sardia wrote:↶eSOANEM wrote:The courts ruled it had no legal meaning but did not remove it. There are also constitutional criticisms of the judgement as several judges' terms had expired. The Spanish Constitution also refers to multiple nations within Spain and that has universally been interpreted to include Catalunya, Galicia, and Euskadi.
Regardless, the Spanish government certainly recognises Catalunya as a community and the historical argument stands putting it, at worst, on a similar level of recognition to Wales. Acting like the Catalans are not a people has no legal, ethical, or historical basis and acting otherwise is ignoring the facts in favour of enforcing a (frankly) Francoist ideal of a greater Spain
I'm surprised you haven't mentioned the underlying reason. Money. Aren't Catalans much richer than the rest of the country? They don't appreciate their money going to others.
The US is lucky in that the richer States don't revolt over the poor states being leeches.
Oh yeah, I entirely understand why Spain's doing what it's doing, I'm just saying it isn't at all justifiable legally or ethically. Tbh, I'm not convinced this will help Spain; this sort of brutal suppression rarely makes the people happier staying under your yoke
Edit to expand on the above: Spain's economy's been in the shitter ever since the 2007 financial crisis and isn't really showing any signs of changing any time soon, Catalunya leaving could potentially push them over the edge into becoming a new Greece or Iceland, something the Spanish government understandably doesn't want to be. The rich states aren't entirely analogous though (likewise, London in the UK isn't) because the US is much more culturally homogeneous and, for all the differences between the two coasts, the midwest, the south and a few others, Catalunya, Galicia, and Euskadi are all far more culturally distinct from the Castilian-speaking regions. As such, there's less incentive for the rich states to leave because, by and large, the citizens of those states still view themselves as Americans first and citizens of their state second, something that is a lot less clear with Catalunya, Euskadi (and to a lesser extent Galicia).
Anyway, right now, the Catalans are understandably pissed and there have been protests but I very much expect things to remain relatively quiet until the 1st when things will really kick off. The reason I expect a small period of relative quiet is that the serious agitators will recognise that the 1st is the best date for organising and the one that everyone will be planning to use and, as such, acting before then just gives the Spanish police an excuse to detain people so that they can't be present for the big protests on the 1st.
I have heard that the Spanish have chartered two cruise ships to house their extra police but that the dock workers have refused to service them in any way in protest. This could very easy get into a prison-hulk situation and is freaking scary (moreso for me than many similar things elsewhere because I had been thinking of doing my postgrad in Barcelona and am now having to rethink that, and because it's practically on my doorstep being in the UK)