Catalan International View A European Review of the World
State of emergency
by Francesc de Dalmases
Special Issue 27 · Autumn-Winter 2017 · € 5
Now that you see it clearly
by Víctor Terradellas
An urgent letter from a state of emergency
by David Fernàndez
Limited rationality
by Guillem López Casasnovas
An EU of cowards?
by Laura Pous
State of emergency, resistance and warnings: a feminist perspective
by Marta Jorba
Cover Artist:
Lita Cabellut
MAKE YOUR PROJECT A REALITY
Our team is passionate about culture and creativity We’ll guide you on your whole journey, with the best tools, great ideas, enthusiasm and a great success-rate!
So, what are you waiting for? marketing
· communication · branding · packaging · point of sale advertising web design · publishing · pop-up · app design
Fonollar, 14 (08003 Barcelona) · Tel. (+34) 618 196 738
gemma@gammagrafic.com · www.gammagrafic.com
Contents SPECIAL ISSUE Editor
6 State of emergency
8 Now that you see it clearly
Víctor Terradellas
vterradellas@catmon.cat
Director
by Francesc de Dalmases by Víctor Terradellas
Francesc de Dalmases
10 Catalonia, in a highly-charged state
Editorial Board
12 The undeclared siege
director@international-view.cat
Martí Anglada Enriqueta Aragonès Jordi Basté Enric Canela Salvador Cardús David Fernàndez August Gil-Matamala Montserrat Guibernau Marta Lasalas Manuel Manonelles Eva Piquer Ricard Planas Clara Ponsatí Arnau Queralt Vicent Sanchis Mònica Terribas Montserrat Vendrell Carles Vilarrubí Vicenç Villatoro
by Adriana Ribas
by Agustí Colomines
14
‘Una, grande e libera’
16
Europe’s unbecoming silence
by Alba Sidera by Albert Segura
18 Dear Raül (and Jordi, and Oriol, and Meritxell,
and Dolors, and Josep, and Joaquim, and Carles, and Santi). And the Jordis
by Jordi Armadans
20
Turning their backs on rights
22
An urgent letter from a state of emergency
24
Save the words
26
On violence
28
Impartial justice and the rule of law by Eulàlia Pascual
30
We find ourselves fighting for our rights…
32
Respect
Coordinator
34
Limited rationality
administracio@catmon.cat
36
Dissidence
38
An EU of cowards?
Cover Art
40
From the attacks in August to the attacks in October by Llorenç Olivé
The reproduction of the artwork on the front cover is thanks to an agreement between Fundació Vila Casas and Fundació CATmón
42
The current state of emergency
46
State of emergency, resistance and warnings:
Chief Editor
Judit Aixalà
Language Advisory Service
Nigel Balfour Júlia López
Ariadna Canela
Designer/Webmaster
Gemma Lapedriza Lita Cabellut
Headquarters, Administration and Subscriptions
Fonollar, 14 08003 Barcelona Catalonia (Europe) Tel.: + 34 93 533 42 38 www. international-view.cat
Legal deposit B-26639-2008 ISSN 2013-0716
© Edicions de la Fundació CATmón. All rights reserved. Neither this publication nor any part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, protocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Edicions de la Fundació CATmón. Printed in Catalonia
Published quarterly With the support of: Departament de Presidència
by David Fernàndez
by Dolors Elias
by Enric Borràs
by Francesc Mateu
by Gerard Figueras by Guillem López Casasnovas
by Joan F. López Casasnovas by Laura Pous
a feminist perspective 48
by Carme Herranz
by Manel Vila
by Marta Jorba
Defending civil and political rights at home and around the world
by Meritxell Budó
50
On my way to Baghdad
52
First they came for the migrants
54
Antidemocratic normality
56
A message in a bottle
58
Parasitic pseudo-democracies or impromptu polyarchies? by Saoka Kingolo
60
Republican ideas
62
Understanding a democratic train wreck
64
An exception to the law
66
The Artist Lita Cabellut
by Mireia Termes by Montse Santolino
by Ruth Gumbau
by Pere Perelló
by Tayssir Azouz by Mònica Terribas
by Xavier Antich
Catalan International View
3
Barcelona Provincial Council: encouraging the participation of local governments in new global agendas
T
he Barcelona Provincial Council [or Diputació de Barcelona in Catalan] is encouraging the participation of local governments in setting new global agendas in order to provide them with the necessary resources and tools to meet the territory’s global commitments. With its 2016-2019 Mandate Action Plan the council plans to improve the territory with respect to the core principles of global agendas: balance, cohesion and sustainability. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development represents a step forward in the global commitment to people’s welfare and progress in every country and region. The Agenda sets out 17 objectives that seek to guide the actions of governments in the coming years. In order to achieve these objectives, the Barcelona Provincial Council recognises the need to empower local authorities with tools that allow them to promote these policies, while simultaneously promoting their active participation, positioning them as the main actors in the international agenda. This commitment also implies the need to have a suitable and conducive institutional environment for local governments that allows them to play a more managerial role. 4
In addition, the Provincial Council is calling for a sustainable financial system and improved financing for local governments, in order to ensure citizens’ rights in the access to basic services, energy, housing, health, education, equity and equal opportunities, and sustainability. A KEY ROLE
As a sign of this clear commitment to meeting its new global commitments, Mercè Conesa, the president of the Barcelona Provincial Council, will co-host the United Cities and Local Government’s (UCLG) Political Council on Territorial, Multilevel Governance, and Sustainable Financing. Her candidacy will be announced during the next World Council, to be held in China this autumn.
