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- September 13th, 2017
"The PP appeals to the Constitutional Catalan Statute to prevent 'irreparable damage." This was the title of El País on August 1, 2006, the appeal filed before the Constitutional Court by the leaders of that party against the reform of the Estatut that had been agreed by the Catalan Parliament, then partially amputated by the Spanish parliament and finally approved by referendum in Catalunya.
The resolution of the Constitutional Court would arrive almost four years later canceling 14 articles and interpreting restrictively another 27 of that Statute. Rajoy, Acebes and Sáenz de Santamaría, although not entirely satisfied, applauded that decision while Rodríguez Zapatero, then president of the government, found that with that outcome there was "the end of political decentralization."
It could not be surprising, therefore, that a few days later, on July 10, 2010, a citizen demonstration toured the streets of Barcelona around the unitary motto "Som una nació: Nosaltres decidim" to show citizen indignation at that sentence.
The conclusion that the door had been closed to a federalist way of reforming the Autonomous State for Catalonia led to the development of a much broader and pluralistic sovereignty and independence movement than had existed until then, even dragging down a formation such as Convergence, a party that until then had been a necessary pillar for the governability of the regime and also affected, as we have seen later, by various corruption scandals. A formation that, despite some interested analysis of one side or another, is only a part, and not the majority or hegemonic, of that movement.
The announcement of the call for a referendum on 1 October by the Government of the Generalitat, with the support of the majority of the Parliament, on the question "Do you want Catalonia to be an independent state in the form of a republic? is in fact the answer to the "irreparable damage" that the PP made to the Catalan people with their appeal before the Constitutional Court.
It is very likely that today many and many leaders of the PP recognize in private that it was that resource - and, above all, the campaign deployed around it - a mistake for having ended up being the main responsible for having contributed decisively to a promotion of the independence in Catalonia throughout all these years.
However, despite the immediate public reaction to what Javier Perez Royo has called "rupture of the constitutional pact" derived from the aforementioned sentence, since the PP came to government in November 2011 (later, of course, the contrary to Article 135 of the Constitution) there has been no effort to seek a new negotiating framework, as recommended by the Constitutional Court itself in another resolution of March 2014.
On the contrary, the fundamentalist defense of the letter of the first part of Article 2 of the Constitution ("the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation, common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards", dictated by the military hierarchy in 1978) has has always been the recurring "argument", accompanied by a new tendency towards political and financial recentralization and even attacks on the Catalan language with the Minister of the Interior, of sad memory, Fernández Díaz at the head.
In the meantime, we have seen massive and peaceful demonstrations in Catalunya during all these years and even a popular consultation on 9-N of 2014 which, although not recognized by the State, was attended by more than two million people.
The false illusion in which this movement has fallen in frustration and division before the closure of the government, although it has always had the support of the increasingly large and belligerent cavern of media and European heads of state, has finishing leading to a resounding failure.
Neither the timid opening of the PSOE of Pedro Sánchez to the recognition of the "plurinationality" has achieved significant support in Catalonia, to the point that Sánchez's own stance has once again turned to support the closure of Rajoy calling the referendum illegal and leaving the door open to the withdrawal of the polls by the police.
The problem is not to find a "lace" of a cultural nation in a Spanish political nation but the recognition in equal conditions of the Catalan national identity, the Spanish and the other nationalities starting with those already recognized in the current Constitution : Galician, Basque and Andalusian.
Even in Spanish society is increasing the percentage of people, especially under 45, who are in favor of holding the Catalan referendum so persistent and mostly claimed. This is a very significant advance and, to a great extent, is due to the political contest of a force like.
We can not be fooled by those who disagree with the worst accusations against those millions of people who persistently throughout all these years have claimed the right to decide their future, including independence.
Exhausting the federalization of the Estatut and the search for a referendum agreed with the state - as was done in the cases of Quebec and Scotland -, it is only from the democratic point of view to recognize the legitimacy of the call for referendum on October 1 and that it is the Catalan citizenship that decides whether or not to separate from the Spanish State to, as it would be desirable, to be able to arrive at a new type of relation, based on the will and not the force, between all the towns of the Spanish State .
We also believe that our support is consistent with what was said in the May Foundational Manifesto before the European elections of May 2014:
"A candidacy that, in the face of some governments at the service of the 1% minority, claims a 'real democracy' based on the sovereignty of peoples and their right to decide their future freely and in solidarity.
Democracy does not frighten us and Democrats; we are delighted that Scots and Catalans can speak and say what future they want. Therefore, to support the holding of the consultation convened in Catalonia for 9 November. "
In front of those who are terrified of the referendum of October 1 as a sort of cataclysm, those below us should look at the scene, as a moment for democratic recreation, a redefinition of the logics of participation in politics between equals.
Because we are convinced that the free celebration and with all the possible guarantees of the referendum on 1 October, and not its prohibition, will contribute - whatever its result - to the deepening of democracy and will be a stimulus for those outside of Catalonia we follow betting on the right to decide on everything that affects our lives and our rights and freedoms against the regime and the troika.
The time has come to open the padlocks of the 78 transition that were justified by the "noise of sabers".
The first of these locks is the state model, but perhaps others will follow, such as the end of the regime of oblivion and the impunity of the crimes of Francoism, the need for social rights such as housing and work to be effective and obligatory for public authorities or the hereditary and congenital head of state.
We want to open padlocks, yes. But if the government of the most corrupt party in Europe has decided with the connivance of the not so new PSOE of Pedro Sánchez put locks to polling stations and sequester urns in a shameful projection of Orwellian dictatorship, at least not in our name nor in the name of democracy.
Teresa Rodríguez is an activist and deputy for Podemos in the Andalusian Parliament.
Miguel Urbán Crespo is co-founder of Podemos and now serves as MEP for this training.
9/13/2017 .
