Why are you surprised that the majority of people who would go out and brave a potential riot to vote in an illegitimate ballot, are the ones who are voting for that cause which resulted in said ballot in the first place? This isn't a referendum that will be recognized by Spain, so almost everyone who would vote for the status quo in a proper ballot would just have stayed home I think.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Catalonia to split from Spain within 48 hours of secession vote
- Thread starter LordOfLore
- Start date
- Status
Why are you surprised that the majority of people who would go out and brave a potential riot to vote in an illegitimate ballot, are the ones who are voting for that cause which resulted in said ballot in the first place? This isn't a referendum that will be recognized by Spain, so almost everyone who would vote for the status quo in a proper ballot would just have stayed home I think.
Treason is a fundamentally nonsensical idea in a democracy. It is some bullshit leftover from the divine right of kings.
Lysander Spooner said:
Skellig Gra
Member
Disagree. It's not nonsensical at all. It's more akin to selling military secrets than voting in an illegal referendum though.
Fair enough, but that implies that the person has made some oath or affirmation to keep said secrets. If not, then there is no crime.
Strong argument.
Or even Ireland leaving the UK/English rule after 800 years.....oh wait!
vonStirlitz
Unconfirmed Member
Its a bit harsh to call it an illegitimate vote. Yes, it was not sanctioned by the state, bit it was sanctioned by the region. So legitimacy depends upon whether your concept of democracy stems from the people or the state.
An illegitimate vote is one where democracy itself is disregarded, such as only fielding one candidate. That sort of thing.
Skellig Gra
Member
Most military members with access to classified information take some sort of secrecy oath/pact. But yes, if they did not do that then there would be no crime.
That is not really comparable. Spain was unified under marriage of two royal houses. Ireland was taken by military force and subjugated.
Ireland's various nobles and chieftains declared the English king as the Irish lord (later monarch) in the 12th century, a situation which persisted right up to 1801 with the Act of Union which merged the two kingdoms so the parallels are there.
Also Catalonia (Aragon) was formally an independent, sovereigm kingdom in a personal union with Castile until it was abolished by the Crown in the early 18th century.
Not disagreeing with you, but as I was just looking this up, both Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon were actually of the same house, that of Trastamara, according to Wikipedia at least. The ancient Christian kingdoms in Iberia were all at different times united and disunited as royal families merged and broke apart. Hell, even the emirs of Muslim al-Andalus would intermarry with the Christians in the north. I would note that Catalonia did revolt after the installation of the Bourbon dynasty as they were much more centralist than the prior Hapsburgs.
Not really a good analogy. The Irish were stomped on for being Catholic, while the Catalans under Franco were stomped on for not speaking Spanish. We all acting like the Catalans have never been oppressed?
Skellig Gra
Member
There are some similarities sure but I would deem those more superfluous due to the brutality in which Ireland was subjugated. Anyway I feel like I might be derailing so if you wanna discuss more PM me.
It was more a reference to the formation of the state. Obviously Franco was a brutal dictator, there is no denying that.
English state building in Ireland wasn't particularly brutal, as in relative to other forms of late medieval very early early modern state building, until Cromwell.
We shouldn't be basing our modern conceptions of states totally on the random historical incidents of particularly feudal state structures. Arguing that Catalonia shouldn't succeed because of feudal happenstance is some incredibly strong conservatism. The argument boils down to, this is how things are, so they should remain this way because things should remain as they are.
Also the Cortez in question never voted to unify with Spain. Not that early modern representative institutions were actually particularly democratic or anything.
Skellig Gra
Member
Not arguing either for or against Catalonia leaving Spain. As an outsider I don't feel I have the right. Just looking at historical context.
The better argument for why it isn't a good analogy is that Ireland has a large settler population that defined itself strongly in opposition to the natives. But that's an argument for why the situation in Catalonia should be more straightforwardly democratic not less.
Candescence
Member
I'm almost impressed by how badly the Spanish government managed to fuck this one up. Their heavy-handedness in all this pretty much guaranteed the result. Makes Brexit look like a bloody picnic.
Smiles and Cries
Member
So now what, nothing happens?
I think (blind) nationalism is up there with the things that have caused the most damage to humanity ever. Not just for Spain.
Looks like it!
Probably lots of protesting and a bunch of people in other countries misunderstanding what's actually going on, because the only people reporting on the referendum have a bias one way or another. Seriously though, can someone *attempt* to calmly explain what's going on in Spain right now? I'm so confused. If the referendum was so illegal, why is this a story? There must have been some weight to it.
ChainedMaster
Banned
It's really not that difficult to understand. Catalonia had a surge in nationalism, they perhaps the majority want to secede but the Spanish government does not want them to. The federal court have ruled the referendum illegal. I'm sure you knew all of that already.
It's a story because it's one step closer to independence. Regardless of whether it'll happen or not. It's a step in that direction
It became a big international story because of the national govts response. But it's been a big political thing for decades and decades. Catalonia are like Quebec, Scotland etc in that they're a state/province with a long seperatist history and there have always been calls for independence.
If you're in America, basically imagine that Alabama held a vote about leaving the union, but the federal government didn't recognise the vote and deemed it unconstitutional, but Alabama went ahead and held it anyway, then during the vote Washington sent riot police who beat and attacked the voters, and the vote ended up with a high turnout and 90% voted to leave.
