Madrid’s colonial attitude

Not a few for­eign­ers are puz­zled by the Cata­lans re­lent­less in­de­pen­dence move­ment. In fact, vis­it­ing Cat­alo­nia, with Barcelona at its fore­front, of­fers glimpses of a wealthy colour­ful west­ern re­gion. Fur­ther­more, the rep­u­ta­tion of Span­ish de­mo­c­ra­tic in­sti­tu­tions is good enough, which is sur­pris­ing given that its Fran­coist sub­strate has never been tamed (from the mil­i­tary and po­lice to the high ju­di­ciary and diplo­matic corps). So, over­all, why would Cata­lans go through the has­sle?

Yet, this su­per­fi­cial analy­sis un­der­states, by de­f­i­n­i­tion, es­sen­tial mat­ters hid­den below the sur­face. Take, for ex­am­ple, Bu­dapest or War­saw, both vi­brant so­ci­eties, of­fer­ing a myr­iad of ameni­ties to the many vis­i­tors from all cor­ners of the planet. How­ever, these two coun­tries have not been ex­on­er­ated from fierce gen­er­alised crit­i­cism, after their re­spec­tive gov­ern­ments’ back­lash against Brus­sels’ dic­tates, among oth­ers, on mat­ters of sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers or the treat­ment of refugees.

Thus, events in Spain have been analysed from abroad through wider lenses only lately. Ar­guably, over­com­ing the jin­go­ism used by Madrid (in­clud­ing min­is­ters of any po­lit­i­cal stripe, or its servile media) has in­tim­i­dated not a few. For­tu­nately, within the gloom, sev­eral fac­tors have come into play, chief of which has been the long in­car­cer­a­tion of the nine po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers, after Madrid’s mass-beat­ings of peace­ful crowds. Also, key have been the set­backs suf­fered by the Span­ish ju­di­ciary in every Eu­ro­pean ju­ris­dic­tion where it has re­quested the ex­tra­di­tion of the Cata­lan ex­iles. A sig­nif­i­cant blow was Cat­alo­nia’s pres­i­dent being cleared of all charges by the Schleswig-Hol­stein court.

De­spite Madrid’s ruth­less­ness just now shock­ing many abroad, it is hardly news in Cat­alo­nia, save for some cit­i­zens with roots in Spain, or some prone to play the os­trich. In this sense, one of the key names on the Span­ish right dur­ing the tran­si­tion to democ­racy, the ve­he­ment and well-read Manuel Mil­lan Mestre, has de­clared that “for the first time he thinks the Span­ish gov­ern­ment is treat­ing Cat­alo­nia just like a colo­nial pos­ses­sion”. In fact, as dis­turb­ing as it sounds, we deem it an ac­cu­rate pic­ture of Madrid’s ra­tio­nale in Cat­alo­nia.

When in the War of Span­ish Suc­ces­sion three cen­turies ago the Castil­ian army, chiefly backed by France, en­tered Barcelona, it im­me­di­ately sup­pressed Cata­lan in­sti­tu­tions in toto. Since then, the “Cata­lan pos­ses­sions” of the Balearic Is­lands, Va­len­cia and Cat­alo­nia have been under Madrid’s di­rect rule, re­main­ing at the will of its prone-to-au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism vin­dic­tive in­sti­tu­tions. In eco­nomic/fi­nan­cial terms, that has meant being rel­e­gated to a sta­tus of “botin de guerra”, or war booty. This, deeply in­grained into Madrid’s DNA, has not changed, es­sen­tially.

Un­de­ni­ably, things im­proved after the de­mo­c­ra­tic tran­si­tion as con­ces­sions had to be made, not least to up­grade Spain’s in­ter­na­tional alien­ation as Eu­rope’s pariah, to be ac­cepted in both the Eu­ro­pean Eco­nomic Com­mu­nity and the NATO. In Cat­alo­nia, local in­sti­tu­tions were re­stored, while a sort of de­cen­tral­i­sa­tion was im­ple­mented. Yet, roles and at­ti­tudes re­main: e.g. the fis­cal deficit be­tween the “Cata­lan pos­ses­sions” and Madrid (i.e. the dif­fer­ence be­tween what they pay to Span­ish cof­fers and what they get back), is reck­oned at be­tween 6 and 9% of Cata­lan GDP, being one of the cer­tain­ties of Spain’s ter­ri­to­r­ial sta­tus quo of the last 40 years.

So, it seems un­der­stand­able that Cat­alo­nia, after a lengthy pe­riod of usurpa­tion of its pow­ers and in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing 40 years of fas­cist dic­ta­tor­ship and an­other 40 of for­mal democ­racy, is today ex­er­cis­ing, peace­fully and de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cally, its right for self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, pur­su­ing fair ad­min­is­tra­tion of its wealth and re­sources, in­de­pen­dent of the capri­cious dic­tates from Madrid. The bot­tom line is that if the king­dom were to ho­n­our its claims of being an ex­em­plar democ­racy, it would al­ready have used words and real com­mit­ments in­stead of threats, in­tim­i­da­tion, jail and mass beat­ings.

Orig­i­nal title: Madrid’s colo­nial at­ti­tude may help un­der­stand­ing of events in Cat­alo­nia