Catalans and the world

Alfred Bosch of the Catalan Republican Left doesn't quite understand what it is that makes a republic. Speaking to a Mexican radio station he said:

Catalonia is a nation that is at this time in the Kingdom of Spain, the autonomy exists at this time but many of us Catalans think this is not sufficient. And for that reason we ask for independence to be able to be a republic like any other state, like Mexico or Costa Rica or Norway or Portugal can be.

 Catalan Republican Bosch with Norwegian King Harald V

Political police in Catalonia

Recently the various police forces in Scotland were united into a single force under the control of the Scottish government and known as Police Scotland. Now the Yes campaign has announced that it recognises a branch of its organisation called Police Scotland for Independence.

The first sentence of that is true. The second is not.

Recently Catalonia took control of its own police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, with the Spanish Policía Nacional and Guardia Civil losing all powers of regular policing.* Now the Assamblea Nacional Catalana, which is the Leninist revolutionary vanguard of Catalan independence, has announced that it recognises a branch of its organisation called Mossos per la Independència.

Both sentences of that are true.

*The Policía Nacional still do border checks and the Guardia Civil do airport security, as in all of Spain.

Link in Spanish.

ERC and how Catalans are different

One common criticism of nationalists is that they want to put people into separate boxes with mutually exclusive labels. Usually they deny it but not always. Here on the contrary we have Josep Maria Terricabras, the lead candidate for ERC (Catalan Republican Left) in the European Parliament elections.

After very dark centuries, paved with authoritarian monarchical repression and extraordinarily anti-Catalan and cruel dictatorships, we all know that, in the last 35, there are also many breaches of faith and aggressions that Catalonia has received from the Spanish governments.

Quite how this squares with Catalonia being the richest region in Spain, so rich that he can claim (absolutely wrongly) that Spain is robbing it of €16bn, or that 300 years of Spanish occupation has made it the wealthiest region in Spain, is not exactly clear. He goes on:

I am of those who believe in the unity of the human being and don’t believe for anything in the strange statement, widely accepted today, according to which it is normal for current day citizens to have a lot of simultaneous identities. I do not understand how having multiple identities is seen as so good when until a short time ago the psychiatrists were treating it, and it seems to me that they still are treating it. Also, I ask myself, if we get retired with one identity, how can we hope to get ahead with lots of current identities that sometimes disagree with each other?

Shall I just bang my head on the nearest brick wall?

Catalonia, Crimea and a lack of joined up thinking

It would be unconstitutional to hold a referendum on secession in Catalonia. The reason is that Spain is one country and decisions on the basic union of the country can only be taken by the Spanish people as a whole. The Catalan nationalists are opposed to this fact and insist on their Right to Decide.

It would be unconstitutional to hold a referendum on secession in Ukraine. The reason is that Ukraine is one country and decisions on the basic union of the country can only be taken by the Ukrainian people as a whole. The Catalan nationalists support this fact and oppose the holding of a referendum in Crimea.

Isn’t that clever of them? It’s not often you come across such sophisticated political thought.