Protests in Spain

L.Ball

Been seeing snippets of this here and there, hasn't really popped up on many people's radar in this country, which is probably for the best, other people's business isn't really anything to do with us.

Biggest protest in Spain against Catalan amnesty law draws 170,000 | Reuters

Thousands rally in Madrid against controversial amnesty deal for Catalonia’s separatists | Euronews

Rally held in Madrid against Catalan amnesty after Sánchez sworn in as Spanish PM | Spain | The Guardian

Essentially, the now ruling party had less seats than their main opposition, but reached deals with independents to prop themselves up and just about get over the line, which some say is a mockery of the democratic process but it's not against the rules, and we do it here all the time. I couldn't see anyone protesting here if a similar situation happened again, I think it's too cold for us to be out protesting over things anyway, and the news says there's nazis and the far right in there so would be best to steer clear of that sort of thing. But what do you think.

Gregor Samsa

I couldn't see anyone protesting here if a similar situation happened again

The protests aren’t because the Socialists managed to form a minority/coalition government (like in all countries with a PR system, they’re common) - they’re specifically because of the amnesty given to the Catalan politicians and officials that engaged in the independence referendum in 2017 that (rightly or wrongly) was declared illegal by the Spanish Government and Spain’s Constitutional Court.

There’s no parallel between the situation in Spain and Ireland, unless Kerry holds a failed independence referendum, and a few years later the exiled Healy-Raes are pardoned in return for supporting a government.

HalloweenJack

PP didn't get a majority and couldn't form a government because they would have needed Vox (the far-right party who downplay Franco's dictatorship) for support and no-one else was going to join them if that was the case.

The Socialists managed to get a working majority and this was the deal the Catalan independence party demanded for their support.

Make no mistake about it: Vox would have also been making similar demands if they had been able to play kingmaker. In my region, they supported PP in a minority government and they want to be head of the investigations committee for abuses under Franco. In other regions, they have supported PP and rolled back supports for LGBT+ and abortion, iirc.

The alternative was minority government or more elections.

The people protesting are equivalent to the Ulster Says No and No Surrender types (and they are not all right-wing types, I know Socialist voters who are also complaining about the deal and Catalans having the audacity to be independent). They will not accept that there are Spanish citizens who do not feel Spanish and would actually want to live in an independent Catalonia. They see this deal as legitimising their arguments. They complain about the Socialists destroying Spain's unity but Spain isn't unified if there are significant numbers who don't want to be part of the country.

What the Socialists are actually doing is trying to work with these groups and include them in the running the country as opposed to the other side who would rather ignore them and pretend they don't exist.

I still think its going to end in tears. I can see a point where the Catalans get cocky and ask for too much and it'll bring the government down. I highly doubt this government will last the full term, though Sanchez has proven time and again to be a shrewd and surprising operator.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121390140#Comment_121390140

SF had a representative sent over. Only mention because you posted about "Ulster says no"

Im struggling to see why Sinn Fein would need to have someone marching in Barcelona?

HalloweenJack

That's not what I was referring to; it was more about the mentality of the people protesting against the Catalans. There is no debating the matter with them; it's just a complete refusal to acknowledge the viewpoint of the opposing side.

They are the Spanish equivalent (in terms of national identity, at least) of those British people who refuse to accept that some Scots don't want to be part of the UK and some NI residents don't feel British or that would have dismissed the idea of Irish independence in the early 20th century. They can't comprehend the position and respond with vitriol; they have zero interest in debating the topic.

It is quite ingenuous; some would refer to Catalan, Galician and Basque (!) as 'dialects' of Spanish whereas anyone with the slightest notion of linguistics can see they are wholly different languages. They similarly misrepresent history and claim that the concept of Catalonia was made up out of thing air and that this is all about money. They ignore the history of the region and the longstanding Catalan identity.

