Catalan film-maker Jordi Oriola Folch on Spain’s amnesty for pro-independence politicians and activists and the success it represents for them
In the Middle Ages, Catalonia was one of the great European nations, but after 1714 it was subjugated by Castile (Madrid) and lost its sovereignty. The Spanish way of being (vertical, authoritarian, conquering and warlike) is opposed to the Catalan way (horizontal, pacifist, democratic and merchant), that is why Catalonia has always tried to become independent, but Spain has violently prevented it.
From 1939 to 1978, Spain had a fascist dictatorship, which was not defeated as in the case of Germany and Italy. The transition to democracy was not by conviction but because the world demanded it and it was very deficient. Since then, two major parties have alternated in power, PP from the right and PSOE from the center. The PP is the direct heir of fascism and the PSOE is the heir, by environmental osmosis, of the same intolerant nationalism.
The ongoing independence attempt is the most powerful in history because now Spain cannot consider killing us in the institutional framework of the EU. In 2017 we held and won a self-determination referendum. The PP fought it using anti-democratic methods: judges, secret services, police… and then the PSOE is doing the same: repression and denial of any option towards freedom for Catalonia.
In the recent electoral campaign, the PSOE ridiculed Catalan independence, assured that it would arrest and lock up in prison Carles Puigdemont (the president of Catalonia who carried out the referendum in 2017 and who is in exile in Belgium) and denied the possibility of an amnesty for pro-independence criminals or any referendum on self-determination for Catalonia. The PSOE was showing off its chest by exhibiting the aggressive nationalism that is typical of the Spanish identity.
But the PP and the extreme right of VOX won the elections of July 23, 2023 without an absolute majority. Then the PSOE, seeing that it does not govern in any large region or city council, wanted to get the government of Spain so that its party has economic viability. And everything has changed. They no longer blaspheme the Catalan independentism, but they make a pact because they need their 7 votes to govern.
On March 7, the amnesty law that the PSOE said it would never approve was passed. And they have approved it with the Catalan pro-independence parties and other parties, in total 8 parties (179 seats and 12.3 million votes). It is a success for the Catalan independence movement because it has shown that they were falsely accused. Nobody would have been able to approve an amnesty that would pardon real terrorists. Spanish nationalism, in full fury, invented accusations against Catalan independence: rebellion, sedition, terrorism, treason, hate crimes, economic embezzlement,…. But it is quite the opposite, the Catalan independence movement is exemplary in its democratic approach (it does not want to impose independence but has always wanted to hold a referendum of self-determination for the Catalan society to decide democratically) and it is not violent (it has made massive and peaceful mobilizations). Aware that there had been “lawfare” (judicial dirty war), the PSOE has now accepted an amnesty.
But the right and the extreme right do not want to accept the amnesty, because they see it as a defeat. They have always imposed themselves by force and now they do not want to accept the law passed by the Spanish parliament. The judges threaten to sabotage the law and not to apply it. And the fact is that, there being no crimes, an amnesty law is needed because the judges accept the invented accusations and condemn the pro-independence supporters to destroy this political movement. With that motivation, the judges will look for subterfuges not to apply it and to continue condemning.
And all this is because now the PSOE needs the 7 pro-independence votes, but what will it do when it does not need them? What will it do when the Catalan pro-independence movement, remade from this chapter of repression, mobilizes again to free itself from Spain? We know: Both PP and PSOE will go back to repression. But for the moment, the independence movement has managed to demonstrate that it is not guilty of any crime and that it only wants freedom from a country that only increases the desire of the Catalans to free themselves from it.
The EU cannot continue tolerating these abuses and will have to intervene sooner or later, because the European Justice is about to issue judgments against Spain (this imminence has also motivated the PSOE to approve the amnesty). In order not to waste time, or energy, or increase the Spanish institutional crisis, it would be better for the EU to force Spain to accept the result of the 2017 referendum or hold a new one in which the Catalans can decide their future free of impositions and authoritarianism.
