
But those on the left pushing the Catalan separatists have other fish to fry. The SWP argues first and foremost for the dissolution of the Spanish state, as a potential springboard for a wider anti-capitalist struggle.
The damage to the Spanish ruling class that the loss of Catalonia would cause is unimaginable; Catalonia makes a large contribution to the state’s revenues, with 18.8 percent of national GDP. The centrality of national unity to the dominant ideology of the ruling class would also turn the event into a political earthquake. A victory for independence would thus precipitate a crisis of unforeseeable consequences, throwing into chaos not only the PP but Spanish capitalism as a whole.
Socialism can only be achieved internationally, but by opening new prospects for the left in Catalonia and by breaking the consensus imposed by fascism in the transition to democracy, Catalan independence would advance the cause of the entire working class. And, if a triumph of the Catalan left would be a positive development for workers in the rest of the state, what would the consequences of its defeat be?
Héctor Sierra Podemos, Catalonia and the workers’ movement in the Spanish state Issue: 155
The Fourth Intentional, reproducing an argument familiar to those who have heard the radical Scottish nationalist refrain of the Break up of Britain are vaguer though equally optimistic for the future of the left, and keen for, as they put it, “the democratic rupture throughout the State”.
In a lyrical vein the FI states,
It is more than a mere historical anecdote that the Catalan independence flag is directly inspired by the flag of the Cuban revolutionaries who defeated the Spanish colonial army on the island in the late 19th century, a defeat that would decisively contribute to the ruin of the first Bourbon restoration. The struggle in Catalonia has certainly hurt the second and a republican victory would allow us to imagine a new rise of the popular movement and an update of the anti-capitalist and eco-socialist perspective in Catalonia, the Spanish state and throughout Europe.
These aspirations are no doubt of comfort to those who, after what El Periodico commentators have repeatedly called a new May 68 – complete with vote – now confront potential economic chaos. Aware of these difficulties the nationalist bourgeois politicians who are running the independence show are divided on their immediate tasks, although the President of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, looks determined to press ahead with a declaration of independence. Sacrifices to achieve that end are to be made in the name of a possible, not yet visible, anti-capitalism, or more broadly the eternal right to self-determination or, in their own eyes, for Catalunya. What is more precious than national independence and sovereignty?
Many will without hesitation support the wish for negotiations with these demands, hard though the first two may be to put into any specific form. We can be sceptical about Iglesias’ efforts to capture the ‘floating signifier’ of the Patria for the projects of Podemos, yet see in their stand some hopes for compromise. Equally, on some things on which no agreement can be reached: one should do more than just oppose Rajoy and his clampdown, one can moblise against it.
No Sleeping with the Enemy!
But nobody has yet to explain convincingly why the world in general, and the left-wingers in particular, should stand behind the cause of a prosperous region of Spain, led by a coalition of right and left, to ‘take control’ in the name of the People. Rosa Luxemburg reminds us that the ‘right’ to declare this a separate entity rests on the political parties who backed the referendum, Junts pel Sí, held together a coalition of right and left, while the Podemos inspired grouping Catalunya Sí que es Pot abstained, and the other opposition parties opposed it.
This, if carried through, will be an act that immediately divides the Spanish people, gives full rein to populist ressentiment on all sides, and obscures the issues of the different class and political interests behind the pro-independence bloc (not to mention the ingrained corruption of some of its elements). To put it simply, no left worthy of its name enters into systematic long-term coalitions with right wing nationalists. They are, to use a term often cited by Chantal Mouffe, taken from Carl Schmitt, the enemy. (5)
******
(1) A useful account of Podemos, which underlines that Laclau and Mouffe are far from the only intellectual influences on the party is in Chapter 10 La Gauche du 21e Siècle, Christophe Aguiton. La Découverte. 2017.
(2) Page 148 –9. Podemos in the Name of the People. Iñigo Errejón and Chantal Mouffe. Lawrence and Wishart. 2016.
(3) See Agonistics. Chantal Mouffe. Verso 2013.
