POLITICAL CONCEPTS OF THE 21ST CENTURY: HOW NOT TO CONFUSE WITH CATALONIAN “PROCES”

A brief review of the current political aspects and how they affect the Catalan issue

• GLOBALIZATION AND THE PENDULUM EFFECT (REBOTE) No one can deny that there is a growing and irreversible phenomenon of globalization, which is manifested above all by the rapid and borderless dissemination of information (internet, mobile … which makes all the people of the world aspires to the best), for the economic, political, technological interdependence and especially in environmental issues, pollution without borders, climate change, etc. Globalization is unstoppable, and beneficial to many, but has created a rebound effect, especially by the migration of the most disadvantaged to countries that they believe gives them a better chance, but whose culture and customs often they do not respect, and create rejection in the ways and concepts that I indicate below:

• THE NATIONALISM, XENONOPHOBIC, RADICAL, EXTREMIST AND FANATICAL In the second decade of this century, these regimes and politicians are appearing, even in real democracies (USA), as well as apparent ones (Russia, Turkey, Philippines …) sponsored by the fears of the population that prefers the strong hand of a “strongman” at the expense of respect for human rights and individual liberties. Also totalitarian regimes like China, grant more and more powers to their ruler, often cruel and uncontrollable – sometimes even for life, and tolerate their atrocious actions and changes of fundamental laws (Venezuela, Nicaragua …). More recently there are even more cases (Pakistan, Mexico, Brazil …)

• THE TOTALITARIAN POPULISM OF RIGHTS AND (TO A LESSER MEASURE) OF THE LEFT and examples of the rise of “democratic” radical parties today (apart from Hitler or Mussolini in the last century), such as Podemos in Spain, and those on the right in Germany , Austria, Holland, Sweden … Winning votes in Democracy, but if they govern, they would certainly suppress it, as happened before in Italy & Germany… And this leads us to positions away from the utopian ideal of “a united world” (“Imagine” … of the Beatles), using methods such as the manipulation of information (control of the media), brainwashing through historical falsehoods in education, and even unfair vote counting (like the caciques of the 20th century). They also use physical harassment and threats (“escraches” to rival politicians, and detours from parliament, for example).

• ISOLATION & PROTECTIONISM.
With the excuse of protecting the less educated and disadvantaged classes, but based on capturing their votes, and sometimes using “dirty” tricks, people like Trump and Putin, or Duterte in Philippines, win, and without doubt help each other to create a more unstable world (a troubled river, is fishermen’s gain, says the Spanish proverb) and less united (although not less globalized …). And that in turn feeds the regional Nationalism that aims to break and weaken the large and historic countries, and of course tries to undermine that miracle called the European Union, a project that was inconceivable only a few decades ago.

• THE END OF COLONIALISM AND THEREFORE, OF SELF-DETERMINATION 

There was a legitimate movement throughout two thirds of the twentieth century, to undo colonialism especially British, Spanish, French, Turkish and to a lesser extent Portuguese, Dutch and North-American . The right of colonized peoples and countries was recognized, to decide if they wanted to become independent of the colonizing power that dominated them. From there the international concept of “self-determination” was born, as a way to achieve independence through the creation of new states. But this method was exhausted because “there are no colonies” since even in the cases of enclaves such as Gibraltar, Ceuta, Melilla etc. we now take into account the desire of its inhabitants to continue as they are (in other cases, such as Hong Kong, or the Spanish Sahara – it was not like that, they went from one power to another …). And it is worth remembering that self-determination was never conceived as an individual right, or of a population or province, to separate from the rest of its neighbors (“the independent republic of my house”, or the canton of Cartagena). That would cause chaos & anarchy.

