Reconciliation Long Shot

22 June 2021

 

Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Spain Pardons Catalan Separatists

 

In 2017, the leaders of the Catalan independence movement held a referendum on the question of continued membership in the Spanish kingdom. The measure passed because the pro-unity forces boycotted. The Spanish government also denied the legislation necessary to make the plebiscite "legal," as if people voting could be illegal in a demoratic country. As a result of the latter, the leaders of the Catalan movement were sentenced to jail time. Today, the Spanish government has pardoned them. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez this opens a path to reconciliation. He is making a long-shot wager.

The BBC reports, "The decision does not overturn the prisoners' ban on holding office and is conditional on them not committing any other crimes within a certain period of time, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Tuesday. He said the government did not require those pardoned to abandon their political ideas, underlining that they had been convicted for their actions and not their beliefs." He wants the nation to turn the page on this matter. That is probably not going to happen.

First and foremost, the Catalan independence movement is fairly well-embedded in the region's politics. There are huge numbers of people who will only vote for a Catalan nationalist party. With or without the current leadership, those voters are not going anywhere. Making peace with them rather than the leaders is necessary, and they don't seem to want to be reconciled.

Second, banning them from holding political office creates a situation where they are not encumbered by the rules of parliamentary politics. They can be active in the independence movement without holding office. The only recourse the Spanish government will have should they create problems is to put them back in jail on new charges. That is going to harden the hardliners.

Third, the unity politicians are not united on this. The far-right Vox party has already said it will challenge the pardons by whatever political and legal mechanisms they can. Other parties have expressed concern. To the law-and-order crowd, this looks like appeasing criminals. That section of the unity bloc will not allow the page to turn very easily.

Fourth, the independence leadership is not in a particularly grateful mood. Carles Puigdemont, who is living in exile after leading the 2017 referendeum, said "The Spanish state will release some political prisoners -- who should not have spent a day in prison -- before the European justice orders it. But it will do so three and a half years too late." That does not sound like someone who is thankful for a gift. Instead, it sounds like someone who knows he is winning and who has no intention of letting up.

This journal doesn't much care whether Catalonia is independent from Spain or not. That is a matter for the Catalans, and to a lesser extent, other Spaniards. That said, the organizing of a referendum is vastly different from planting bombs in Madrid or raising an army to throw out the elected government of the day (which is what the Spanish right did in the 1930s).

What this journal does support is a pragmatic and democratic approach to this political problem. Jailing people is not especially helpful in pursuit of that. Freeing these individuals was a necessary but not sufficient condition for reconciliation. In the end, however, Madrid is going to have to come to grips with the fact that Catalonians are not satisfied with the current arrangement, and using legal force to keep them in line will damage Spain in the long run.

© Copyright 2021 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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