Jordi Oriola Folch is a physicist, documentary filmmaker and teacher who lives in Barcelona and fights for the independence of Catalonia.
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Excellent article! I would like to see a reply from, both, the PP, and the PSOE. Let them put their case before the EU, and the world.
I think we can all remember the ferocious attacks, by the Guardia Civil, on the peaceful Catalonian demonstrators, in 2017. Men and women – young and old. That was the time for the EU to step up and speak out, but they were distracted elsewhere by the result of the UK, EU Referendum.
The EU should have been big enough to handle both crises, but they weren’t. They shied away, leaving the Catalonians to their fate. Now’s their chance to put that right. Will they?
Democracy – must – rule!
Beat me to it! Almost word-for-word what I would’ve posted 👍
But don’t forget the EU sold the Catalonians right down the river. I’m in little doubt they’ll bottle it again, my opinion backed by the disgraceful way they’ve acted over Gaza.
Or rather, ” their disgracefulinactivity over Gaza.”
That said, in fairness, at least the Spanish (and the Irish) have made a noise about the Gazan genocide in Brussels.
Actually Toffee, you got it right first time. They have been ACTIVE in supporting Israel in various ways. They want/desperately need Gaza’s gas.
I’ve lived in Spain for getting on for a decade and Catalonian Independence if often compared to Scottish Independence – it isn’t for two very good reasons which arguably go to the heart of the argument about Catalonian Independence. Incidentally the reference to Independence in the Middle Ages is a complete non secquiter – it a bit like Zionist claims on Palestine. Modern Britain extended into France in the Middle Ages for example then but I don’t think anyone would suggest that is some sort of justification for a territorial claim now would they. The inverse is true for independence based on historical arguments. The Castilian succession united Spain after 300 years of moorish rule in a civically fractured land mass. The first reason Catalonian independence is problematic is that Catalonia via it’s ports and tourist activity is responsible for no less than 20% of Spain’s GDP. That didn’t happen because Catalonia developed itself – it got money from the Spanish Exchequer and therefore the taxes of the rest of Spain. Many argue that actually it’s just about the money with the economic elite of Catalonia like Puidgemont dressing up their financial independence ambitions in a cloak of cultural aspirations. Second there is the problem of Catalonia’s strategic geographical location straddling as it does the gateway through the Pyrenees for an Iberian peninsula otherwise closed off from the rest of Europe. I ‘d suggest that there is no government in any universe that would willingly give up territory on the basis of those economic and geographic factors and it is abundantly clear that the majority of Spaniards do not favour independence either. The 2017 referendum was unconstitutional – that is in terms of the 1978 constitution signed up to after the end of fascism, although in my view no reasonable person would be happy with how the then PP government dealt with it, or the wholly disproportionate sentences of nine and thirteen years handed out by the Supreme Court. Let’s have a referendum by all means – make it a national one – I know what the answer will be and it won’t be that Catalonia should be independent. Neither is It entirely certain such an exercise just in Catalonia would necessarily deliver a different result either.
Nationalism in all its forms, be it Irish; Scottish; Welsh; English or Catalonian has always been a source of division & violence. All countries are constructs & it is always the bourgeois political elites who want to be the bigger fish in a smaller pool who agitate for cessation & call it independence.
Off topic, but in the process of doing a search yesterday I came across the following Reuters article headlined ‘Israeli military says troops captured hundreds of fighters in Gaza hospital’. Here’s some passages from it:
Israeli forces have detained hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters including a number of security officials and military commanders during its extended raid into Gaza’s main hospital, the military’s main spokesperson said.
It says troops have killed hundreds of fighters in the operation and also detained over 500 suspects, including 358 members of the Islamist militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the largest number captured at the same time since the beginning of the war nearly six months ago.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Israel’s main military spokesperson, said special forces units had used “deception tactics” to surprise the fighters and had severely damaged Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
And a bit further on in the article it says:
On Friday, the military said some of the photographs were of militants who had not been detained but whose pictures were included through human error.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run government media office, said the misidentification and the inclusion of pictures of medical staff and people outside the country showed the Israeli military was spreading false narratives to justify its assault on the hospital.
