Why Catalonia Matters to Us All.

Although the month of October, 2017 is only six days old, one could argue that more has changed since it began than in many previous months for many a long while.  On the first day, the Catalan Independence referendum took place, which the central government in Madrid claimed was illegal, and video footage of Madrid-controlled policemen assaulting Catalan voters as they tried to stop them from confiscating the ballot boxes went viral internationally.  This is without doubt, a very non-Western-European-style event to have taken place in Western Europe.  I myself know many Welsh nationalists who themselves travelled to Catalonia to show solidarity with the Catalan people during the referendum. 

As you may have guessed, my sympathies are with Catalonia and not with the government in Madrid.  Sure, the Spanish Constitution says that Spain is 'One and Indivisible' but surely the whole purpose of having a constitution is to safeguard Democracy? Constitutions do indeed exist for the purpose of protecting the rights, and the democratic will, of the people, and not the other way round, and so when the two are at logger-heads, we need to ask ourselves just what that constitution is there for.  As it so happens, I do believe that written constitutions are necessary, and I believe that the UK jolly well ought to have one, but the Catalan crisis has certainly showed me that they can cause bad too.  

Assuming that the government of Catalonia will indeed declare independence unilaterally next week, I sincerely hope that the other countries of the world will recognise it, which I fear they will not.  And when different voices say that Spain's territorial integrity cannot be violated, or that an existing status quo cannot be changed unilaterally, I will raise the same argument - that existing sovereignty and territorial integrity rights along with international law, are like constitutions; they don't exist for their own sake but instead to serve the people.  When the people of Catalonia want to be independent, no amount of international or Spanish law should stand in their way ; Democracy and Self-determination should come first and international law and sovereignty rights should be built for the very purpose of serving those two ends.

I sincerely hope that the world learns all this from this crisis since there are already cases elsewhere in the world where international law and existing sovereignty rights are indeed at logger-heads with what the local people actually want.  By this I am referring to the numerous self-declared states in the world which are not recognised by the UN, or by at least one other country - Examples include Kosovo, the Republic of Artsakh and many others.  If they say that they are independent, then by the principles of  Democracy and Self-Determination who is anyone else to say that they're not.