(excuse my english) and the long mail
Hello...I'm ussually a lurker of this mail list, but as I live in spain
(bot I'm not spanish, born in southamerica) it's my intention to add
some ideas to the debate not to start a flame! :)
read this as you read an skeptical opinion and lot of this are in the
news...spanish or international
Reading international press, apart from few exceptions, it's like
reading Spanish press. Bullshit. But also there's a situation in wich
"nobody knows what is going to happend". Regarding this I would like to
tell some things that there's no present in the mainstream media. I will
split it in points to organize it better and try to avoid argumentative
chaos)
*) Both governments, Central and Catalonian, are deeply corrupt:
a) Central government is the most corrupt party in all Europe (sic). And
still in government (that tells you a few things about the conservative
mind en Spain, but more on this later). And as in Spain there's not
extreme-right significantly parties, so PP involves a lot of right-wing
voters with different approaches (catholics, ultra-catholics and
spanish-nationalist, liberals and ultraliberals and mostly but not all
of Franco's nostalgics) that are separated in another countries, so
their representation and weight in politics is different (not less,
different). Also, due to the spanish transition those who holds the
power, symbolic capital and in a good proportion economic power are
mostly the same than in Franco's era.
b) Regarding Catalonian government two things:
b.1) At least one of the parties that run the government coalition
(Junts pel Si) is deeply flawed in corruption. At the point that the
need to refund the political party (with the same corrupts inside, of
course). This party was in government almost times since Franco and
represented, and still represents, the right capitalist entrepreneurship
bourgeois of Catalonia (you can take a look at the Pujol family). This
party never want the independence, but they used that idea to exchange
political stances, mainly with right-wing governments. So they were
always "moderate catalanist". (I'm going to resume, excuse me)
This starts to change with Artur Mas government in the generalitat. When
he arrive imposes a lot of cuts and drastic measures due to the economic
crisis, this led them to several riots (in one of them the mossos,
catalonian police, took the eye of a woman with a gum bullet (again,
sorry for my english :)...
b.2) due to the first independence referendum and the political
crisis, in the next election according to the pools there were going to
loss the government. So they stated this joint venture (Junts pel Si)
with the support of ERC (Left republicans of catalonia) and, outside the
platform, CUP, anti-capitalist...you can imagine that. So the only
program was independance. It's important to know, regarding this, that
according to pools never in the history of Catalonia, not once until
now, the "yes" would be a winning option.
*) In this situation, Independence was a weapon, for both governments,
to still alive at the end of the day. Puijdemont asking for things and
exacerbating the situation (it was his mandate, obvious). And on the
other hand, for Rajoy's government two observations.
a) Regarding the spanish electoral system, there's a prevalence for
votes outside of big cities, so voting in Madrid, Barcelona or Bilbao
worth much less than voting in Segovia, for example. If we take in
consideration this and that in Spain there's a bunch (but a bunch) of
older people you see that PP voters are: old people (+65 precisely) and
not for the main capital cities (except Madrid province, not the city).
So Rajoy's voters don't want to know nothing about and is in Rajoy's
interest to present himself like the "spanish value holder" because that
gives him votes (a lot) and almost guarantee their government stability.
b) (this argument is on the news) The right in spain...and I'm tempted
to say that also the left, the don't know about wining...when you win
you give something to the other part. They only know to beat, to destroy
the other. In this sense the catalan government did know that the
referendum was going to be a fail but hey use it as a negotiation weapon
(this, I think, it's deeply irresponsible). This is not a matter of
referendum yes or no, I will you there soon. Is a matter of a government
using people's belif to exchange favors (Artur Mas itself admitted this,
with other words of course). Right now, today, the central government
pass a new law so companies can get out of catalonia real quick...so
well see what happends
So...let's say, this is like House of Cards, but real. It's disgusting,
but it is like this. This situation led to an unprecedented polarization
in wich (like in many other historical events) those who are in the
middle get punch for both sides
With all this, I will focus more on your email between lines.
