and the Catalan and Scottish
Independence Movements
(Bella Caledonia, 12 Feb 2021)
Catalonia has become synonymous with tumultuous politics, so holding an election in the midst of a pandemic crisis seems like par for the course. Ben Wray, Bella Caledonia's European Feature Writer interviews Ignasi Bernat and David Whyte, co-editors of ‘Building a New Catalonia: Self-Determination and Emancipation’, published by Bella Caledonia and Pol-Len Edicions.
Voters head to the ballot box on Sunday [14 February] for the regional elections despite the nation in the north-west of the Spanish state being in the middle of its third wave. The Catalan Government had sought to have the election delayed, but the High Court ruled at the end of January that it would go ahead. That legal drama is as nothing compared to the past three years, where the fallout from the 2017 independence referendum, banned by Madrid, was followed by a major repression on the part of the Spanish state that has never really ended, despite two general elections, a new prime minister and finally a new left-of-centre coalition government.
The apex of the repression came with the Spanish Supreme Court’s sentencing of nine Catalan independence leaders to a combined 100 years in prison in October 2019, an unprecedented assault on political rights in western Europe in recent times, which instantly sparked mass protests, airport occupations and running battles with the Spanish police. Since then, the Spanish state has continued to flex its muscles, removing pro-independence Catalan President Quim Torra from office for the high crime of flying a banner in solidarity with his imprisoned colleagues from a government office. The repression has also extended to rappers and artists, while the rapid growth of the far-right Vox has pulled Spanish nationalism in an ever more virulently anti-Catalan direction.
None of this has deterred Catalan voters, who ever since the 2017 referendum crisis have continued to back pro-independence parties in just as large numbers as before election after election. Will that hold true for ‘F14’, following a devastating pandemic crisis, with unemployment surging to over half a million and nearly 10,000 Catalans dead? And what direction is the Catalan independence parties and movement heading in now? Ahead of the 2021 Catalan elections, I [Ben Wray] spoke to Ignasi Bernat and David Whyte, co-editors of ‘Building a New Catalonia: Self-Determination and Emancipation’ (January, 2019), to explore all this and more...
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