Moitas grazas a Miquel Strubell por este artigo sobre a situación de Catalunya. Miquel nos advirte que non é unha tradución literal. Algunhas expresións están feitas de xeito moi xenuino e as explica de xeito abreviado. Pero é unha versión do artigo orixinal.
Mais artigos de Miquel Strubell // More articles by Miquel Strubell:
http://miquelstrubell.blogspot.com
http://miquelstrubell.blogspot.com
Thank you so much to Miquel Strubell for sharing with us this article about Catalonia's situation.
Miquel says: "You see it is not a literal translation. Some expressions have made the most genuine, I explained some abbreviations. But it is a version of the original"
BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND
THE DEEP BLUE SEA
MIQUEL STRUBELL.
In my opinion (modest: I am not political scientist or a professional
analyst!) Mariano Rajoy and Artur Mas find themselves trapped by powerful
external and internal forces.
On the external - international – front, I'm sure Mariano Rajoy is
receiving messages from everywhere (from the chancelleries and embassies, I
imagine; and from the most prestigious international media, as I can see for my
own eyes) saying that he cannot go on obstinately denying the lelementary exercise,
by the Catalans, of their right to vote on their future. He cannot it do so by
taking refuge behind a Constitution that is not immutable, and he cannot do so
by wrapping in discursive gymnastic institutions that do not form part of the
executive power, such as the Council of State and the Constitutional Court (and
moreover, calling them to heel at the blow of a whistle). He cannot go on describing
as a «illegal referendum» an exercise of popular
will, an official poll designed in the framework of the powers of the instututions
of Catalonia (the Generalitat) according to a Spanish organic law - the 2006 Statute of Autonomy – the only
such law to have put under the scrutiny of the Constitutional Court. Mister
Rajoy, they tell him, this is a political problem that requires a political
solution, not one based on horrendous and penal threats.
But Mariano Rajoy is trapped internally by his own discourse. He and his people have
elaborated a clearly anti-Catalan discourse, of which there are many examples,
some untranslatable into English or
other purportedly civilised languages. He is trapped because he has being
digging a pit between Catalonia and the rest of Spain that is getting ever deeper,
because of the series of decisions that increasing harm Catalonia, however much
they put on offended “Who? Me?” faces, behind their spectacles, in shows of
surprise and incomprehension before the new round of victimhood that the Catalans
take so dearly to. How it Rajoy now sit down with the Catalans and negotiate
the terms of the referendum? His people would publicly lynch him. They would never
understand. They go on repeating (and I suppose they actually believe it) that it
is we Catalans that break the laws
(which ones, I would like to know!) when it is they that have failed to
implement dozens of TC judgments which
are favourable to Catalonia. It is they (and in fact, it hardly matters who's
in charge in Madrid!) that breach with apparent impunity the 3rd Transitory
Article of the 2006 Statute of Autonomy, on the funding of infrastructures in
Catalonia.
Senyor Mas also has his devil and
his deep blue sea.
On the international scene, he knows perfectly well (and I'm certain
that ministers, ambassadors and European commissioners have told him) than the
independence of Catalonia will not be recognised if it drifts into a illegal dynamic,
with open clashes with the State, with disobedience. Moody's has said just that. I imagine that the manages of the
thousands of multinationals that operate in (and from) Catalonia have also told
him. I doubt anyone has said (in private, needless to say) that Catalonia will
not be recognised if it uses democratic means to attain it. I am certain that a
number of diplomats, politicians and journalists have let him have very
critical opinions as regards the attempts of Spain's diplomacy to ensure the international
isolation of Catalonia, even by putting the pressure on the organisers of
events in which the Catalans explain ouselves abroad. But at the end of the
process (when Mas said from the very first that he would step down from power)
the president cannot want to leave in his successor's hands a country whose
independence has not been recognised.
And turning now to the interior, the president of Catalonia and of the
Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya party is subjected to many apparently
contradictory pressures. He knows that the disobedience that some demand would
put at risk the career of civil servants and many politicians: if the
ultra-rightwing association “Manos Limpias” were to have its way, they would
all end up in prison. But at the same time he knows that unless he ruffles his
plumage in front of Spain's powerful machinery, his party will never win the next election. He takes for granted that the long-standing
coalition partner Unió Democràtica de Catalunya will no longer accompany Convergència
(after all, he hasn't disqualified the recent public statements by its leader Duran
i Lleida): but inasmuch as this ballast put in doubt the credibility of the
coalition, as regards the issue of independence, and lost plenty of their voters
in the 2102 election, this likelihood should not keep Mas awake at night.
Hovering at the very back of all this, people talk of a currently non-existent
“third way”. Scotland's experience shows that the last-minute offer of considerably
increased devolution for Scottish by all three large British parties explains
the reason for a quarter of the No votes finding their way into the ballot
boxes. My impression is that the credibility of the Spanish political class, even of those that
are not queueing up in the courts to answer charges, is close to zero; and that
an offer of this type would not substantially dent the huge advantage the Catalans'
Yes vote has according to all solvent surveys.
Between the devils and the deep blue sea, we'll find our way out to
freedom!
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