Self-determination in Catalonia

09/09/09

Few days ago, the Catalan Government approved a draft bill that will allow Catalans to celebrate referendums on issues of special transcendence within the Catalan and local ambit. It is, as Minister Jordi Ausàs said, a law that goes as far as the Spanish Constitution permits, and represents a significant step to foment direct participation on public issues and to improve democracy in Catalonia.

These referendums, however, will have two main drawbacks. First, the Spanish government will ultimately have to give the go-ahead to celebrate any referendum and, second, the results of these referendums will be non-binding. These are certainly not minor details but again we must remember that this law will be built under the Spanish Constitution, and nobody is so naive to think Spain will never allow Catalans to celebrate binding referendums on everything we want without its authorization.

But at the same time, everybody is able to see the symbolic power that these referendums will have, and that despite its consultative and advisory character, they represent the first step towards the day in which the Catalan people will celebrate a referendum to decide its own future.

However, these days (september 09), a social entity in Arenys de Munt, a city near Barcelona, is organizing a non-binding referendum on the independence of Catalonia for  the next 13th of September. The city council decided to support the referendum last June, basically by facilitating some public buildings to install the ballot boxes. One can expect the typical  pro-Spanish groups (i.e. "Falange Española de las JONS", a fascist party born during Franco's dictatorship that the Spanish tribunals have never bothered to illegalize) to start a campaign against its celebration, but so far, nothing out of what should be ordinary democracy and freedom: a group of citizens plans to consult their co-citizens their opinion on a certain matter while those who still think Franco is alive  make as much noise as possible to stop it.

So What? Well, unfortunately, Catalonia are still in Spain, a country that has a low level understanding of democracy. Not only the Spanish State have authorised a march of "La Falange" through the streets of Arenys the same day of the referendum, but the Spanish courts have banned the support of the city council on the referendum, and no one knows what else they might do in the coming days to stop the celebration of the referendum.

Luckily for everybody, this display of fear at the sight of regular act of democracy is yet another prove of how Spain is incapable of facing a reality it has always denied: Catalonia is a nation that will, eventually, exercise the first and basic step towards justice and freedom that consists on deciding with whom you want to share a democratic system. This decision lies at the foundations of every single democratic system, and I'm sure it will represent the theoretical core of the next processes of creation of new states in democratic areas such as Europe.

Source: http://www.cataloniablog.com/