(translated in house)
December 13 2013
The truth is I do not regard myself an
acute political analyst or anything like that, but I`m going to
indulge myself, without this being a precedent, by sharing a personal
insight into what is going on in Catalonia and what I think will
happen. I refer of course to the vexed (for many) issue of the
so-called sovereignty process, and which I now see as simply
irrevocable and will in a few months' time lead to a new state in
Europe...
Click on "Més informació" below to read the rest of the article.
What I do not understand is how it is
not acknowledged that all the stages that this dynamic is going
through were and are entirely planned and follow a logic that places
its potential in the entrenched refusal of the Madrid government to
negotiate anything and to portray this image of immobility that
merely reinforces the pro-independence arguments by showing a
dogmatic and fanatical Spain, directly confronted with the alleged
negotiating and dialoguing idiosyncrasies of the Catalan people.
I think the whole strategy leads to
yesterday's annnouncement of the date and question of the referendum
will not be able to materialize. Moreover, they won't even try. In
fact, curiously enough, the only hope what we might call Unionist
options could have would be for the referendum to be held and in
which the independence option would get a slim majority or might even
lose. Hiwever, if there is no refernedum, there will be independence.
That is why they keep repeating that only if the referendum is legal
will it take place, it won't be held. That's the catch.
The move seems clear to me and I think
that is what was foreseen from the very start. It relies on the
central government, the Spanish parliament, certain judicial
decisions or whatever prevent the referendum being held. What will
happen then? In the face of the blocking of all legal paths to
independence, the option would have to be an early election, which
would inevitably be of a plebiscitary nature. Let noone that the
outcome will be, as up to now, an absolute majority of the
independence parties and a Parliament which will have full democratic
legitimacy, if not legality, to declare independence unilaterally,
which it certainly will. That is, instead of a defeat or a very
discrete victory that a referendum would bestow on the independence
cause, the outcome would be a majority of nearly two-thirds of the
Parliament that would materialize it in a solemn declaration that
would give birth to a new sovereign State: the Catalan republic. This
objective requires, I repeat, that the referendum be impossible and
not be held. The stubbornness of Rajoy and Rubalcaba is the key to
the process leading to the desired end: secession.
What can the central government do at
this or any later stage in the process? Answer: nothing. The
suspension of Catalan autonomy is inconceivable that would pose a
huge administrative problem that no one knows how it could be solved,
starting with the dismissal of the President of the Generalitat and
replacing him by..., whom? And how? A beach-landing of thousands of
civil servants that would take over a bureaucratic system that would
most probably refuse to obey those who would appear as usurpers?
Nor can the central government can lay
too many hopes on foreign countries running to its support should the
political determination of Catalonia enjoy wide parliamentary
support. It is clear that the threat of the "expulsion"
from Europe seven million of its citizens is not going to take place,
among other things because those citizens self-segregated from Spain
would not on that account lose their nationality as Spaniards, at
least if Article 11.2 of the Constitution is applied. Moreover, let
it not be forgotten that, as always, the international position that
will end up being decisive is not that of the countries of Europe,
but that of the United States, who could not care less for the likely
chagrin of the Spanish government in the face of a position that does
not support its interests. The recent visit to Israel by Artur Mas
could be related to the indirect request for support from the major
world power following the outcome of a peaceful and democratic
process. The way the international press is reflecting the whole
sovereigntist process, in any case, cannot not greatly reassure the
unionists positions.
Moreover, in this story a strategic
differential is being left out: the whole of the sovereigntist
process is being driven, dynamized and maintained from beneath by
what in other times we would not have hesitated to describe as a mass
movement; today we call it a broad grassroots citizen movement, and
there is no doubt that it would be mobilized and would take less that
two minutes to take to the streets, as it has done so spectacularly
when it has organized its own events. Unlike Quebec or Scotland, the
sovereigntist movement does not appear to be the result of a
political will expressed and acting from above, but quite the
opposite. It is the political parties that are being dragged by a
collective mood they no longer control and that has its own
organizational structures.
In such circumstances, the Unionist
option only has one possible way to act. By refusing to negotiate,
and being incapable of even technically implementing Article 155 of
the Constitution, its only recourse would to apply Article 8, i.e. an
armed intervention to take the militarized police – the Guardia
Civil – or directly troops out into the streets, i.e. the same act
that the government of the Republic took during the black biennium in
1934: bombarding the Generalitat. Only that this time there would be
a lot more people in the street peacefully preventing the army from
occupying the centre of Barcelona; that is, unless there was a
military coup, without and against the central government, in the
name of upholding not only the law but the sacred duty of the
military to defend the unity of the Spanish nation. In that case, the
international scandal would be colossal and would simply and totally
discredit any unitary political project in Spain that would appear to
only be possible by the force of arms.
In short, there will be no referendum,
the only reasonable option that Unionists have. It is this factor
which will make the unilateral declaration of independence
legitimate, and such an event could only be stalled in the usual way,
i.e. by the force of arms. We will see the army on the streets. In
such a case, and in actual fact right now, the doubters have to
eventually choose between nationalists and the “nacionales”. I 'm
afraid my choice has already been made.
Manuel Delgado
Ramon Casanellas Cell of the “Partit
dels i les Comunistes de Catalunya” (EUiA)
Cap comentari:
Publica un comentari a l'entrada