In recent days, Hamas spokespeople have said that the dead announced in previous Israeli statements were not fighters but patients and displaced people and have accused Israel of war crimes.
Reuters has been unable to access the hospital and verify either account.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-says-troops-captured-hundreds-fighters-gaza-hospital-2024-03-22/
I know who *I* believe, and for the obvious reason!
It will be, no doubt, called a ‘brilliant military operation, destroying a terrorist organisational centre, liquidating hundreds of terrorists”. Sickening just Sickening.
Earlier this morning I posted a response to a comment SteveH posted yesterday evening, but given that the thread has been up for two days and practically no-one will see it now, AND it’s near the bottom of the 50+ comments that have been posted, here’s what he said, and my response:
Corbyn’s problem was that whilst only about ⅕th of the electorate regarded him as some kind of deity a far greater number (⅔) of the electorate didn’t either trust or like him.
And my reply:
‘Corbyn’s problem was that whilst only about ⅕th of the electorate regarded him as some kind of deity a far greater number (⅔) of the electorate didn’t either trust or like him.’
So our resident paid shill manages to concoct TWO falsehoods in the space of one sentence! He just lurves dreaming up his provacative B/S and posting it on here. According to HIS ‘logic’, the 10% or so who vote LibDem vote for them because they regard the leader of the LibDems as some kind of diety, and the 90% that DON’T, either don’t trust him or don’t like him! Fuck off with your shite! Yeah, in SteveH’s warped reality people only vote for a particular party because they regard the leader as some sort of diety, and either don’t trust or like the leaders of the partys they DON’T vote for.
But the biggest falsehood of all is that he knows damn well that Jeremy was smeared every-which-way the fascists and their media chums could think of from shortly after being elected leader, and especially after closing a 20 point gap in 2017 and coming so close to winning, when the smearing and demonisation was on an almost daily basis, the majority of it in respect of A/S, which in the years prior to Jeremy standing down, SteveH used to defend Jeremy against on this site (when he was pretending he was a JC supporter).
Funny though, isn’t it, that not one of the groups and organisations and individuals accusing Jeremy of antisemitism time and time and time again ever reported him to the police, and we ALL know why of course, including SteveH. In other words, the PTB and their propaganda machine smeared Jeremy and the left-wing members in general so as to subvert democracy, and SteveH plays his fascist game of pretending that they didn’t!
‘
PS And no doubt the reason he hasn’t posted a reply to my response yet is because he’s still sleeping, what with there being a five hour time difference!
Allan – My apologies, I missed this repetition of the long winded drivel that you posted earlier.
Here’s a copy of my earlier reply
“Allan – Or you could just look at the polling figures (both the opinion polls and the actual ballots) and accept what the figures clearly illustrate.
WTF Ed Davey has to do with anything is anybody’s guess, my comment related specifically to the Corbyn phenomena.
https://skwawkbox.org/2024/03/21/exclusive-corbyns-islington-north-clp-suspended-by-labour/#comment-253678
In the reuters article I posted above it gave the Hamas account (and finished by saying that it can’t verify either account), so I thought I’d do a search and see if other media outlets were including Hamas’s account in their coverage, and the first one I checked out in the list of results was a Times of Israel article, posted an hour or two ago (the Reuters article was posted yesterday), and it DOESN’T include the Hamas account (it’s headlined ‘Over 170 gunmen killed, 800 suspects captured in ongoing Shifa Hospital raid — IDF’ if you want to check it out).
ABC News DID say something (in an article posted two days ago), but not very much:
Al-Shifa Hospital officials said that among those who were arrested were journalists and medical workers. The majority of those arrested were beaten and forced to strip, the officials added.