(4) Page 198. On Populist Reason. Ernesto Laclau Verso. 2005.
(5) For all our sympathy for the Podemos attempt at rational dialogue, the concepts of the People, and the National Popular function in this crisis as signs that confuse debate. See. Debating Catalonia Izquierda Unida MP Alberto Garzón debates the Catalan independence referendum with the CUP’s Pau Llonch. This is a concrete example of how ‘left wing populism’ sliding around on the Catalan national issue obscures a left strategy that gives priority to building a left. Which leads us to reject the strategy of ‘people’ versus “oligarchy”, the ‘us’ and the ‘them’ and the Mouffe-Laclau problematic: See: Populisme le grand ressentiment. Éric Fassin. Textuel. 2017.
European left in confusion faced with Catalan ‘Cross Class Unity’ for National Independence.
El Paìs leads today with the story that the right-wing leader Puigdemot will go to the Catalan Parliament on Monday with a possible declaration of Independence.
Puigdemont irá el lunes al Parlament para la posible declaración de independencia
The Spanish daily cites the BBC’s report, Catalan referendum: Region’s independence ‘in matter of days’.
BARCELONA (Reuters) – Spain’s King Felipe VI on Tuesday accused Catalan secessionist leaders of shattering democratic principles and dividing Catalan society, as thousands took to the streets to protest against a violent police crackdown against the banned independence referendum held on Sunday.
The televised speech, a rare intervention by the 49-year-old monarch who is normally silent on politics, was a sign of how deeply Spain has been shaken by the Catalan vote and a police crackdown that injured 900 people.
On Tuesday tens of thousands of Catalans demonstrated in the streets of the northeastern region against action by the police who tried to disrupt Sunday’s vote by firing rubber bullets and charging into crowds with truncheons.
Tuesday’s protests shut down road traffic, public transport and businesses.
Socialist Worker comments,
Some Catalan politicians and pro-independence organisations played down the role of workers and emphasised that the whole nation was out.
The support of small business certainly added to the strike’s impact in key sectors such as food and retail. Public sector bosses told workers that they wouldn’t even lose pay for striking.
But the main bosses’ organisation in Catalonia condemned the strike. It took workers’ organisation to enforce it.
The SWP appears to consider that ‘the workers’ should lead a campaign for independence.
This seems to ignore that the Catalan government which is said to be about to declare independence is led by the right wing, Carles Puigdemont of the Partit Demòcrata Europeu Català, PDeCAT.
Andy Durgan has offered this analysis in
Spanish state out to smash Catalan independence referendum
…any decisive shift to the left would mean breaking completely with the neo liberal PDECat. The temptation to accept some form of “national” government is strong, not only inside the left nationalist Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (which forms part of Junts pel Sí) but also among some sectors of the CUP.
Such a government would mean more austerity and cuts and this would also reinforce the rejection of independence that already exists among some sections of the working class in Catalonia; in particular workers of Spanish origin.
More specifically, revolutionary socialists should work to build the CUP, defending both its political independence and the need for practical unity with others on the left.
Whatever happens on 1 October, the political crisis that the Catalan movement has triggered in the Spanish state will only get deeper.
The crisis has indeed deepened.
But why should the left, and the Catalans are not shy in calling for support from the left in the rest of Europe, support the goal of independence.
For what end?
Some claim that the roots lie in the way the Spanish Constitutional Tribunal invalidated in 2010 the new autonomy statute (Estatut).
But what is a lot clearer is the demand to free the wealthy region from the ‘burden’ of Madrid.
Linguistic, cultural and a big degree of financial and administrative autonomy, as the name Estatut d’Autonomia de Catalunya indicates, are guaranteed already, even if they have stumbled faced with a hostile central government.
Does the fact that the right-wing PPR, in power in the Cortes, has, in the last few years, thwarted legitimate attempts to extend this make full independence justified? Was the removal of the definition of Catalonia as a “nation” the tipping point?
What of the left?
