Beyond the smoke and mirrors

The true nature of the situation in Catalonia is very largely unknown outside Spain. Briefly, this is due to a mixture of the Black Legend, a failure to understand the history of Spain in the 20th century (and in particular the consumption without proper digestion of George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia), and a large-scale propaganda exercise by the Catalan government. This article, which was published in the British Liberal Democrat magazine Liberator on 20 November 2017, offers a true description of the situation. It is reproduced here with the author's approval.

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Beyond the smoke and mirrors

There is a place in Europe where

• an ethnic minority of people, identifiable by their surnames, govern the rest
• the government will only communicate with the people in the language of an elite minority
• most children cannot be taught in their own language and are punished for using it in the school playground
• shopkeepers who use the wrong language in their signs face hefty fines
• schools display government propaganda in the classrooms
• the parliament has not met for weeks because the government wants to avoid debate
• public TV and radio are under the iron control of the government
• the government has territorial ambitions on the land of four other countries
• an important sports club changes the colour of its strip to show that that it publicly supports government policy.

That place is called Catalonia.

Catalonia led Spain’s industrialisation, with many people coming from poorer parts of the country to find work, just as the Irish and others flocked to the North of England. They worked in the factories and produced wealth for the Catalan bourgeoisie who owned them. But power remains in the hands of those old families, whose names are almost the only ones to be found at the top of politics and business: Puigdemont, Pujol, Ferrusola, Colau, Forcadell, Turull, Forn etc. In Catalonia as a whole the 20 most common names are Spanish: they end in ‑ez like Hernández and Pérez as well as Garcia (itself a Basque name) but very few of them are to be found at the top. Of the 16 ministers of the present Catalan government, only two do not have traditional “Cathar” names as they are sometimes known. The people whose families originate from other parts of Spain, and who overwhelmingly speak Spanish, feel discriminated against. It is as if power in Yorkshire were in the firm grip of the Arkwrights, Oldroyds, Sutcliffes and Hardakers while the Joneses, Robertsons, Murphys and Patels are scarcely visible. And a knowledge of Yorkshire dialect is essential for employment.

Let there be no doubt. Catalan independence is driven from the top by the wealthy classes. And the imminent EU-Andorra banking agreement, which will end banking secrecy, is believed to be behind the desperate move to get Catalonia out of the EU before January. They have €55bn at stake up in the mountains. At the other end of the spectrum, there has been vociferous opposition to independence from Catalonia’s gypsy community.

Language is a potent tool by which these 400 families maintain their position. Although Catalonia is officially bilingual and has a Spanish-speaking majority, the government only uses Catalan in official communications; if you write a letter to a public authority in Spanish, the reply will come in Catalan. It may be that you exercised your constitutional right to use Spanish because you can’t understand Catalan. Hard luck mate, find a translator!

Catalan is the only language that can be used for teaching all subjects in schools (expect for Spanish, which is taught as a foreign language). Inevitably, children from Catalan-speaking families (i.e. the elite minority) have an advantage – not to mention the problems facing Spanish-speaking children with mental illness and/or learning difficulties. A family in Balaguer that tried to enforce their right to have their child taught in Spanish were run out of town and lost their business.

A qualification in Catalan is required for any public post. Protectionism is hardwired into the Catalan upper class who became rich behind huge tariff walls on textiles. They can’t do that now so they use language as a non-tariff barrier to employment of non-Catalans.

Shopkeepers and other business-owners are required to label their businesses in Catalan at least. In practice that means Catalan only and hefty fines are applied to even the most humble tradesman who puts up a shop sign that is not in Catalan – unless it’s in Chinese or Urdu. The main thing is that it must not be in Spanish.

Schools that are allowed only to use the Catalan language are easily persuaded to indoctrinate government policy, and that is what has happened. Many schools have banners and posters calling for independence and display the “estelada”, the independence flag with the star on it. Teachers take children out of school to participate in pro-government demonstrations.

The Catalan parliament has not met for almost two months, apart from set-piece sessions to do with independence. The government can rule without it, so what's the point?

Catalan TV (TV3) costs €225m and employs 2,312 people (2016) for a population of seven million. It is used shamelessly as a propaganda station. It works with a loyalty that makes the old Soviet Pravda and Radio Moscow look like positive models of pluralism. The Catalan government also pays cash subsidies to private media. The leading Barcelona paper La Vanguardia got a bung of a million euros last year; not surprisingly, it follows the government’s pro-independence line slavishly.

The nationalists are not content with taking control of what is commonly known as Catalonia. They want the Països Catalans (Catalan lands), which include three separate parts of Spain as well as Catalonia, parts of France and Italy, and all of Andorra. These are the places where Catalan is spoken. Language drives everything – Catalonia must comprise all the lands where Catalan is spoken. The weather map on TV3 shows all of this area.

Football fans may have noticed that a few years ago Barça started playing in a yellow strip. Yellow is the colour of independence and Barça officially supports independence. The club has been in trouble with FIFA for allowing political (pro-independence) flags and symbols at its matches. It usually plays now in a strip that has the red and yellow stripes of the constitutional Catalan flag, but a blue trim round the neck and shoulders is a clear gesture to the blue triangle on the independence flag.