Catalan International View
The Policy Councils, comprised of up to 15 individuals, are newly created world bodies whose main objective is to present policy initiatives on various strategic issues, while encouraging political participation in UCLG debates. ELEVEN YEARS
The Barcelona Provincial Council has been a member of the UCLG since 2006 and part of its World Council and Financial Management Committee for a decade and is chair of its Decentralization and Local Self-Government Committee. Over the years, the UCLG has played a leading role in multilateral organizations such as the United Nations, meaning local governments are increasingly recognised as key actors at the international level, as well as participating in the development of global agendas.
Catalan International View A European Review of the World
FREEDOM FOR
Political Prisoners
Junqueras
FREEDOM FOR Forn
Political Prisoners SÃ nchez Cuixart
Catalan International View
5
State of Emergency
State of emergency
by Francesc de Dalmases*
W
e must never forget what happened in Catalonia during the months of September, October and November 2017. And we must not forget because having built a civilised, peaceful and democratic movement, we were met by an uncivilized, violent and demophobic response from the Spanish state. Aside from the in-depth analysis that we can, must and would like to carry out, we ought to remember that where we offered ballot boxes we were met with truncheons, where we proposed dialogue they responded with prison and when we talked about rights
We ought to remember that where we offered ballot boxes we were met with truncheons, where we proposed dialogue they responded with prison and when we talked about rights they responded with criminal charges
they responded with criminal charges. Once more, pre-democratic Spain showed its true face. Remembering helps to consolidate the experience and intelligence of every human community. Which is precisely why we need to remember. For this reason, Catalan International View has brought together a wide range of individuals, highly respected in their fields, who would like to share with us their memories of recent events. Together, these twenty-six viewpoints paint a varied, yet accurate picture of a few short weeks that we do not wish to see repeated and which we hope to never experience ever again. Which is exactly why memory is so important. This collection is also a cry to Europe and to the world. An appeal that speaks of repression and demophobia. A call to explain that when essential democratic values ​​are threatened in Catalonia, Europe and the whole world must resist. And if they fail to do so and choose to look the other way, they become an accomplice.
