Film-maker Jordi Oriola Folch on the push for Catalan independence and the Spanish government’s attempts to repress it
In 2017 Catalonia naively thought that, in the context of the EU, Spain could not resort to violence as before and this would open the door to a democratic way out of the conflict with a referendum on self-determination. But Madrid sent 10,000 police to repress the voters of the self-organised referendum, with images that went around the world. Since then, Spain has squandered enormous resources to try to destroy the Catalan independence movement: with police and judicial repression unprecedented in Europe, prevaricating, conducting prospective investigations and twisting the law to charge embezzlement, terrorism and treason; with illegal spying on politicians, activists and lawyers in order to accuse or blackmail them; with a constant media attack to discredit them; and even with bribes and foul play by vigilante groups acting outside the law.
With this way of proceeding, Spain has managed to frighten and divide the action of the pro-independence parties and, after a decade of pro-independence Catalan governments, they have just made it possible for a Spanish party to govern Catalonia (with the support of one of the pro-independence parties in exchange for economic agreements that will surely not be fulfilled). And, with this change of government, they want to make people believe that there is another social majority that is no longer pro-independence. But everyone knows that this change has another explanation: Spain, for a decade, has been subjecting Catalonia to political violence that has affected the pro-independence parties, which are very discredited and will now have to make self-criticism and change strategies. But, apart from the political parties, the pro-independence social majority continues to forge ahead as the most powerful social movement in Europe, given its almost unperturbed convening power despite all these vicissitudes.
And so, on 11 September, crowds once again took to the streets, this time simultaneously in five cities (Barcelona, Girona, Tarragona, Lleida and Tortosa) to denounce the fact that Catalonia might not be a poor region if it had the resources that Spain plunders it with colonialist treatment.
It is up to the Catalan independence movement to devise a way to exercise the right to self-determination, knowing that Spain, which boasts of being a democratic state, will use violence to prevent it, and knowing that the EU, which boasts of being a democratic space, may once again look the other way so as not to get involved. In any case, if the people are there, the pro-independence project will go ahead and, for Spain and the EU, it will become increasingly uncomfortable to try to prevent the Catalans from being able to decide their future democratically.
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On a different note…I see keef’s on ANOTHER freebie…Doncaster races today.
He’ll be at the N.London derby tomorrow – hospitality on parade even though he’s a gooner.
No wonder there weren’t any impact assessment on the heating allowance withdrawal…they’re all too busy filling their boots.
I’d say it was nice work – if you can get it – but the bastards don’t do any.
The quest for Catalonian independence is a bit like Brexit – it’s really about the interests of a small monied elite like Puidegmontu, Like Brexit the primary financial impetus driving the claim for Catalonian Independence is also dressed up in appeals to cultural stereotypes and as such is no less nationalist than the state it eschews. All this is widely misunderstood on the British left that gives knee jerk support because it’s
perceived as a “liberation” movement so obviously trendy to support – it’s precisely the political naivety that consigned the Corbyn project to the dustbin of history, although of course happily he lives on “rent free” in the heads of various right wing reactionary bigots.
There is absolutely no support for Catalonian independence in Spain as a whole, and it’s worth noting an extensive terrorist campaign by the Basques didn’t get them independence either. Referenda such as there have been – one rather stupidly and brutally suppressed under a PP government, have been inconclusive.There needs to be a properly organised referendum – I suspect it would give a similar result to Brexit.
The big elephant in the room and why actually there will never be Catalonian Independence is that Catalonia is responsible for 20,% of Spain’s GDP, (it didn’t get their without money from Madrid) and geographically it sits on the only land corridor from the Iberian peninsular to mainland Europe. Given those facts there is no conceivable Spanish government of any stripe which would grat independence to Catalonia. Thankfully because of a sensible Catalonian socialist coalition in Catalonia, the nonsense of Catalonian Independence has disappeared as a current political issue for Spain
Good points JB and I think you must have read my mind.
Catalonia is a rich area of Spain and though there may be legitimate forces for Independence (including a Socialist Party) it is primarily led by Right Wing Groups, and many working class people there don’t support it.
But the previous Right Wing Spanish Govt cracked down on it too hard and the new Leftish leaning one should offer a free and fair referendum.
Looks like the parasitic freeloader could be in the shite…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8djply3z18o
As if. 😕
I’m keef the toolmaker’s lad, and so’s my wife
Herr Starmer’s voodoo economic policy has it that running a national economy is, in every way, exactly and precisely the same as running a household economy.
As Richard Murphy has pointed out this morning, Herr Starmer has clearly failed to run and balance his own household budget – requiring extensive outside assistance in the form of charity from Lord Ali.
Either there is one rule for the Country and another for Herr Starmer and his Junta; or, given his incompetence in running his own household he is not fit to run the Country; or his economic theory linking the Country’s economy to that of a household has no basis in reality; or all three.
Would it be asking too much to anticipate a coherent answer as to which of these options apply from our (alleged) Caribbean goat herder?