“We appeal to all international institutions to stop these crimes against the sick, wounded and medical staff inside the hospital,” the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/israeli-military-warns-gazans-evacuate-al-shifa-hospital/story?id=108342038
The following is from a Washington Post article headlined ‘Israeli raid on al-Shifa Hospital deepens suffering in Gaza’s north’, posted yesterday:
The Israeli assault on the hospital started early Monday, said Amr Fawzi Jedbah, a 31-year old vascular surgeon……
He said he was not able to confirm allegations by Hamas that dozens of civilians had been executed, saying he avoided looking out the windows for fear of being shot. He said he did not know why Israeli forces raided the facility.
“We were all civilians here, and this is a hospital,” he said. “We are doctors; our job is to treat people.”
I can’t be bothered checking, but I think we can probably safely assume that the Sun and the Mail and most of the rest of the British MSM didn’t include the Hamas account of events in their coverage.
Just one more (where IS everybody!). So Just prior to posting my comment above I went on the Sun’s website to try and find their coverage of the ‘Al-Shifa Hospital’, but couldn’t find it, but the following came up from March 4th:
Britain’s terror threat ‘highest since 9/11’ as insider warns of ‘real risk’ of attack with record levels of ‘chatter’
Politicians have been told that the Israel-Hamas war has been used as a ‘recruitment advert’ by terror groups
The expert has warned there is a “real risk” of co-ordinated terrorist action or of a lone outsider carrying out an isolated attack on these shores.
They also warned of record levels of “chatter” between extremists intercepted by spies which were at their highest levels since the September 11 terror attacks in the US.
They added: “It’s like when the Twin Towers came down in 2001, there was a big spike of hate.”
The warning comes in the wake of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s speech outside Downing Street where he warned there are “forces” which are ready to tear the country apart with their “hateful ideological agenda”.
Hmm, yes, how about THAT, that just two days after Rishi Sunak’s did his speech outside No 10, we’re suddenly learning/hearing about this terror threat to Britain. But it’s just coincidence of course, and it’s just that this ‘expert’ didn’t think to notify the MSM about it before. And the fact that Sunak came out and did his podium speech about democracy being under threat from extremists just happened to be on the same day that George Galloway was announced as the winner of the Rotherham by-election was just coincidence as well, of course. Yep, life is full of coincidences.
I can only assume that this terror threat warning was all over the MSM at the time and the lead item in TV news etc, but if it was, I must have missed it. But then it’s all complete and utter scare-mongering bollocks anyway. Oh, and the Sun includes a picture of the bus from July 7, 2005, AND a video clip of the twin towers after they were hit. How very very thoughtful of them.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/26323131/britains-terror-threat-highest-9-11-risk-attack/
Oops, meant to change the date of the article to March 3rd, but then forgot to!
Don’t expect an answer from the wee gobshite when you’ve got him bang to rights, Allan.
In fact, don’t expect an (honest or relevant) answer from him, full stop.
https://skwawkbox.org/2024/03/21/analysis-catalonias-pro-independence-movement-forces-spain-to-approve-amnesty/#comment-253676
I remember being told that Corbyn’s labour HAD to have a second referendum as policy as it’d make remainders everywhere vote libtard if it didn’t.
Baron Nonsense von Munchausen now reckons party leaders are deified and that’s why people vote for those parties.
Without a shred of self-awareness or irony or recollection of his past
bollocksmusings,nor his current unhealthy obsession with some greasy turd that has form for NOT prosecuting pederasts, plus a propensity to remove protections from children, home AND abroad.Can’t think why…😙🎶
Toffee – Do you really?
….and I remember Jeremy Corbyn clearly stating on several occasions that because the vast majority of both Labour’s members and voters supported a confirmatory vote and staying in the EU he didn’t have a choice. Don’t you?
Toffee – “Don’t expect an answer from the wee gobshite when you’ve got him bang to rights, Allan. “
At the time of your posting I had already posted a reply to Allan more than a day earlier. 🥱