(*) Francesc de Dalmases Director
6
Catalan International View
State of Emergency
Catalan International View
7
State of Emergency
Now that you see it clearly
by Víctor Terradellas*
I
would like to avoid expressing an opinion on the human cost of exile and imprisonment, or the attack on the legitimate institutions of Catalonia and the people who occupied them as the result of a democratic decision. More learned and wiser people than I have already done so in this magnificent special edition. Call me lacking in tact, but I prefer that some do this while others get down to work, in order to put an end to this suffering. Suffering that is felt not only by a few but by a sizeable portion of Catalan society. I avoid such comments because some of us saw them coming from a long way off. The undemocratic attitude of the Spanish state, the plight of prisoners in the Spanish penal system, economic haemorrhaging, the ability to create situations of violence, the lack of an automatic response from abroad –it’s a slow process–, the need not to explain all the work that has been done, but to ensure it has all been done... So, without wasting a single moment in regrets that lead nowhere, I would ask you all, if you are with me, to begin to work and build the Republic that we all need. Because if the current situation we are experiencing has anything in its favour, then it is the fact that it has done
8
Catalan International View
away with the middle ground: either you want to have a state or assume that you have a state against you; either you want justice that is worthy of the name or you stay with the injustice that judges us; either you respect the ballot boxes or you want to beat those who wish to vote. The irony is that Spain itself has provided us with a fourth opportunity (on another occasion I shall write about what I see as three lost opportunities: 3-O, 10-O and 27-O) to finish what remains to be done. A Spain that dreams of a unionist majority will be presented with a result (if the pro-independence forces are able to continue mobilizing their voters) that will validate a new pro-independence majority. And this pro-independence majority and its parliamentary and governmental representation will no longer have an excuse not to finish the task that has been entrusted to them, none other than that the Republic of Catalonia can begin to walk with determination, initiate the constituent process, seek out the international support that is its due, and consolidate the Republic based on such solid support that is bound to arise from the elections on 21 December. We have seen everyone’s hand, we know the moves each player will take. They, the truncheons, the force and the intimidation. While we, in Catalonia,
State of Emergency
favour ballot boxes and peaceful resistance. We need this last sacrifice –many had a taste of it during the repression on 1 October– made by many of us to achieve our goal to build the better country our ancestors wanted and fought for, and which we want for our children and grandchildren. A few days ago, the delegate of the Spanish government in Catalonia, Enric Millo, stated that it is not true that Spain would resort to high levels of violence... We now know that our intuition and information, translated into fears, were not true. We will see it very soon and, if so, we ought not to worry: democratically we’ve won!
We have seen everyone’s hand, we know how each player plays. They, the truncheons, the force and the intimidation. While we, in Catalonia, favour ballot boxes and peaceful resistance Now that we know who we are and what side everyone is on, now that we know how far they will go and how far we can go, we can call things by their rightful name: we won’t be voyaging to Ithaca or anyplace else. We will remain here and we will build the Republic.
(*) Víctor Terradellas President of the Fundació CATmón and editor of Catalan International View
Catalan International View
9
State of Emergency
Catalonia, in a highly-charged state
by Adriana Ribas*
C
atalonia is currently in a highly-charged state in which now, more than ever, the authorities bear the responsibility to respect and guarantee human rights. Amnesty International (AI)’s work is often invisible and cannot be made public until the organization issues its conclusions, since it is ongoing and requires time. However, the following are some of the investigations which the organization has been involved in since 1 October. On the day of the referendum, a delegation of AI observers was deployed in Barcelona and were witness to excessive, disproportionate use of force by members of the Spanish Police and the Civil Guard. Two of the observers were direct witnesses to police charges in the Eixample, where the agents fired rubber bullets which led to a member of the public losing an eye. Rubber bullets, due to their lack of accuracy and high degree of unpredictability, can never be used in accordance with the respect for international human rights, which is why AI calls for them to be prohibited. In the Mediterrània school (Barceloneta) a group of police officers beat unarmed members of the public
10
Catalan International View
(with blows to the head in some cases), when the officers were under no form of threat, and in Aiguaviva (Gironès) a Civil Guard officer used a pepper spray against people who were passively, peacefully resisting the police operation aimed at confiscating ballot boxes. Faced with such behaviour from the police, AI has called on the Spanish authorities to urgently undertake an exhaustive, immediate and impartial investigation into the excessive and disproportionate use of force. If it is concluded that it did exist, then those responsible must be subject to criminal or disciplinary proceedings. The abusive use of force by the police must be treated as what it is: a crime. With reference to the imprisonment of Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez, the organization calls for their immediate release from prison on remand, as well as the dropping of all charges against them for sedition. As members of the public and members of civil society, the two Jordis both had the right to express their opinions and to organize peaceful meetings to support the referendum and the independence of Catalonia. We believe that they did not encourage the
State of Emergency
protesters to use violence and that sporadic acts committed by protesters or the damage caused to police vehicles cannot be attributed to them either directly or indirectly. We will continue to monitor how the criminal case unfolds to assess whether the right to a trial is respected with due guarantees and the right to freedom. With regard to the members of the Catalan government being held on remand, AI wishes to remind the court that they must ensure that the discretionary powers of prosecution are not arbitrary or unjustified. If, according to the court, the charges brought by
the Attorney General do not meet the legal requirements necessary to constitute a specific offence, they must be rejected or revised. We at AI continue to monitor whether the defendants have a right to a fair trial, although at present we are not in a position to give our opinion as to the appropriateness of the charges.