What do you do? It's deemed unconstitutional but a lot of people voted and there's clearly a serious demand for it.
ChainedMaster
Banned
This was not a high turnout at all. It was less than half.
Ah sorry, that's good to know, it's actually something i meant to fact check but it slipped my mind. So about 4.5 million people in Catalonia?
Ok, sorry for the hyperbole on my part but this makes total sense. As a complete outsider, I say let them secede. Unless the public as a whole was suppressed from voting, then why not? Will Spain's economy drastically sink if Catalonia leaves?
IIRC less Catalan people voted yes today than voted to ratify the Spanish constitution.
It's really weird to see people parroting the exact same justifications that Brexiters did when they don't even manage to get half the population to vote on the issue.
That's my feeling too but it's complex as hell and neither outcome is necessarily right.
We've got to remember that very high level politics are in play - the Spanish government don't want their sovereignty to be compromised. I imagine they'd lose a lot in tax but even before that it would be a plate of political armour ripped from the state.
Been there done that.
Haha yep.
User123456
Member
I wanted to vote but feared for my physical integrity and also for legal repercussions down the road. Should tell you something about the turnout and also about the quality of democracy in this country.
It's like 17% of the population and 20ish% of GDP, so yes, it's a big deal. The same way the US government would never allow California, NY, or Texas to secede. Both Spain and Catalunya would have an economic recession akin to the last big one, devastating both areas.
Yeesh. Understandable.
Bitmap Frogs
Mr. Community
Been there done that.
And Catalonia wants to leave in order to own people and hold them in some of the most horrible situations imaginal so this comparison is good and not at all terrible. Of course the US is also based on this anyway.
Smiles and Cries
Member
I only seen some reporting on Al Jeerza English they tend to have all sides represented
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OSXlx7Fy04
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26Ic6r2KfDk
their channel also have many reports of events leading to the vote
plenty of educational channels explaining what it is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaQ4_v0fz6k
if you like a quick history
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpoA23fn71o
plenty other better channels that are not political just educational
PdotMichael
Banned
What a surprise that the referendum won with a Soviet era like result.
royox
Member
But not 20 millions of people that followed him
There are three options as I see it:
1. start a war to force them to remain(the US civil war model)
2. bribe them to remain(like Canada did for the Quebecois)
3. let them go peacefully(which has happened very rarely in history, usually the result of a total collapse of government, like the old Soviet Union)
Making constitutional or legal arguments is pointless, as the whole issue is that these people do not wish to be governed under the current constitution.
I guess a potential 4th option would be the Scotland model, which is to devolve as much authority to the local government as possible, which is a solution that seemed to be working somewhat until the central government decided to drag Scotland down a path that was deeply unpopular locally(Brexit), which is why I didn't include it. As long as the central government has any real power over the political destiny of the separatist region, it will almost inevitably lead to conflict.
This is a fairly nonsensical argument though.
There is no reason anything should change economically because of the split, the only thing that changes is the political situation. The economic activity remains the exact same as it was before, it's just now split across 2 political entities.
Saying 'Spain loses 20% of it's GDP' is meaningless because Spain is a completely arbitrary construction. The GDP doesn't go away, it just gets credited to a new completely arbitrary entity.
Of course the people who have power over that 20% are not going to be happy to lose that power, but that's not the same thing as it being a bad thing economically.
Already been corrected thanks
40% sounds like a high turnout when you have cops hitting people who go to vote.
This is a really naive argument to make. The division of debt alone could take years and put Spain out of Maastricht requirements, necessitating more austerity at a time with Spain can ill afford it. That's to say nothing of the Catalonians being frozen out of the EU markets because the EU is busy negotiating Brexit and because an even more recalcitrant Spain will never want to give it access.
Both will end up massively poorer if this goes badly.
Raging Spaniard
If they are Dutch, upright and breathing they are more racist than your favorite player
As a nation its typically not a good idea to say "if you dont like it, leave!" Setting a precedent, for one, and also becoming a giant joke. Losing territory is about the worst that can happen to a country from a political standpoint.
Financially, Catalonia is also pretty huge for Spain. Its one of the biggest markets we have. Jobs, trade, culture, economy would/could go to shit and nobody wants FC Barcelona to play in the French league (yes, this matters to people) My Catalan friends when they want to convince people usually go one of two ways:
-We are the last remaining colony, we deserve our independence [cue long history rant]
-We are taxed and taken advantage of way moreso than the rest of Spain, its bullshit and it has to stop
Both takes are usually mixed in "Spain is evil and fascist" which, well, thats their opinion. Both of the above points can be argued back and forth.
Theres a lot more to this as any Catalonian here can attest or correct me. Some friends have told me that they dont necessarily want Catalonia to become its own country, but rather something like a State++ which, if you ask me is having their cake and eating it too, but we can all have a debate from there.
SporeCrawler
Member
40% is a high turnout given that the referendum was not binding in the first place.
*Around 40% of Catalan voters want to leave.
veryslowhand
Banned
Putin won
PdotMichael
Banned
With such a low voter turnout they rather deny the democratic legitimacy of the referendum and result.
- Status