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Spain crisis fuels Catalan separatist sentiment
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BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Three weeks after a massive Catalan separatist march in Barcelona — the biggest since the 1970s — the independence flags still flutter from balconies across Spain's second largest city.
Spain's crushing recession has had this divisive consequence: soaring popular sentiment in Catalonia that the affluent region would be better off as separate nation.
On Thursday, regional lawmakers voted to hold a referendum for Catalonia's seven million citizens to decide whether they want to break away from Spain. The Spanish government says that the referendum would be unconstitutional. And it's unclear if the "Yes" vote would win — even in these restless times.
But it looks more likely than ever that Catalonia may ask to go its own way.
"I have a big Catalan flag on the balcony. I put it up a week before the demonstration on Sept. 11 and it is still hanging there," said Gemma Mondon, 46, a mother of two. "I think we would be better off if we can manage our money. I think we would do much better."
Catalonia, a northeastern region that is historically one of Spain's wealthiest and most industrialized, has always harbored a strong nationalist streak. Separatism is especially entrenched in the rural towns and villages outside its more cosmopolitan capital Barcelona, where people switch between speaking Spanish and Catalan with ease and at times without even noticing.
In the peaceful transition from the Franco dictatorship to prosperous democracy, Catalans were content just to recover the freedom to openly speak, teach and publish in their own Catalan language, a right denied under Franco for over 30 years.
But now, generations-old grievances for more self-government and recognition of their culture are rising to the surface as the economic downturn bites.
Many Catalans feel their quest for a sense for nationhood has been frustrated by the intransigence of the central government in Madrid. The most recent of these clashes came in 2010 when Spain's Constitutional Court weakened the Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia, a sweeping package of laws that devolved more power to the region and would have recognized Catalonia as a nation, albeit one within Spain.
Spain's slump, which has led to a spike in unemployment and harsh austerity cuts, has proven to be the tipping point for many Catalans who used to be against or ambivalent about seeking their own state.
Mondon, who works for a family run real estate management firm, said that just over a year ago she voted "No" in a nonbinding referendum organized by pro-independence groups. Now, she says she has changed her mind.
"I always felt Spanish and Catalan and I never had the urge to be independent. A year ago I just wanted to be left alone to speak my language and raise my children in a Catalan school," said Mondon. "My attitude was 'don't bother me,' but now that has changed."
Catalonia will go to the polls on Nov. 25, with regional president Artur Mas' center-right nationalist party Convergencia i Unio expected to increase its hold of the regional parliament. Mas has said he will hold a referendum on Catalonia's self-determination, whether the Spanish government permits it or not. The date has yet to be set.
"If the Spanish government authorizes (the referendum), more the better," said Mas. "If the Spanish government turns its back on us and doesn't authorize a referendum or another type of vote, well, we will do it anyway."
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy insists the country's constitution doesn't allow a region to secede on its own, and experts say it would be virtually impossible for Catalan separatists to get it changed. Spain's Basque region, the other part of the country with a strong separatist movement, tried to get such a move approved in Parliament in 2005 but failed.
"It's not a scenario planned by the constitution," said Francisco Perez-Latre, a communications professor at the University of Navarra who has closely monitored the Catalan independence movement for years.
The new political uncertainty about the economically important region and major tourism destination is unsettling for investors already worried about Rajoy's ability to keep his country's shaky economy afloat, and within the euro currency club.
There are also doubts about how well-equipped Catalonia would be to go it alone.
Catalonia, sitting on its own mountain of debt, has in fact asked Spain for a €5.9 billion bailout. But many Catalans argue that the region is only heavily indebted because it has to pay more than its fair due in taxes compared to services and funding it gets in return. Spain's other better-off regions also give more than they receive. Rajoy, however, has emboldened Catalan separatists by flatly rejecting demands for more power in levying tax revenues and deciding how it is spent, privileges granted to two other Spanish regions: the Basque Country and Navarra.
Rajoy's stance has combined with Spain's gloomy prospects to push Catalans who never wanted to break away from Spain before to conclude that the country itself is a failure.
"I put the Catalan flag on my balcony for the first time. Normally, I have been very discreet with my political ideas. But I think now I have to go a step further," said architect Albert Estanyol, 48, whose mother came from southern Spain. "Before, when asked about independence, I would say 'Why?' Now, I say, 'Why not?'"
Catalonia has over 800,000 unemployed, almost 22 percent of its population. That's slightly lower than Spain's national jobless rate, but the back-to-back recessions have been particularly hard on young workers in Catalonia. Since 2007, over 100,000 Catalans under 25 have lost their jobs, and the unemployment rate for workers under 25 has skyrocketed to over 50 percent, close to the national level for the same age bracket.