To Durgan,
For most socialists support for the self determination of oppressed nations is accepted on principle. But in the case of a Catalonia, where the movement appears to be led by the right, providing such support may not seem so clear. For instance, the President of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont is a member of the bourgeois nationalist PDECat (European Democratic Party of Catalonia), which, has enforced cuts and austerity.
But the campaign for independence is far from being a mere tool of the Catalan bourgeoisie. While the immediate demand for independence came out of frustration with attempts to reform the Statute of Autonomy, the resulting movement was also shaped in the context of the economic crisis, the emergence of the Indignados movement in 2011 and the return of the PP to central government.
Indeed, but…..the movement’s unity was forged by blaming austerity on ‘Madrid’ and sought a solution in national sovereignty for Catalan which the following only seeks to hide.
The tone of its propaganda and its demonstrations is markedly progressive; talk of a republic that defends social justice and ethnic diversity is central to its propaganda. The main social base of the independence movement is among the Catalan speaking middle and working classes. In contrast, the main employers’ organisations, even those linked to the nationalist right, are opposed to independence.
Durgan does not consider in detail the Republican Left, the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, with 9 seats, Puigdemont’s junior allies in the Parlament de Catalunya. Their project for a Greater Catalonia, including parts of France and the neighbouring areas of Spain in Valencia, is above all cultural and “regionalist” carried into a state-building project.
The Candidatura d’Unitat Popular, CUP, with this vote 2015 336,375 8.20% and 10 out of the 135 seats in the Catalan parliament, are no doubt significant in holding the “balance of power” in the Parliament.
The CUP, which plays a central role in the movement, is undoubtedly the largest anti-capitalist grouping in Europe at present. Apart from its 10 MPs and 340,000 votes, it has some 370 local town councillors and around 30 mayors. Its militant anti-racism, feminism and internationalism, its opposition to the EU, set it apart from the rest of the left.
The first part of the assertion may well be contested, from the La France insoumise (17 seats on the French National Assembly, nearly two and half million votes in those elections, over 7 million votes, 19,48% in the first round of this year’s Presidential ballot), onwards.
The second part apparently links internationalism with being anti-EU…..
One could naturally go for the maximum and start dreaming of this: Por una Catalunya independiente obrera y socialista, en la perspectiva de una Federación Libre de Repúblicas Socialistas Ibéricas
Back to the mundane real world: what of the actual left, notably Catalunya in Comύ, of Ada Colau, Mayor of Barcelona,? They have strongly denounced the repression, took part in yesterday’s protests, but hold the view that the October the 1st referendum was a “mobilisation” and call for a real referendum. Podemos, for all that one might criticise Pablo Iglesias’ ‘national popular’ strategy, and efforts to take the ’empty signifier’ of La Patria and shape it to the left, calls for negotiations and dialogue.
Apparently this is confused, because they hesitate to weld together the demand for independence and sovereignty as the key aims for …the left. (L’instant de vérité pour le mouvement indépendantiste catalan).
Perhaps they should keep quiet about issues which oppose the left, root and branch, with the Catalan right, and wait until independence and national sovereignty are achieved.
Better in fact to oppose sovereignty and nationalism, Spanish and Catalan, from the word go.
More background.
The Catalan independence referendum is a smokescreen for other issues. Eleanor Rosenbach. Independent.
The ruling party in Catalonia, PDeCAT, has been plagued with allegations of corruption; debate around which has receded as demands for independence have increased. Spain’s governing party, the Partido Popular, for its part, has often sought conflict as a means of garnering public support.
Both sides in this debate are using the referendum to further their own political agendas. Spain’s governing party, the Partido Popular (PP), is a right-wing party housing a spectrum of thought from neoliberalists to the hard-line right. The ruling party in Catalonia, PDeCAT, is a centre right party of the Catalan bourgeois which has historically been the natural ally of PP and not a traditional supporter of independence. Interestingly, their move to advocate a referendum has stopped their support from dropping in recent months.