It is also very important to recognise that this is NOT a right/left issue. Some Socialist voters are coming out and protesting as well and some of the most open-minded Spaniards I know can be quite stubborn and insistent on their view that Catalonia is Spain, end of.

mvt

Interesting & fair sounding summary of the situation there.

I have noticed before that Basques that I knew here in Dublin were very sceptical of Catalonian claims to independence & felt it was all about money while vigorously being in favour of an independent Basque country.

As we can see in other parts of the world that a political solution is always going to be the best option no matter how unpalatable it sounds.

HalloweenJack

Catalonia is one of the richest regions of Spain and is a net contributor so them making more noise about independence in recent times (as opposed to the Basques who have always been pushing for independence) when their stock has fallen somewhat (Madrid only overtook it as the wealthiest region in the last ten years and the early 2010s recession certainly intensified calls for independence) is treated with scepticism. Iirc, there was never an armed struggle for Catalan independence, unlike the Basques. And Basques are quite noticeably culturally different from Spaniards. While different, Catalans, not unlike the Portuguese, the French and the Italians, are part of a Romance cultural continuum that stretches across southwest Europe.

A family that was very influential in Catalan politics (the Pujols) have also been tied up in tax avoidance cases.

That said, a desire for Catalan independence does exist and has always existed. Economic factors seem to be stoking the current drive but it has been made clear that they wouldn't be automatically accepted into the EU and, since 2017, several companies shifted their Spanish bases from Barcelona to Madrid so the uncertainty is damaging its brand to an extent. Its not unlike Brexit (or Irish independence) from that perspective i.e. Catalan independence would do a lot of harm at first before being able to reap the benefits of removing itself from the rest of Spain.

donaghs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121390744#Comment_121390744

You and many Irish seem to see this in terms of “Catalan independence is good”, “Spanish unionism” is bad. I’d definitely seem it as more complicated. I can see pros and cons for both. You could also compare Catalans with Northern unionists in 1913 when they didn’t want to be part of one-state Home Rule Ireland. There’s many ways to slice and dice nation states and the identities within them.

On the language point, Catalan is actually incredibly similar to Spanish, and French to some extent. similarly Galician is incredibly close to Spanish, and Portuguese to some extent. Basque should not be lumped in with any of those languages as , except for loans word and other proximity issues , it’s completely different to all European languages .

HalloweenJack

I've been living in Spain for eleven years.

While similar, those languages are separate and not dialects of Spanish as I've heard some Spanish unionists claim. Its a simple point but an example of how some of these people are being disingenuous in their arguments.

The current make up of Catalonia has been influenced by Spanish policies in the 20th century. A lot of industry was located in Catalonia and the Basque Country to tie them into the country's infrastructure. A result of this was that the regions became richer and workers emigrated there from poorer parts of the country. This 'diluted' the local population, to some extent. There was a lot of planning involved in bringing those two regions into the country and making it harder to leave further down the line.

The Crowns of Aragon and Castile were joined in 1469, that's the point when Catalonia became part of what would become modern Spain. There was quite a serious Catalan uprising in the 17th century. There has always been a feeling there. Ireland was under the rule of England for 750 years but didn't stop that feeling still being there. Gibraltar has been ruled by the UK for over three hundred years (it was only ever under Spanish rule for 250 years) but it doesn't stop the same Spaniards claiming that it is Spanish.

So a lot of these arguments are nonsense. There are not based on fairness, just a denial of listening to people's concerns and a desire to continue with the status quo. These people have no interest in communication or compromise so I don't have any time for them.

Personally, I don't think it would be a good idea for Catalonia to be independent from an economic POV and they'd be out of the EU but if there's sufficient public support, let them have it. Spain refuses to entertain the idea. Even the Tories in the UK let Scotland have a referendum, FFS, while Spain puts so many obstacles in the way to deny any possibility of debate on the topic.

accensi0n

"which is probably for the best, other people's business isn't really anything to do with us."

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