Independence for Catalonia

For those of us used to looking at European democracy as a beacon that respects the rights of citizens, the actions of the Spanish police in the province of Catalonia have shocked many. Images of police beating old and young people as it barged into polling booths were harrowing. The occasion was a divisive one. The people of Catalonia have been demanding independence from Spain.        This past weekend, the Catalan government held a referendum on whether the province should become independent from the rest of Spain. The Spanish government opposed it. The matter went to the constitutional court which declared the referendum illegal. The Catalan government went ahead with the referendum regardless, leading the Spanish government deploying the police to stop it. In a single day, over 900 people were injured in the police violence, which did not manage to stop the referendum. If anything, this only intensified the feeling that Catalonia could no longer be with Spain. Compared to the 2014 referendum where the yes vote for independence barely scraped through, the results have come out to be 90 percent in favour of independence. Whether the results will be meaningful or not is a different story.

What the police violence has done is sow much deeper resentment – and bring out a deeper history of suffering that had begun to be forgotten. For those who watch European democracies closely, Spain has always been the outlier. The country only transitioned to democracy properly in the early 1980s, deeply scarred by half a century of dictatorial rule by General Franco and his followers. Separatism was one of the responses that emerged in response to the divisive rule – and it was crushed with force. The Spanish democratic experiment has been a fragile one at best, making compromises with these movements by offering them autonomy but refusing to let them separate. Spain is still governed by Franco’s old political party and its top brass has been mired in various scandals. It is amidst this context that Catalan nationalism has risen again. But it is the desperation with which the government in Madrid has attempted to stop the referendum that has created a much bigger crisis. The Catalan region has been on strike since the police violence as demands for the resignation of the prime minister have emerged. Those in favour of forcibly keeping the region as a part of Spain have also tuned up their rhetoric.     The Spanish king has spoken and laid the blame of the violence solely on the Catalan authorities.     Before the police violence, polls indicated that voters would vote against independence. Now, it seems the Spanish government has pushed public opinion clearly into the independence camp. Violence is not an effective tool for managing public opinion, something the Spanish government may have learnt this week.         With the Catalan region now set to declare independence within the next two weeks, their democratic rights will need to be respected. Otherwise, Spain could risk further divisions.