Self-Determined Catalans

The polls have just closed here in Catalonia and it looks very likely that two million of the electorate of 5.4 million will have voted in the civil referendum.

This is despite the fact that:

a) only one third of the normal number of polling stations were open

b) the Constitutional Court had declared the vote, the act of voting, and the act of supporting a vote illegal

c) Head teachers at every school in Catalonia (many schools are used as polling stations in elections) had received this letter from the Governor of Catalonia telling them that it was illegal to open the school as a polling station.

Message from the Moon

(The letter, from the wonderfully named Maria Llanos de Luna (Mary "Planes of the Moon") is a masterpiece in legalistic obscurantism. It is also almost unreadable - the first sentence, for example, runs to 107 words.)

Catalans everywhere have been voting - there were queues at the London office of the Generalitat, in Fleet Street.

Today's poll is determined self-determination. Every Catalan who voted was breaking the law - two million people defied the courts and voted. This is democracy in the face of a Madrid government that tried to ban it. At last night's European Free Alliance meeting in Barcelona  Daniel Turp of the Parti Québécois focused on the right of people to self determination as a measure of democracy. 

He was right - the Catalans have shown what democracy (δημοκρατία / dēmokratía) really is - rule of the people.

Crushing Catalonia

The machinery of the Spanish state is attempting to crush Catalonia, to ensure that Catalans cannot vote, 9^th November, on independence.

At its weekly meeting today the State Council (Consejo deEstado, Government consultative body) will dictate a memorandum against the vote. That will trigger a decision tomorrow, Friday, at the Constitutional Tribunal (Tribunal Constitucional, the court responsible for interpreting the 1978 Constitution) to ban the vote. The State Prosecutor (Abogacía del Estado, part of the Ministry of Justice) will then attempt to stop the vote.

And this is the second version of a vote that they are banning. The first, organised by the Catalan Government, was banned on the basis that it was unconstitutional. This second version (called the “nou 9-N” or ‘new 9-N’), run by 40,000 volunteers and with the support of local councils is also about to be banned.

Catalans are getting angry. It will not take too much more provocation from Madrid before there is an explosion. As it is, the intransigence of the Madrid Government is likely to increase, not decrease the desire for independence.

Catalans have seen the people of Scotland vote. Why can we not vote here?

On 9-N we will vote. We must vote.

"Si o Si, i Si i Si"