El 06/10/17 a las 13:24, Patrice Riemens escribió:
Reading stuff in newspapers and others the last few days I am getting
increasingly shocked -
and worried, about what appears to be mainstream (media & politics) opinion wrt
the 'events'
in Catalonia.
What do you expect? They are media conglomerates! ;)
It boils down to something like 'Catalonians are nationalistic fools, what they
do is ramp illegal,
Spain's unity should be upheld and respected, Rajoy and state forces act fully
inside the
constitution and legality' etc.
The second part it's true, Rajoy and friends are acting inside the
constitution and the law. And that's the problem, that he is ONLY acting
inside the law and constitution when the situation and, most of all, his
position demands that he do politics. But again, the way of doing
politics for Rajoy is via the judges...because that's what is keeping
him in "alive".
And the media...well, they are in most cases following the trends.
EU stands aside, while European leaders fall over each other to support the
Rajoy regime -
with sole exception Belgium's Michel, who's probably got 'his ears cleaned out'
(Dutch loc)
by now ...
Obvious...the EU condems the police brutality but says that is an
internal problem and should be solved with the constitutional law...IF
the EU gets involved, think what would happend with Córcega, Euskadi,
Baviera, Belgium (that why Michel talks!, Scotland again...and the ones
I', forgetting).So...personally, I hope they get involved, because I
think that the EU is a fail like this, Spain needs a new constitution
that leaves behind Franco a all the dictatorship past and catalonian
people deserve to vote a referendum. But again...at least if in Spain we
don't have an old people gonocide, i doubt this would happen. Also, hope
I'm wrong
The insane brutality of the Spanish police is papered over, just as is the
political
steering of the 'independent' justice, but far worse, 3 centuries of
oppression, culminating
in 40 years of ultra-Castillian Franquist oppression, which almost wipped out
above ground
Catalan language and culture, and finds its thinly veiled admirators in Rajoy's
Partido
Popular, are all completely forgotten.
Yes, but not only catalan! Basque people, Murcian people...in Spain
there's a lot more than the "catalan-radicals" wich, under my humble
opinion they are not the "most" rebel in spain, sorry. In Murcia for
example the PP governs, but those people have a long anarchist
tradition. Franco¡'s regime not only wiped out catalanist...they wiped
out half spain and in concrete parts, more (in Euskadi, but also in
Madrid and Galicia). So for internal distribution that makes less
difference that outside perhaps. With this I'm not saying that there's
no catalan singularity, I'm saying that there's not the only one for sure.
And never mind millions of Catalans braving extreme odds to exercise what is
the most
fundamental democratic right: to vote and be counted. But does the mainstream
care for
democracy any longer?
Yes and this is another lesson that we have learned I think. In first
place the most iconic moment for democracy is voting and the media don't
cover that well. That's (in my view) because we are not in democracies
anymore since long time ago. And on the other hand, honestly, this
referendum idea was not executed in good ways. finnally, voting for what
you want, when you want and wathever you want is not a democratic right
in contemporary democracies...I don't now none that says that ;)
With a mainstream like that, who needs extremists and terrorists for the
descent into the
unknown? And if Madrid indeed pulls out the 'nuclear option', Article 155 of
the Spanish
Constitution: total take over over Catalonia - and Madrid is on the verge of
doing so, I´d
say: pack up for the beach - or Barcelona.
Please, don't say Madrid...there a bunch of people in Madrid who fight
with catalonian people, wants changes and support the referendum!
Finally...if you reach that point I would ask a question:
Don't you miss, in all this, material politics? let's say...instead of
"transversal", "cultural" and "indentitarian" politics. Some really left
and material politics to improve people lives and wealth?. Because I can
tell you that this is a "must" not only in Catalonia, and if they get
their independence in this way, they are going to be (unfortunately)
economically really fucked up.
Cheers all the same from Christiania, bit of a weird place in this context.
Cheers from a Madrid citizen staying in Ankara!
and yes...would love to be there!
p+2D!
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]
# @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]
# @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
