While the north-eastern Spanish region prepares for the potential declaration of independence, we went to Catalonia to hear from people worried that the mainstream media are not representing their voices.
11 October 2017
Vox: Catalonia will remain a part of Spain — for now
The comments from Catalan President Carles Puigdemont on Tuesday stopped short of the full and unilateral declaration of independence that had been expected since part of his region overwhelmingly voted to break away from Spain earlier this month in a highly controversial independence referendum. Instead, Puigdemont said he was willing to meet with the central government in Madrid “to start dialogue,” and “to arrive at an agreed solution to advance with the demands of the people of Catalonia." [...]
Puigdemont clearly thought he’d found a way to bridge the increasingly fervent insistence on the part of Catalan separatists to break with Spain and Madrid’s desire to hold on to its wealthiest region. He announced that the results of the contested independence referendum held on October 1 gave Catalonia “the right to be an independent state.” But then he offered to suspend those results for several weeks to engage in talks with the Spanish central government. [...]
It was both something of an olive branch and potential political suicide. Nearly 90 percent of the 2.3 million Catalans who cast ballots were pro-independence. But the vote was held under highly unorthodox conditions. The Spanish Constitutional Court ruled the referendum illegal and the central government sent in the Spanish national guard to stop the vote. Police forcibly dragged would-be voters from the polls and shot rubber bullets into crowds, leading to more than 800 injuries. Some 5.3 million eligible voters boycotted the vote.
Al Jazeera: Race review reveals gaping inequality in the UK
Black and ethnic minority (BME) individuals are almost twice as likely to be unemployed as white British adults, a government-backed review of racial issues in the UK has revealed.
The audit, published Tuesday by the government's "Ethnicity Facts and Figures" website, also shows that police are three times more likely to stop and search non-white Britons.
Black and Arab Britons are more than 40 percent less likely to own their own home, compared with white Britons, the report said. [...]
The UK's Resolution Foundation, a non-partisan think-tank, said the number Britons of Chinese, Indian and Black African heritage - aged between 16 and 64 years old - with a degree has more than doubled since 1999, but employment rates and income have not reflected that change.
Quartz: A guide to the key players in Catalonia’s independence dispute with Spain
He is the guardian of Spain’s constitution, and a 2014 poll in Spain’s leading newspaper, El Pais, found a large majority of people were in favor of his playing a greater role in mediating between political parties on national problems. But in general, the king, like his father, allows himself to be guided by the national government, and it seems unlikely Catalan separatists would accept him as a moderator. Last year, he declined to meet Forcadell, of the Catalan parliament, after the incoming regional government did not swear allegiance to him.
The Catalan people. In a province of 7.5 million, some 2.2 million managed to vote, 90% of them for independence. But the separatists aren’t speaking for everyone. A segment being referred to as “silent Catalonia” held rallies on Sunday and Monday to call for staying united with Spain. Until recent days, it’s been harder for them to stir up grassroots support, in part, they say, because of harassment at university campuses. [...]
The Spanish people. Again, the silent majority is, well, silent—though it’s likely most Spaniards want Catalonia to stay. Some parts of Spain apparently held rallies in support of the region’s right to hold a referendum, according to a retweet from Puigdemont. But Spaniards who rallied for unity this week didn’t do their cause much good by accompanying their slogans with fascist salutes. The new leftist political party Podemos, which saw a surge of support in the 2015 and 2016 elections, supports allowing Catalonia to have a referendum, as a way to enable a frank dialogue that would feed into some kind of negotiation with the national government, rather than be binding. In September Podemos participated in a protest in Madrid against the actions the Spanish government was taking to stop organizers from holding the vote.
Social Europe: Merkel Promises To Listen To The Cold Wind From The East
Germany’s economic success would suggest that populism and nationalism will not flourish on this soil. The evidence is noteworthy. Chancellor Merkel presides over a fiscally robust country that boasts among the highest real GDP in the EU, a strong export sector that has produced a trade surplus of about €270bn, and in July this year an unemployment rate at just 3.7 per cent. After a sharp drop in 2009, the global financial crisis hasn’t restrained the upward trajectory of the German economy. Indeed, the Chancellor reminds Germans that they have “never had it so good.” [...]
Their historic breakthrough would suggest sound sustainable economic prosperity is no longer the main criterion for political success. The two main political parties behind Germany’s economic prosperity lost votes. Merkel’s CDU lost 7.4 per cent and former coalition partner, SPD, 5.2 per cent. What could possibly explain this seismic political shift? For the ruling parties to lose votes to a party that did not so much as promise any more economic prosperity, let alone guarantee to sustain it. That Germans have never had it so good clearly does not appeal nor apply to the 5,877,094 who voted AfD. [...]
Merkel has reportedly offered to listen to the “concerns and anxieties” of those electors from the east. How and to what extent her listening will test those safeguards and restrain the AfD within the political establishment is a key question. It is certain their participation within it will change Germany. An AfD leader, Alexander Gauland, is widely reported to have said as much: “we will change this country.” Contemplating how they would do it reminds me of Carl Schmitt, a famed German jurist who later became an unabashed Nazi supporter. He argued in 1932 that parliamentary democracy, as constituted by the principles of liberalism, had failed. He pointed to an impotent “weak Germany” as evidence. To build a “strong state” Germany must do “away with politics!”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)