And then there’s this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnvdy22gje4o
The government has defended the early release of prisoners after it emerged a former inmate allegedly sexually assaulted a woman on the same day he was freed.
So much for protecting women & kids, eh, keef?
WHY is everything that the CIA and its client Establishment(s) oppose failing miserably?
Has the globalist CIA”deep-state” truly infiltrated every democratic socialist body that naturally hostile to it in the world?
Is Pedro Sánchez PM Spain every bit the (CIA) controlled politician that Keir Rodney Starmer is?
We (‘the left’) might be well-and-truly f*cked.
……
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSR4AZ_5Nrs&ab_channel=DimitriLascaris
DIMITRI LASCARIS: “Have the nominally Social Democratic parties of Europe been completely co-opted by Washington, by the corporate sector? Is there anything left in the German Green Party that stands for the core values of that party?”
MICHAEL HUDSON: “The entire Left in most Western countries – by ‘Left’ I mean the Social Democratic Left, the Green Parties and perhaps most of the entire political establishment – is now led by individuals who have been through the US ideological factories … the think tanks, the annual meetings etc. You know, the Leaders of Tomorrow type programs for which these people go to the USA on junkets, and become part of a network of leaders with a similar understanding of what is to be done, both domestically and internationally. People like Starmer, Macron, Von der Leyen and Annalena Baerbock … they belong to these circles. So in answer to the question – why are European governments acting so manifestly contrary to the interest of their economies, their people etc? – the only reason I can find is that at the present moment the United States is in this sweet spot where the people it has groomed have taken power in major European capitals.
However, the power of these leaders is very tenuous. The street does not actually belong to them and in the face of new types of politician like Sahra Wagenknecht, these leaders will lose credibility even more than they have already lost it.”
A question covered here….
https://steelcityscribblings.uk/wp/2024/09/15/europes-poltroons-and-quislings/
…..referencing this video discussion……
Michael Hudson’s reply above is very charitable. Would I describe Keir Starmer as a sell-out because he’s been ‘ through the US ideological factories … the think tanks, the annual meetings etc.’?
No, it’s because (like many others) he’s a “bought politician”, as corrupt as virology/hell and neoliberal to his socialism-hating core!!
He’s probably earning a fee from the CIA or one of its covers to disable and destroy the UK Labour movement. CIA-backed Enterist!
and Starmer admits as much (not being “bought”, tho’) when he boasts his Trilateral Commission connection and his fondness for Davos.
As Robin Ramsey pointed out some time ago…..
https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/the-influence-of-intelligence-services-on-the-british-left/
…the US and UK intelligence services have a long history – going back to the 1940’s – of influence and infiltration of the British ‘left’, the UK Labour Party and, doubtless, the Social Democratic Party’s across Europe.
“Through the State Department and the Department of Labour, the US ran education programmes and freebie trips for sympathetic Labour movement people. Hundreds, maybe thousands, no-one has yet assembled the data of British trade union officials and MPs that had these freebies. The State Department, via the London embassy, was sending back masses of reports. The idea that this was just the role of the CIA is false. None of these British reports have surfaced but over a 1000 pages of such reports made by the New Zealand US embassy to the State Department on the tiny NZ labour movement have been declassified and show surveillance down to the level of trades councils and union branches. It seems a reasonable assumption that the same attention to detail was being exercised on the strategically far more significant British labour movement.
The rot goes down all the way through the system at every level. Designed to devolve control rather than democracy down to the very lowest level. An approach a lot of us experienced a quarter of a century ago during the EU funded Objective One process in deprived UK Regions.
Herr Starmer and his junta are merely the tip of the iceberg.
Europe and the EU are just as compromised……..
……as discussed here…..
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/the-eu-retreats-further-into-a-world-of-self-delusion.html
…..in regard to the recently released Draghi Report – which proposes borrowing incredible levels of money by the EU (by passing national budgets) to essentially fund more war. The cost of such eye watering levels of debt which will be passed on to the rest of European citizens in the form of further austerity, social spending cuts, privatisation, de-industrialisation etc for the benefit of our US overlords.
Forever Wars = Forever Austerity
What we are dealing with here is essentially a body politic which has taken its blueprint from the fictional Borg.
The only effective and practical survival remedy being the thorough and total extermination of the mad dogs, who are beyond reason and redemption. A remedy which is looking increasingly unlikely via internally generated, let’s go with, ‘Reform” [the Oligachy having constructed a society the majority of which are drones made in their own image] which will most certainly have to be imposed from the outside by the Global Majority – the real International Community rather than the fake one of the Collective Worst.
A process which is already underway.
Dave, thanks for the Robin Ramsay stuff. It’s gold-dust. I’m trying – unsuccessfully – to subscribe to his Lobster newsletter. Can you see if it’s possible for you on a linux. I can’t even find a subscribe page and I’m not usually that inept…
qwertboi,
Try this link:
https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/shop/
Let us know if it works or not?
Thanks Dave. It worked. I’m not sure why it didn’t on Sunday, so thanks. Amazing what a deep clean of browser cache and a helpful nudge from colleagues can achieve. Happy now..