Violence will push Catalans towards freedom
In October 1936, on the anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the New World, a ceremony was held at Salamanca University, in the heart of Spain, to celebrate the “Day of the Race”. The Bishop of Salamanca stood in the great hall next to the founder of the Spanish Foreign Legion, General José Millán Astray, a one-armed and one-eyed thug of a man. Also present was the university rector, Miguel de Unamuno.
One of the speakers, Prof. Francisco Maldonado, tore into Basque and Catalan separatism, which he described as tumours in Spain’s body. It was too much for Unamuno. Rising, he told the audience that there were moments when “to be silent is to lie”. Looking at the maimed Millán Astray, he lamented that Spain would soon be full of cripples.
Unamuno delivered a putdown that Spanish Republicans have treasured ever since. “You will win through brute force”, he told the furious general, “but you will never convince, for to convince you must persuade”.
Unamuno’s words serve as a rebuke to any government that sees force as a substitute for argument, but are especially apt when, as happened last Sunday, state power is again deployed against separatism.
To overseas observers, the use of riot police to break up Catalonia’s independence ref- erendum was both disgusting and bewildering. How could a democratic government send black-clad troopers, with batons and visors, against families? How could modern Spain generate scenes that belong in propaganda cartoons about state repression? As the polls closed, and online media fizzed with images of policemen dragging women by their hair, the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, with a pomposity that often creeps into his public pronouncements, told his countrymen they had been “an example to the world”.
Bizarre as it seems to outsiders, Rajoy’s authoritarian response is popular in most of Castilian-speaking Spain, and not just with his core voters. When the police were dispatched to Catalonia, patriotic crowds cheered them on their way. Yet paradoxically, Rajoy has done more to advance Catalan separatism than any Barcelona politician, breathing new life into a flagging cause.
Catalonia had most of the attributes of nationhood: a Parliament, a President, a flag, a police force, tax revenues. The Catalan language, repressed during the dictatorship, was given official status and became the medium of instruction in schools. Plenty of Catalans were content with the status quo.
To see how Madrid has destroyed that status quo, try to imagine London taking a similar line over Scotland. Suppose that, instead of agreeing terms for a referendum with Alex Salmond, David Cameron had had him prosecuted.
Scots would rightly have felt that they were being dealt with not as fellow citizens, but as conquered vassals.
Lacking other options, the Generalitat had called its own vote, though the opinion polls were still finely balanced.
Not any more. Last Sunday’s violence will push Catalans towards independence. Public opinion in the rest of Spain, as much as the letter of the law, won’t allow Madrid to move. What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? Catalonia issues a UDI; Madrid imposes direct rule and cuts off the Generalitat’s funding; the Generalitat rushes to put a tax system in place; the stock exchange collapses and the euro crisis is back with a vengeance. Brexit may soon be the least of the EU’s problems.