Amnesty International’s work is often invisible and cannot be made public until the organization issues the conclusions, but it is there and demands time
(*) Adriana Ribas Coordinator of Amnesty International in Catalonia (AIC)
Catalan International View
11
State of Emergency
The undeclared siege by Agustí Colomines*
D
uring the campaign on the referendum to decide whether the UK ought to leave the EU, the historian and commentator Timothy Garton Ash published the article Here’s How to Argue with a Brexiter - and Win. The title of the Spanish version published in El País was more explicit: Cuando veas una pelea justa, toma partido [When you see a fair fight, take sides]. Garton Ash campaigned against Brexit. It was a just cause, according to Garton Ash, especially since, if the English decided to leave the EU as Great Britain, the Scots would hurry to leave the United Kingdom. In addition, the shockwave sent by Brexit would mark the beginning of the end of the EU. True to the progressive liberal principles he defends, Garton Ash claimed that those who wanted to avoid this scenario ought to argue the advantages of staying in the EU. I do not share many of the arguments put forward by Garton Ash, but it is to be commended that he wishes to impose his way of under-
12
Catalan International View
standing the world with words and not with violence. In consolidated democracies, taking sides does not mean prosecuting the adversary. In Spain, it does, however. Throughout Spain’s history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a state of siege, accompanied by the suspension of constitutional guarantees, was an almost permanent state. Now, despite the fact that the Spanish government has not formally declared a state of alarm, emergency or siege, the three means by which fundamental rights may be suspended as covered by Article 116 of the Spanish Constitution, everyone knows that Catalonia is being occupied by an illegitimate power that has not been endorsed at the ballot box. The PP has not dared to consider any of the three cases governed by the law because it does not need it. The PSOE supports them in the removal of the legitimate Catalan government through Article 155, which they have stuffed with measures provided for under 116.
State of Emergency
The Catalan government began to be taken over in July this year under the orders of the Spanish Ministry of Finance. Since then, the situation has worsened. Coercion by the state has existed for some time now and the application of Article 155 is the culmination of this process. The sovereign, democratic political parties should never have had to tolerate such a situation, but they proclaimed the Republic and were unable to defend it. The unionists, on their part, have abandoned democracy since they consider their homeland to be threatened. Obviously, we ought never to forget that the PSOE has already been found guilty of setting up a terrorist group with government money –which in turn led to corruption– in order to fight ETA. The Socialists ought to be congratulated for not repeating the move as a means to resolve the conflict between Spain and Catalo-
nia. Spain’s militarist tradition has taken hold in political parties that in other times had fought against it.
The deconstruction of democracy in Catalonia is real and the totalitarian Spanish narrative has been imposed The deconstruction of democracy in Catalonia is real and the totalitarian Spanish narrative has been imposed. The only way the independence movement can take back the initiative is to persist in the mobilization of the people and for its political parties to do better. And to begin with, those who favour sovereignty must defeat unionism at the polls on 21 December in order to restore the legitimate government. We must take sides.
(*) Agustí Colomines Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Barcelona
Catalan International View
13
State of Emergency
‘Una, grande e libera’ by Alba Sidera*
1
October, the day the Catalan people obtained a Republic, everything changed. Both inside and outside Catalonia. The image of a selforganized, peaceful, courageous people fiercely determined to decide their own future, even in the face of arms, made a big impact on democrats everywhere. That day served, at the very least, to make it clear that the independence movement is not merely the work of a few deluded political leaders, but a desire held by a large segment of the population.
Mariano Rajoy is the new centrefold of the Italian far-right. They praise him effusively, the man himself and the way in which he handles the Catalan question Spain’s violent reaction at the ballot box laid it bare in the eyes of the world and exposed it for what it truly is: an authoritarian state that only exists thanks to its Francoist foundations, to the threat of its rifles. This led to several international responses, from solidarity to indifference and hypocrisy. A reaction that has largely gone unnoticed, despite being highly significant, is that of the far-right outside of Spain and, specifically, in Italy. 14
Catalan International View
After 2 October, graffiti and banners began to appear on the streets of several Italian cities, Rome in particular, –featuring the typeface beloved of Italian neo-fascism, Ultras Liberi: stylish, sharp, stiff and asymmetrical– with the slogans ‘Catalonia is Spain!’ and ‘Una, grande e libera!’ [Spain, one, great and free]. Italian neo-fascism, closely related to its Spanish counterpart, is following Spain’s repression of Catalonia with great interest. Mariano Rajoy is the new centrefold of the Italian far-right. The two major Italian neo-fascist groups, CasaPound and Forza Nuova, praise him effusively, the man himself and the way in which he handles the Catalan question and the flair with which he applied Article 155 in a nod to the Franco regime. On the day of the referendum, faced with an avalanche of solidarity on Italian social media in support of the voters who were attacked, CasaPound started a counterinformation campaign. Their media darling, the showgirl Nina Moric, was charged with spreading the word that the images of violence were fake, and that Rajoy showed he ‘had balls’ in the way he dealt with the ‘bunch of idiots’ who voted and offended ‘the police and the fatherland’. In Italy, where a law banning fascist propaganda and symbols has fi-
State of Emergency
nally been passed, the ultra-right observe their unfettered Spanish comrades with envy: they can calmly give the Nazi salute in front of the police; the Department of Interior, now under Spanish control, grants them permission to hold demonstrations; and, moreover, they can assault citizens and journalists throughout the Catalan Countries in broad daylight without fear of the consequences. Most of the leading Spanish media organizations are complicit in this
impunity. Having for years denied the existence of the far-right, now they downplay its importance or directly continue to silence it. And yet, these attempts to whitewash reality have had little effect: since 1 October Franco has crossed over the border and has become fashionable.