Alongside this, neither the national government nor the Catalan parliament are strangers to corruption in politics. PDeCAT has been plagued with allegations of corruption, debate around which has receded significantly as demands for independence have increased. PP, for its part, has often sought conflict as a means of garnering public support. Positioning this referendum and the spectre of independence as a threat to Spanish citizens and their economic future – as well as tugging on the strings of nationalist patriotism in demanding the continued unity of Spain – PP has engaged widespread support. In recent days, Spanish flags have poured from windows and balconies, and in towns throughout Spain people have cheered the Civil Guard – Spain’s law enforcement agency which operates on military lines – with football chants advocating the defeat of the opposition.
Of wider interest:
El Paìs reports, There’s fake news in Catalonia too.
After a month of intense activity, primarily on Twitter, these pro-Russian profiles have managed to successfully place the secessionist challenge among the most relevant issues in international politics on internet forums. But the issue has not been presented as a dispute between the majority of Catalans who want to decide on their independence and the rest of the Spanish people, but rather as a crucial part of a crisis in the model of Western democracy and the European Union as an institution. Officially, the Kremlin has stated time and again that the referendum is an internal Spanish affair. However, the accounts that less diplomatically promote the Russian government’s interests on social media spoke yesterday of the EU’s imminent decomposition.
Nigel Farage: Catalonia Demonstrates EU Democratic Failure.
Main unions’ statement, “CC OO and UGT are not calling the general strike for October 3,” said the country’s top two unions in a joint release. “Our organisations in Catalonia are encouraging participation in protests against the excesses committed on October 1. In no way are we going to support positions that provide backing for the unilateral declaration of independence”
“The regional government and Barcelona City Hall are allowing their employees to strike today without docking them the corresponding day’s pay, as would usually be the case for a stoppage.”
“All three production lines at the Seat carmaking plant in Martorell (Barcelona) are working at full speed. The factory has not been affected by the general strike and only a reduced number of employees have decided to stay home, said the works council.”
The repression in Catalonia continues to have a wide international fall-out.
“Right-wing British politician Nigel Farage expressed support for the Catalan separatists’ cause inside the European Parliament, where he strongly criticized the Spanish government over the events of last Sunday. Esteban González Pons, leader of the Spanish delegation in the European People’s Party group, said that it is the far right that supports independence in Catalonia.”
In Catalonia we have seen how the EU does ‘democracy’. Why can’t Remainers see it too?
Telegraph.
There are many many other cases of people cashing in on the heart-rending crisis, notably from the new best friends of Catalan nationalism on the left and the howls from Scottish nationalists.
But this from Farage sticks in the Craw.
In fact the EU is neither designed or officially capable of mediating in this kind of dispute, as El País points out in relation to an appeal from the Catalan secessionists to do so.
By Contrast, for a serious article by a well-informed Spanish Speaker, see:
Mike Phipps, An Independent Catalonia. Labour Briefing.
The Repression is revolting.
The result is to spread anger, and hatred of the Spanish PM Rajoy, who is increasingly isolated, and living in his own world, as Libération comments today:
But it is hard to see anybody, for all the emotional charge, taking seriously a result that shows 90% of voters, in a Referendum organised by nationalists, supporting separatism (though apparently this lot, the International Election Expert Research Team do, for reasons which are beyond me, with enormous potential for irregularities, and this, from El Pais, This democratic fraud is a mockery, and no one should give it legitimacy with their participation.
Le Monde interviewed some of the abstainers, and a young waitress who went to vote when she saw the repression – but she cast her ballot against the ‘utopia’ and the false promises of the separatists,
In a series of tweets (hilo, thread) Pablo Iglesias sets out a rational, and in our view the best response:
Most recently he has reiterated his call for dialogue.
El hilo de Pablo Iglesias sobre lo que ocurre en Catalunya y España: “El PSOE debe rectificar”
He condemns the repression, Rajoy and the stand of the PSOE. Iglesias advocates a consultation of the Catalan People, (Podemos says that there should be a full state supported referendum with 3 options – including the one they favour which is “pluri-national” model for Spain with different solutions for Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia, regions with the strongest nationalist identity – but not separate nation states) and says does not wish them to leave Spain, he wants a country with the Catalans..