The Catalan government and its parliamentary majority have gone the whole hog to achieve their final objective: a unilateral declaration of independence which brings the Spanish government to their knees to accept their requests with very favourable conditions to construct this new state, whatever it takes. They want surrender more than an agreement, although they are not giving up on dialogue, mediation; but still not renouncing their goals.
A few weeks ago, few people imagined that the secessionist coup could go so far. Rajoy’s government insisted in public (and in private) that he had the situation under control, that he would stop the independence process in its tracks. They failed, the rebels had a strategy and tactics, a lot of resources, a social base and the capacity for mobilising people. They also manage their political marketing and social networks very skilfully and professionally.
They have constructed a dual legality: their own, coming from their Parliament and transcending the Spanish Constitution, which has been left aside, without any validity, qualified as oppressive and unfair. Constitutional legality is no use to them unless it works in their interests. They have created the ME of the Catalans, who are loyal, fair, peaceful and good people: compared with the THEM, the Spaniards, who are not even a nation, who are old-fashioned, violent, oppresors, fascists…They have used children and old people to face up to police who were charged with an impossible task. They have shame-facedly told lies, even bigger than those which characterised the Brexit campaign or Trump’s election.
The chronicle of a month which has amazed Catalans, Spaniards and Europeans: a month which ran from the sessions in the Catalan Parliament at the beginning of September to anul the Constitution to the simulation of a referendum full of irregularities. These oblige the rejection of the nature of comparable consultation and the next session of the Catalan Parliament, which must take the consequences of the false referendum in the form of a unilateral declaration of independence.
The King of Spain’s stern intervention on Tuesday took the problem to a much more serious and urgent level, which doesn’t allow for any fixing up; the King asked for constitutional legality and effective democracy to be restored. And from that moment on, the situation has become more balanced and the rebels are losing ground and the plot. The immediate exit from Catalonia of many top companies, who are relocating their headquarters in other Spanish cities, has signified a change in plan. It is also irrefutable proof that the consequences of the process are not as nice and happy as it was promised they would be.