"I have looked for work. Since I was 18 I have had six or seven jobs, they have all been unstable, poorly paid, like filling in for two weeks at IKEA. They have had nothing to do with what I studied," said Roger Cervino, a 23-year-old who holds a degree in history.
"The economic situation is bad and one of the solutions to ending the crisis is secession. It would be complicated, but Catalonia has the capacity to reach full employment," he said. "What stops it is Spain, and above all the Spanish government, which has been a disaster."
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Alan Clendenning contributed from Madrid.
I wonder how the UN will respond to this. Will they uphold the right to self-determination, or will the US not allow it?
A young boy walks into a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer, “This is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch while I prove it to you.” The barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, “Which do you want, son?” The boy takes the quarters and leaves. “What did I tell you?” said the barber. “That kid never learns!” Later, when the customer leaves, he sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store. “Hey, son! May I ask you a question? Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?” The boy licked his cone and replied, “Because the day I take the dollar, the game is over!”
I'm not all that informed about the Catalan movement. It seems that the region is a wealthier region of Spain which adds a different kind of dimension to the "national liberation" conception than say an impoverished region of a country demanding autonomy.
For example, there was a movement in a region of Boliva for more autonomy, yet this was being lead by wealthy folks. Are there parallels here or is that analogy off base?
Question:
does 'separatism' - as a general movement, rather than in individual cases - on the whole advance or damage the concept of nationhood?
I mean, is 'nation' a stronger concept for larger countries? Could it be the case that with increasing separatism, the idea of 'nation' actually reverts to a more organic, local definition? I.e. where 'nationhood' exists, it is because of a genuine shared culture, identity etc., rather than say in GB, where the Scots and the English hate each other, the south and the north have a huge divide, and the whole thing gets turned on immigrants.
Would separatism have more migration-friendly prospects?
yeah man, catalan separatism has been fuelled by the spanish crisis because there is growing resentment that they should have wealth redistributed to poorer regions. that's not to say the catalan language and stuff wasn't historically repressed, especially under franco, and in some ways there might be some legacy of this in places, but even compared to the general bourgeois nature of national liberation movements this one is bourgeois as fuck. sweet anthem though.
I'm bound to stay
Where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk
That invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
I saw one of these Catalan nationalist compare themselves to Quebec separatists, I have to agree with him on that one.
The smaller we can force the imperialist nations to become, the better.
"It is necessary for Communists to enter into contradiction with the consciousness of the masses. . . The problem with these Transitional programs and transitional demands, which don't enter into any contradiction with the consciousness of the masses, or try to trick the masses into entering into the class struggle, create soviets - [is that] it winds up as common-or-garden reformism or economism." - Mike Macnair, on the necessity of the Minimum and Maximum communist party Program.
"You're lucky. You have a faith. Even if it's only Karl Marx" - Richard Burton
Why?
The Catalan national liberation movement has a history of being in the hands of the Catalan bourgeoisie despite it often having close relation to radical politics.
Textile capitalists, for instance, despite having gotten very wealthy during WWI, lost a major market when the Spanish government lost control of Cuba. They really spearheaded the push for an independent Catalan state after that, and especially after the war (which they got moderately wealthy during, having exported products to both Central and Allied powers).
Along with Basque iron industrialists that also got wealthy during WWI, they feared the Popular Front dominated Republican government that they felt was going to be very antagonistic toward their economic interests (Spanish electoralism up until that point was almost completely dominated by the caciques, or political bigwigs. So when the PF came to power they were eager to get the fuck out of dodge).
In light of working class radicalism and the collapse of Spanish colonialism in Cuba and Morocco, one can hardly blame the bourgeoisie for wanting to break from Madrid.
Catalonian nationalism has historically been a reactionary trend which dates back to the union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile back in 1469. Aragon(whose Iberian regions included Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia) was allowed to keep its traditional legal structure, which imposed for more limitations than the Castilian model to the degree where it was too cumbersome to bother to tax Aragon much or even to try to recruit troops there. Far from being an oppressed minority(that could be argued for the Basques, but not the Catalonians so much), the Catalonians never were required to contribute much. Catalonian nationalism, rather than being something "liberating", had its purpose in the Catalonian bourgeoisie's desire to pursue it's own independent interests.
The idea that communists endorsing the interests of regional sections of the bourgeoisie is not inimical to our goals is laughable. Like all forms of nationalism in the current epoch of capitalism, it is no longer historically necessary and thus reactionary.
Wow is this thread full of an incredibly one-sided analysis. As the interviews in the OP note the rise in catalan secessionism is a reaction against the austerity measures handed down by the troika, and by madrid against the regions. Of course the catalan bourgeoisie try to use it to their own ends, but what else is new..
