Catalonia and the bankruptcy of the Constitution of 78

September 8, 2017 8:58 a.m.  

Today I heard Rajoy, at a press conference without the possibility of questions , as he is used to do - say with firmness and conviction that only what is legal is democratic. The question seems very important, not the character who has raised but because many people tend to think that mismo.Y equating the two concepts is very dangerous and untrue.

There have been and there are clearly anti-democratic laws (including dictatorships and tyrannies mounted its legality) and democratic practices are not backed by any law or to make them possible, it must extend beyond the legal framework. Legality can not be a fetish that the legitimacy and indispensable, both individual and peoples rights are sacrificed. And this applies also referred to the constitutions, which are nothing other than the legal result of the correlation of forces in each historical moment.

the affirmation of a series of rights (though without establishing how these would be guaranteed) ... It was a closely watched transaction by then called "factual forces" which helped the (economic and social) system be maintained and expand with amparo a (political) regime of low intensity democracy, based on the two-party alternation, which slowed popular demands and national aspirations and had the minimum to be approved by Europe (in exchange also put our territory features available to NATO and our markets available to large transnational corporations). 

Like any transaction, the constitution still in force today was the product of a particular historical context and therefore claim to eternalize, Now, since Catalonia has broken that transaction (this is what they call political professionals and 99% of the press "Catalan challenge") and its parliament, a majority, the impossibility of a referendum negotiated with the Spanish state self-determination, has gone beyond what the constitution provides, it becomes clear that has broken that ideal of "move from a law to a different law through the law" (which is, according to idealizing the "transition" would have done forty years ago, hiding the huge democratic deficit of the new law, ie the Constitution).

It has been the PP itself, with the enthusiastic support of the PSOE and other side acolytes, who has made impossible the transition from a uni-national and authoritarian state to a plurinational and democratic state. Therefore, the political model has broken. It seems incredible that, before the total closure of this possibility, now many be offended because in Catalonia they have "dared" to overwhelm the current legislation and establish its own legality, which will be put many objections but emerging from the most of the Parlament!

Beyond the many questions we can ask ourselves, this is the crux of the matter. And it should be the axis about which position us who are not Catalans (to decide about their future up to them as a people-nation) nor are Spanish nationalists, advocates of the "Spain a large, free" (free to decide freely about it, as suits their interests, corporations, bankers and their political accomplices).

Isidoro Moreno Navarro

Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology. Member of Assembly of Andalusia