• THE FALSE “MANDATE OF THE PEOPLE”, “RIGHT TO DECIDE” AND REFERENDUM MANIPULATION It is very easy to deceive many people (though luckily, not the whole world) with the apparently democratic call to the Right to Decide: But – decide what, and by whom? It turns out that a few want to decide something, not letting many, affected by that decision, to decide on what affects them even more. Organize false “votes” that, in addition to being illegal, are manipulated (without any control over who votes, without census, with votes of deceased, with repetition of votes) … And they benefit from the fact that their votes, being geographically concentrated, are worth much more – due to the political formula used, than the votes of the national parties dispersed throughout the geography … That is one of the evils of democracies (It occurs in the United States due to the Electoral Districts manipulation, the electoral college etc., and in Spain with the D’hont Act and in more places, by the different systems of constituencies that were established in the beginnings of democracies to get dominant and stable parties, and that are difficult to change by the majorities that this requires).

• SEPARATISM, and SECESSION, and suddenly there are movements that seek to create countries by separating themselves from their “old” country. They were never colonized, nor were they dependent. They are independent within independent and democratic countries, which protect all the normal rights of their citizens. Sometimes they use torture systems, “fake news” and creating, without any common sense, division and hatred within their countries. But what they really want is to capture economic and political power in the hands of a few. For this, they resort to the propaganda of the worst class and the historical falsehood in education, to achieve its end, to the detriment of their countries and the rest of citizens who do not share their ideas. Separating from a country of which you are a part is not “self-determination” nor is it independence. It is a secession through mutiny, rebellion, revolution, they want to get out of legality and trampling on the rights of others. There are examples in France, Italy, and Spain among others. Nothing to do with the cases of Canada and Scotland, which often are aired in order to confuse public opinion. It’s easy to see why they are different. As in the case of Czechoslovakia, the former Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union (artificial countries of short existence) – each case has its peculiarities based on concrete factors that we are going to list. Then we will analyze what happened in Catalonia with the so-called Procés. The origin is in the proven corruption of Jordi Pujol, who aspire to eliminate the Spanish justice that was persecuting him, creating an independent state AND WITHOUT SEPARATION OF POWERS, that is to say, he (and his party) would name the judges, and thus they would not sentence him for robbing his citizens directly and through his family and his party. To this effect he appointed Artur Mas, also corrupt, than Puigdemont and then, when fleeing, Torras, a person unfit to be President, for his public racist views.

• THE STATES OF LAW, DEMOCRACY, & THE CONSTITUTION Churchill said: Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all others … Luckily there are a quite a few democratic countries today, although subject to the aforementioned deterioration. But they have faultless systems of government and decision, which contemplate the possible political processes, and which the separatists often try to break by resorting to violence (real or verbal), to coup d’etat, to lies (propaganda based on fake news), to the misappropriation of funds, rebellion or sedition, and to treason … And of course, the states of law must defend themselves against these illegalities with their constitutions and fundamental laws. No country in this group, such as Germany, the United States, France, Italy, Switzerland … would accept that a region or state within their country, decided to separate based only on the votes of its inhabitants, without taking into account the entire country. That would be a coup d’etat that must be suffocate by all means and at any price, including a civil war (God forbid).

• THE ANTI-SYSTEM AND THE FALSE NEWS (BULOS, FAKE-NEWS) It’s said that the extreme ends touch … separated by 360 degrees. The OKUPAS and the like are so anti-systems that the TROLLS … Korea is as much a dictatorship as is Iran, or Venezuela, or Cuba … They want to destroy the Western order for their own benefit. The same as ERC or Puigdemont. They are radicals, they do not listen, they do not dialogue, they have prejudices that are even supremacist-racist (Torras), but they speak of the “mandate of their people”, they consider themselves messianic rescuers … The nationalist coup plotters are as dangerous as those of the extreme right or of radical communism. As they have no scruples, the end (their perpetuated power) justifies the means, and they do not care about the created suffering. It’s a well-known fact that power corrupts, even in democracy.

• THE DIVERSITY OF EXISTING CASES AND CONFLICTS NOW: THEY ARE NOT ALL EQUAL In the world there are many examples, very different, some already mentioned. What makes them different are the factors that we will list below. It is easy for separatists to try to confuse public opinion, with supposed similar cases such as the referendum of Scotland, Canada (Quebec), or the separation of the Czech Republic from Slovakia (not to mention what happened in the former Yugoslavia or The Union Soviet). But they are completely different cases, and you have to understand the factors and data of each case, to see why they are not comparable at all.