"I want to say sweet, silly things." - V.I Lenin
I wasn't trying to incline any particular way regarding the event at hand, was just trying to give some historical context.
You seem to be missing the point.
The Catalonian bourgeoisie doesn't have to "try" to do anything as nationalism is an inherently bourgeois force. It's inherently inimical to the interests of the proletariat. Our programme needs to be internationalist in scope and encompassing of the global proletariat; any force utilizing nationalism is working to the opposite of this end.
Whether the Catalonian proletariat itself is supportive of a nationalist political program is simply irrelevant; just because portions of the German proletariat supported the Nazis doesn't mean there was anything inherently good about their politics. Marxists need to analyze this sort of thing from the context of false consciousness.
If only it was so simple, but it's not. What does the resurgence in calls for Catalonian independence represent? Why is it growing in support as a reaction against austerity? Not as a bourgeois force through and through but as an example of mixed consciousness. I myself support independence for any nation where the worker's desire it, in this instance we are stuck between two nationalisms, not internationalism and nationalism. On the one side is the desire for an independent catalonia, fuelled by protests against austerity, on the other is the spanish nationalism of madrid. Do the Catalan bourgeoisie nationalists take advantage of this situation? Of course they do, but they can't pose to the left for very long. The key question is not how austerity is administered but austerity itself. Internationalism cannot mean discarding the right for independence. The question is not abstract, but quite concrete.
This is what my comrades on the ground have to say.
"I want to say sweet, silly things." - V.I Lenin
I gotta say, 1st world separatist movements just don't come off as anything close to real liberation movements from oppressed people's in far more compromising situations. I'm also very skeptical of anything either changing as a result of it much less moving to the left.
"opressed people's liberation movements" do arise in much compromising situations but most of them are hardly more progressive than this and are usually more reactionary. and if not, they are orchestrated by pretty reactionary local elites/petty bourgeoisies. but i don't want to deviate the thread.
however i fail to see how a regional separatist movement in europe could be any help to the working class
"Face the world like a roaring blaze, before all the tears begin to turn silent. Burn down everything that stands in our way. Bang the drum."
"I rebel against the claim that the Catalans have always been nationalists... The Catalan volunteers who made war on the [Francoist] side were far superior in number to those who defended the republic. The Blue Division [a Spanish unit in the Wehrmacht] had nearly 500 volunteers from the region…"
When the reference point for the Catalans' alleged "non-nationalism" becomes their preparedness to fight for Nazi Germany and General Franco, you know the "pact of silence" is not really working.
You have to realize that this issue is far more complex than "national liberation? Boo!".
Would an independent Catalonia be a step forward for the working class? Possibly, in fact I think there are some very basic democratic arguments that speaks in it's favour. But you also have to see this in context. Why is this movement on the rise?
Furthermore the issue of Basque session might well come to the fore after the local elections as well were Bildù to win. These are interesting times.
"I want to say sweet, silly things." - V.I Lenin
Why aren't they more focused on a Spanish wide movement though? Are there particular barriers that prevent a non-separatist solution to Spain's problems as a whole, from what I understand a lot of Spain has historically faced challenges, these 1st world separatist movements always seem to have functioned on some vague notion that they might provide some mildly social democratic solution 'if only we could separate from the country it would happen'. I have to be honest that I've always found it to be naiive and a bit fo a total set-up to end the people right back where they started from the get go, in a addition to wasting energies in a movement that gets you 2 steps forward and 3 steps back.
The Catalan separatist movement is bourgeois in both it's politics and leadership and at some level, it is motivated by a desire to not see any more money (what they see as 'Catalan' money) spent on the rest of Spain. However, I also agree with those posters who said that a lot of those now protesting in Catalonia are doing so as they see the Spanish state as the main instrument of austerity. Our response to this should be to see that such anger and frustration with the Spanish state is given a class dimension. This means we should engage with those working class people protesting on the streets and seek to move such anger and frustration away from petty nationalism. At the end of the day, all working class people in Spain (Galicians, Basques, Castilians, Catalonians) are in the same boat and their strength lies in their unity and solidarity as a class.
On the national question, I support the right of self determination for all nations. But while I support that right, I do not support nationalism nor do I think that separatism has any solutions for the working class.
Maybe a little off topic, but...
Does this movement have anything in common with similar ideas brought up from time to time in Italy? I know that the industrial north has people who would like to secede from the agrarian south, but most of this is just racism against the "lesser" peoples of southern Italy. I generally support self determination, but these movements seem more like "We're tired of you relying on our money so we're leaving" rather than some movement for self determination.
I just reread what I wrote, and it's rather redundant, but I just woke up, so forgive me. Grazie!
-soso
