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Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#171

Post by ChristianBundy »

breischl wrote: post #133
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no easy solution. Catalonia is a well-defined region, redefine the borders and be done with it. Seems easy enough. If these people don't want to be part of Spain anymore, why force them to stay ? There is no point to any of it.

>Catalonia is a well-defined region That's not enough though. There are people who have tried to declare an independent country of their land, or their house, or their bedroom[1]. Clearly one person declaring their bedroom to be independent is silly and not allowable, but a large reason is. So somewhere there's a line, right? [1] - http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/kingdom-of-talossa

> Clearly one person declaring their bedroom to be independent is silly and not allowable, but a large reason is.

Clearly states are silly and not allowable, but here we are.

Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#172

Post by breischl »

breischl wrote: post #122
notspanishflu wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part you don't understand? I'll try again. All Spaniards have voice & vote about sovereignty, not just a bunch of Spaniards.

That is not clearer, at least to me. >All Spaniards have voice & vote about sovereignty, not just a bunch of Spaniards. This seems self-contradictory. Mis-typed? Or perhaps you mean it's up to all Spaniards, not just some Spaniards?

I know you're not supposed to comment about downvotes, but seriously people? I literally asked for clarification and got -3 for it. Easy on the downvote button, people.

Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#173

Post by gambiting »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #156
codedokode wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you allow any region to declare independence then there will be thousands or maybe even more states. Different provinces and regions are united into a country because this way they have more military power to defend themselves. When there is a lot of small states it will be easy to conquer them one by one - either by external enemy or by one of those small states. At least this is what happened in the Middle Age.

> If you allow any region to declare independence then there will be thousands or maybe even more states. You say this like it's a bad thing. > Different provinces and regions are united into a country because this way they have more military power to defend themselves. Exactly. So there are many benefits for people to form larger groups, but please let them decide that for themselves. This kind of negates your first…

>> because people would recognise they are better off together

I don't believe for a second that people will. There are groups of people who don't give a crap about "being better off" - they care about showing those damn Spanish/British/French/German/Polish/ what they think and being able to "finally decide for themselves" which is complete nonsense. If people could so easily see the benefits of staying together then Brexit wouldn't happen and we wouldn't be seeing nationalist movements all over Europe nowadays. The problem is that the benefits are not obvious and you have to actually educate yourself a bit about them - but if someone is unwilling to put the energy into it, then it's not going to happen.

Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#174

Post by codedokode »

bad_user wrote: post #10
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #2

Someone made a point recently that the past 50 years really have been a golden age of democracy (possibly the only 50 in history) That during the 19C there was much more semi-democracy with strong authoritarian governments in Europe, cracking down on what we would call democracy (1816,1848 etc) The point was that it is fairly easy to slip back.

I feel sorry for the injured in this Catalan referendum, but in my opinion this referendum has nothing to do with democracy. First of all a country's constitution is sacrosanct and that constitution not only gives the people their power to vote, but also says that the country's territory is indivisible . If the Catalan people want to change that, then the referendum should involve all of Spain's citizens, having as m…

This is not so simple. Most european countries were formed by conquering neighbour countries by the strongest one. So this is the Constitution written by conquerors. Not everyone might be happy with it.

Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#175

Post by occultist_throw »

yorwba wrote: post #151
throwawayknecht wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spain has chosen to be governed by the current government. I mean, sort of yes, but also Catalonia was annexed within living memory.

What annexation are you talking about? As far as I can tell, Catalonia lost it's independence with the Nueva Planta decrees in 1716 [0], which is far from "within living memory". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nueva_Planta_decrees

Oh please.

Just because it happened a few hundred years ago, doesnt mean they lost their own heritage, their language, and their self-determination.

Look no further than Ireland. That battle goes back to Grace O'Malley and Elizabeth in the 16th'c. In reality, it went further back, to this structure called the Hadrian Wall, but that's in 1st c.

"Living memory" indeed.

Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#176

Post by yxhuvud »

notspanishflu wrote: post #70
pjc50 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The events are actually happening are they not? Please can we distinguish between "I don't agree with the politics expressed here" and "the reporting describes events which didn't happen, or misdescribes events that did"?

I'm repeating myself but... The only source for BBC quoting "hundreds injured" is what secessionists say, they don't contrast that number. There was a change in BBC news after Brexit, trying to weaken the common European position.

Sigh, English media have always been very sceptical against Europe. That is nothing new.

Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#177

Post by gjjrfcbugxbhf »

dgut wrote: post #164
kristiandupont wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They are using rubber bullets to disperse the crowds, that's not exactly a crime against humanity as some seem to suggest here. Seriously?! They're not nerf guns, the mossos were banned from using them a couple of years ago, with good reason! I am a fellow Scandinavian who lived in Barcelona and though I am not at all sure that I think independence is a good idea, I think the catalans should be the ones to decide th…

It's proportional. What are they supposed to use, water balloons? The naive support for Catalonian nationalists on this site is not surprising, though.

Words and votes - that is what we use in the UK to handle the issue of Scottish independence. It has proved much better than guns (c/f Scotland and the troubles in Northern Ireland).

The Spanish police have gone in using force to prevent a democractic process.

Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#178

Post by paulddraper »

reidacdc wrote: post #53
627467 wrote: post #19

I don't get the point of the violence used to stop the ref. The ref is illegal. The hypothetical declaration of independence is illegal, invalid and likely never accepted by anyone (not in Europe not in the world) why the use of violence to stop the ref game? This whole situation is senseless from both sides but it is obvious who is the side willing to use violence.

I wonder if it's a (failed, obviously) attempt to control the optics. As I understand it, polls show a slim majority of Catalan residents actually oppose independence, but people likely to put in the effort and/or take the risk of voting in an illegal referendum will of course skew in favor of independence. So if the vote proceeds, the Spanish government will be struggling to explain the result as being likely not re…

True on all counts, but isn't there notion of free speech in Spain?

Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#180

Post by dgut »

olegkikin wrote: post #91
dgut wrote: post #61

The referendum was ruled illegal by the courts. If we are going to allow all old tribes of Europe to become their own state, there wouldn't be much left of Europe. The nation-state and standardization is a European invention and a successful one. The case for an independent Catalonia isn't on strong grounds either. This is no small issue, and Spain is responding accordingly. The message has to be clear: Spain isn't g…

Catalonia is not a tribe. It's 7.5 million people. Which is orders of magnitude more than the Vatican, for instance. It's more people than the population of Denmark, Finland, Ireland, and many other EU countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_statistics

The nationalist narrative is tribal though, they do consider themselves a separate ethnicity.
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