Live data from Hacker News

Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

bbc.co.uk

121–130 of 785 posts

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#121
post #88

Spanish here, I have family and home in Catalonia. 1) You need to read history to understand the situation. But not the history of the last 100 years, but of the last 1000. Catalonia was never independent, it was part of the Kingdom of Aragon. The kingdom of Aragon and the castle kingdom allied in a dynastic way and created what is known today as Spain. There is no 2) Voting is illegal, it is not illegal to vote but…

Point #1 trails off, can you finish it?

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#122
What does this even mean: "declared independence"?

Have they ordered borders to be closed? Bank accounts to be frozen until new currency is introduced? Have people started throwing their Spanish passports and their euros into the trash?

It just sounds like a lot like pure political manoeuvre without any kind of practical consequence.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#123
post #88

Spanish here, I have family and home in Catalonia. 1) You need to read history to understand the situation. But not the history of the last 100 years, but of the last 1000. Catalonia was never independent, it was part of the Kingdom of Aragon. The kingdom of Aragon and the castle kingdom allied in a dynastic way and created what is known today as Spain. There is no 2) Voting is illegal, it is not illegal to vote but…

Your opinion on what Catalonia will actually need to do to gain independence.

Is civil war (however unlikely) the only way?

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#124

The problem is not so much about Catalonia and Spain. There are plenty of such regions and ethnic groups in pretty much every country on the continent. If the ball starts rolling, it can mean going back a few centuries.

I think a Europe of Regions is exactly where we should be going. The nation state has had its day; nationalism is a deeply divisive ideology, responsible for so much war.

The EU acting as a leveller and lowest common denominator between states weakens the divisions between nation states, deliberately - precisely because of the dangers of nationalism. And with a weakened nation state, regionalism is relatively more important.

As for tax, defence, etc.; IMO these will sooner or later migrate to the EU level. I don't think regionalism is either unexpected or avoidable the way the EU has been going.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#125
post #14
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The side supporting "yes" perpetrates equal amounts of violence. Is just the propaganda machine is much more developed on that side (with the money from all Spaniards...)

Show examples. https://spanishpolice.github.io/

Interesting that this page title is "Videos of the Repression lived in Catalonia by the Spanish Police" while the video shows in most cases professional work of the force, especially considering the behavior of crowd. I don't want to take any sides, but know this - crowd plus emotions might turn into something dangerous. We should put emotions aside and then consider the situation. I am not telling that what happened was good, but sometimes you must choose the lesser eveil.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#126
post #88

Spanish here, I have family and home in Catalonia. 1) You need to read history to understand the situation. But not the history of the last 100 years, but of the last 1000. Catalonia was never independent, it was part of the Kingdom of Aragon. The kingdom of Aragon and the castle kingdom allied in a dynastic way and created what is known today as Spain. There is no 2) Voting is illegal, it is not illegal to vote but…

Thank you for these clarifications of the situation. It helps to hear from someone who has a personal connection to the issue.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#127

From my not so knowledgeable point of view we have: It seems the Spanish government messed up massively here. Instead of embracing a referendum about independence they decided to flatly declare it illegal and attempt to ignore the problem. If they initially embraced the referendum they could have won, I believe that a Yes vote to independence nearly always ends up failing. But instead what happened is, they blankly d…

>>> If they initially embraced the referendum they could have won The UK government thought like you. It allowed the people to vote for Brexit, thinking it would never pass. And here we are today.

The UK government did exactly that and got a no vote to the Scottish independence.

The Brexit vote was full-on farce, people literally had no idea what they were voting yes to. How could they, there was no plan.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#128

From my not so knowledgeable point of view we have: It seems the Spanish government messed up massively here. Instead of embracing a referendum about independence they decided to flatly declare it illegal and attempt to ignore the problem. If they initially embraced the referendum they could have won, I believe that a Yes vote to independence nearly always ends up failing. But instead what happened is, they blankly d…

>>> If they initially embraced the referendum they could have won The UK government thought like you. It allowed the people to vote for Brexit, thinking it would never pass. And here we are today.

Firstly Spain is in no better a condition now than it would have been had it allowed a vote and campaigned and lost.

Secondly, a more accurate UK comparison would probably be with the Scottish referendum, which was won by those who wanted to remain part of the UK and so Scotland did remain part of the UK.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying it's fine if the vote doesn't represent the democratic will of the people as a whole because the government was using violent means to ensure the rule of law? So a minority group should be able to unilaterally dismantle a country contrary to the democratic wishes of the occupants? As presented you appear to stand firmly against democracy, is that so? If the vote has been carried out properly then there…

> the government was using violent means to ensure the rule of law Beating up people for trying to put a piece of paper into a box is not "the rule of law". The rule of law would have been to let people put pieces of paper into boxes, then go out the next day and arrest the organizers of the referendum.

I think it's actually a tougher call than you suggest, allowing the referendum to resolve could easily foment more unrest and a greater more violent outcome.

I would not have ordered such action, FWIW.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#130
post #101
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems can either turn into a civil war When only one of the sides have weapons, there can not be a civil war, only a genocide. I am convinced that there is a limit on the violations of Human Rights that Europe will be able to tolerate from a state member.

"civil war", "genocide". Come on people, don't throw these words willy-nilly, leave that to bad news outlets. Yes, the spanish government was quite brutal in its attempt to stymie the referendum (probably unnecessarily so) but we're not on the verge of a catalan genocide in any way, shape or form. If you keep abusing words they end up losing their meaning.

Yes, the spanish government was quite brutal in its attempt to stymie the referendum

That's wrong. There were a handful of injured, don't believe the propaganda. Most international media that were fooled by that lies have acknowledged this much.

Post reply on HN