The Catalonian Case: A Challenge to Spanish Democracy

by Enzo Reale (December 2019)

Capgirat, Antoni Tàpies, 2005

The Political and Social Context

In analyzing the claims of the forces that promote the separation of Catalonia from the rest of the state it’s especially important to understand their political and ideological nature. The purpose of this article is to present the facts that caused the arrests and the trial of the champions of Catalan political independence and to examine the ideology that inspired their actions and a broad mass movement (although still a minority one) within the Catalan society: a nationalist, secessionist, and anti-monarchical movement.

The Sentence Against Pro-Independence Leaders

Puigdemont (right) and some former members of his government are currently fugitives. In the rhetoric and language of pro-independence movement, activists speak about “political prisoners,” convicted “simply for having organized a referendum of self-determination,” about “exiles” instead of fugitives, “political process” and “thought crimes.” An uplifting and gratifying slant, no doubt, except that the reality of the last years presents more sides that illustrate the strategy used by separatist nationalism to impose its political agenda—both in Catalonia and in the rest of Spain—outside the constitutional and legal framework. Is it not possible to achieve independence by acting in accordance with the rule of law? We declare it anyway, waving the flag of self-determination and setting in motion an alternative and unrecognized mechanism to leave Spain. Do we not have the political and social majority to declare secession? We deprive of authority the regional Parliament, the Statute of autonomy and the rights of the opposition and proceed as if they did not exist.

It wasn’t therefore simply a matter of punishing the celebration of the October, 2017 referendum, as the separatist version pretends, nor the simple fact of voting, or the exercise of popular sovereignty that were under judgement. The Supreme court ruled on the criminal relevance of a series of acts carried out by the leading representatives of the Catalan legislative and executive powers, culminating in the unilateral declaration of independence (DUI) of October 27, 2017. The attempt of secession: that was what the entire process was about.

Obviously, it would be naive to deny that the trial included a significant political component, given the type of defendants and the charges. One of the main lines of defense was to discredit the court and the proceedings by denouncing the persecutory purpose of the charges of rebellion, sedition, and disobedience that the Public Prosecutor and the State Attorney had formalized. It was decisive that the Court disallowed the violence factor that would have entailed a crime of rebellion—and imprisonment of from 15 to 25 years if convicted. In the end they issued a verdict for sedition, with terms from 9 to 13 years, with the corresponding ban from holding public offices. The Supreme Court therefore considered that there was no blatant evidence that separatist leaders instigated or promoted episodes of violence for the specific purpose of gaining independence by force. At the same time, however, the sentence embraces a criminal offense halfway between violent subversion and simple disobedience, identifying in the behavior of the defendants the extremes of the disturbance of the public order directed to subvert the current constitutional system. Some of them were also attributed the crime of embezzlement of public funds for having pointed economic resources of the Generalitat to the organization of the secessionist referendum that had already been declared illegal.

If the verdict closes the legal chapter, it opens new scenarios from the political point of view and it’s difficult to imagine that the Catalonian case will find its settlement in the near future. Separatist factions, recently divided in an internal battle for hegemony between the followers of former president Puigdemont and the republican left of Oriol Junqueras (the first escaped, the second in prison), will probably regroup, at least momentarily.

The question has been the same for years: how to respond to the political challenge of a ruling class that manipulates the rule of law for its purposes? The possibility of a new application of Article 155 of the Constitution (in practice the suspension of the regional autonomy) coexists with the prospect of a pardon for the convicted politicians that, in any case, would be opposed by large sectors of Spanish politics and society, right and left.

The National-Populist Ideology

Beyond the inevitable political consequences, it is worth dwelling on some ideological aspects of the independence project to better understand how Catalonia has reached the current point of no return.

Independence in itself is a neutral notion, its opportunity and even feasibility dependent on context. In Catalonia, independence is now a mystical concept, a noble ideal reduced to an instrument of power in the service of a growing ideological fanaticism.

It would be naive to deny the strong roots of pro-independence feelings in Catalan society but it’s significant that its popularity has only increased during the last decade. Certainly the policies of the central State have not been far-sighted, probably the ruling on the Catalan Statute in 2010 did not help (the Constitutional Court rejected substantial parts of the text approved by the Catalan Parliament), but attributing exclusively to these factors the emergence of an identity nationalism of such nature is misleading.

Opening any of the many manuals on populism published in recent years, it is easy to see how what happened in Catalonia since 2012 represents an almost perfect synthesis of the concept. It is significant how the fusion of ideological components of the left and the extreme left (represented by Esquerra Repúblicana and the anti-capitalists CUP-Popular Unity Candidacy) with the identity myth of the Catalan nation has provided independence with the motive it needed to trigger the secession process, a byproduct of the anti-system culture that has been attacking the foundations of liberal democracy for years. Hence the criticism of the elites, but only the Spanish ones.

The Calatan ruling class has, in fact, used popular sentiment to cover up its corruption scandals and the unpopularity linked to the economic reforms adopted in response to the crisis. It is no coincidence that the beginning of the political escalation occurred in correspondence with the success of the 15-M populist and leftist movement (2011-2012).

As a challenge to Spanish institutions, the secession movement has entailed a high cost for Catalonia in terms of political and economic prestige and, at national level, has mainly aroused the growth of the far-right (VOX is now the third most-voted political party). Definitively a true reverse strategic masterpiece, a giant mis-en-scène got out of hand.

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Enzo Reale is an Italian journalist living in Barcelona who writes about international politics. His articles have appeared in Atlantico Quotidiano, New English Review, L’Opinione, and Il Foglio and he is the author of 1972 (I posti della ragione erano tutti occupati). You can follow him on Twitter at @1972book.

NER on Twitter @NERIconoclast