The referendum

The 2015 Catalan election was called as a plebiscitary election (a tool of 1930s dictators) to endorse independence rather than to elect a parliament. Unfortunately for the government, the result was a disaster for the government party. Instead of the absolute majority that it confidently expected, it lost seats. In order to stay in power it had to do a deal with an anti-system party (CUP). We thus have the sight of, in British terms, a Tory government relying on George Galloway for its majority. Even together, this unholy alliance got only 47% of the votes cast (no election has ever produced a majority of votes for pro-independence parties) but the heavy bias in constituency boundaries in favour of the nationalist areas gave them a small majority (72/135) in the Catalan parliament.

This majority of seats (but not of votes) was taken as a mandate for a declaration of independence. In the night of 6/7 September the Catalan government broke parliamentary regulations to force a bill through without the requisite prior scrutiny. This became an Enabling Law that allowed the government to override the Spanish Constitution and the Catalan Statute of Autonomy, which needs a two-thirds majority for amendment. The parliament’s own lawyers left no doubt that the government was acting contrary to their explicit advice.

They then passed a law calling a referendum, as is known. What is not so well known is that a second law called for the automatic declaration of independence by the parliament in the event of a Yes vote. The Spanish government referred all this to the Constitutional Court claiming that the Catalan government was acting ultra vires in trying to change the Spanish Constitution. The Court accepted the referral and thus automatically suspended it for five months for consideration. That is why the holding of the referendum was illegal: it was done in contempt of court. The referendum went ahead despite that. The British equivalent would be Holyrood applying for a referendum under the Scotland Act, being refused, and holding it anyway.

The Catalan Supreme Court ordered the Mossos (Catalan Police) to seal and guard the polling stations during the Saturday night so that voting couldn’t even start. The Catalan police chief said expressly that he accepted the order. Then early on Sunday morning he stood his people down and ordered them to do nothing. That is a matter of incontrovertible fact for which he will face a charge of sedition in the Catalan Supreme Court (he is already facing one for a different matter). That left the Spanish police and Guardia Civil to act late, without preparation, in hostile territory, in front of carefully placed TV cameras, and amid a barrage of fake news coming out of Moscow. During all that day the Mossos used a special (and illegal) communication system that kept no record of messages exchanged and orders issued.

Hundreds of people injured? According to the Catalan health service only four were hospitalised. One of those was a bystander who had a heart attack and two others were discharged within 24 hours. But yes, hundreds were attended to because every bump and bruise was taken to swell the records of an organisation whose staff were under orders to allocate a special code to every patient who arrived that day, whatever the actual cause of their injuries.

The police may indeed have overstepped the mark. On referendum day itself the Catalan prosecutors opened investigations into police actions.

Such is the mistrust of the Mossos that the Catalan Supreme Court has removed their responsibility for security in the courthouse and handed it to the Spanish Policía Nacional.

When a regional government drives a cart and horses through any kind of legality, the central government has to act. That is what is happening now.

Political prisoners?

Finally, a lot has been said about the two Jordis. Let’s get this clear. In the run-up to the referendum the Guardia Civil were executing an order from the Catalan Supreme Court to search the Catalan Economy Ministry. While they were there a mob assembled outside the building, trapping them inside. The mob trashed three Guardia Civil cars, stealing the weapons and ammunition that were inside them. The two Jordis were the leaders and instigators of that mob. They are remanded in custody awaiting trial; they are not prisoners serving sentences.

The Mossos, who had responsibility for guarding and protecting the Guardia Civil, were nowhere to be seen that day, leaving them in the building for 14 hours. A court secretary who was witnessing the search escaped over the roof and mingled with a crowd of theatre-goers. A Catalan Supreme Court judge had to phone the chief officer of the Mossos personally and order (sic) him to get off his backside and do the job he was paid for. The chief is under formal investigation for sedition as a result of that incident.

What now?

This text is closed on the afternoon of Thursday 26 October with the situation changing by the minute. Earlier today the Catalan First Minister postponed and then cancelled an appearance in which he was expected to announce elections. It is expected that tomorrow the Spanish Senate will trigger Article 155 of the Constitution, which gives the Madrid government the power to take over and manage, but not modify or abolish, the Catalan regional government. It is not clear what the reaction will be. This morning the Spanish police prevented the Catalan police from burning a large number of documents.

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The Watcher adds these personal anecdotes.

On Thursday 26 October, the day on which this article was closed. I happened to spend the evening in a rooftop bar in Roger de Lluria near to Paseo de Gracia. We looked down towards the Catalan Parliament and saw a considerable amount of helicopter activity. We could do nothing, but there was an atmosphere of great uncertainty among our group of friends.

Not long before that, on Tuesday 10 October 2017 I happened to be at María Cristina in the Sarrià district of Barcelona at about six o’clock in the evening when I heard a helicopter overhead flying along Avenida Diagonal. I looked up. It was a police helicopter of course, for in the circumstances no other aircraft could possibly have been flying so low over the city. The question, however, was whether it belonged to the Guardia Civil or Spanish Policía Nacional and was keeping watch in defence of the constitution and rule of law, or whether it was from the Mossos (Catalan police) preparing for the occupation of the port which was known to be their intention. It was dusk and I couldn’t make out the identification. I got on a bus to go home and took out my phone to call my wife. Then I found that the mobile phone network was down. I started worrying. I saw no sign of trouble in the streets (but I was in a peaceful residential area far from the city centre) and in the end the phone came back and all was normal. But that is how we lived in Barcelona at the time.