(*) Alba Sidera Journalist
Catalan International View
15
State of Emergency
Europe’s unbecoming silence
by Albert Segura*
E
uropeanism will pay the price of Europe’s unbecoming silence, of its tolerance of Spain taking political prisoners and injuring a thousand voters on 1 October. Perhaps it is a surprise to no one, since this same club of soulless states lets refugees drown in the ‘dead sea’ which the Mediterranean has become. This makes its reaction no less disappointing, however: its complicity with Rajoy in supporting the Spanish democratic regression, legitimizing the use of violence to resolve a political conflict and giving cart blanche to the far-right as it takes to the streets with dangerous impunity, even attacking journalists. Shameful. If ‘Franco has returned!’, as certain banners and graffiti warn, Europe will let him die of old age in bed, like in ‘75. It was naive to believe that Merkel and the men in black of austerity and the status quo would support the self-determination of Catalonia, that they would raise a toast to the independence movement. But even the argument that the EU serves to guarantee that Spanish tanks won’t once again roll down Diagonal [an
16
Catalan International View
emblematic avenue in Barcelona] isn’t worth the paper it’s written on: dismissing a democratically elected government, imposing elections with half the government behind bars and the other half in exile in Belgium, imprisoning the organizers of the entirely peaceful, civic, multitudinous, crosssociety demonstrations that have been reported right round the world, censoring and shutting down websites, chasing teachers, leaving charities without funding and so on. In short, the measures accompanying Article 155 are the tanks of the 21st century. Infiltrated and corrupted by the Spanish PP to the core (and, literally, to the bed, in the case of certain senior officials), the European Commission only dares to defend human rights when African countries violate them. The supposed guardian of treaties, such as the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, is keen to preach to Putin and Maduro, to wave Article 7 in the face of Hungary and Poland (threatening to suspend their right to vote), while writing a blank cheque to Rajoy. So much so that the international press denounces the fact that
State of Emergency
‘repression in Catalonia recalls the dark days of the dictatorship’, in the words of the Washington Post, for example. Causing NGOs from all over the world, from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch, social movements, defenders of human rights and international observers to raise the alarm and double their efforts. The Catalan independence movement is stirring up a Europe that has never risen above the level of a simple market of states, a bureaucratic bubble. And it may either turn out to be the upset that resuscitates it or the last nail in its coffin. Â
The Catalan independence movement is stirring up a Europe that has never risen above the level of being a simple market of states, a bureaucratic bubble
(*) Albert Segura Journalist
Catalan International View
17
State of Emergency
Dear Raül (and Jordi, and Oriol, and Meritxell, and Dolors, and Josep, and Joaquim, and Carles, and Santi). And the Jordis
by Jordi Armadans*
D
Dear R aül, I don’t know if you’ve had a good night’s sleep or not. I haven’t slept much, myself. Like a lot of nights lately. But I feel much more confused and overwhelmed than many other nights. When I awoke, I thought back to the early 90s, when we met at a meeting on conscientious objection. You refused to do military service because you wanted to see a world without violence and refused to be a servant of death. Your commitment took you to Bosnia, your beloved Bosnia. There you learnt even more about the brutality, cruelty and stupidity of war. And there, you showed solidarity and support for everyone suffering the consequences of armed conflicts and human rights violations. You worked at the UNESCO Center of Catalonia, working on proposals that connect Catalonia with the need for a new global, more sustainable, fair and democratic form of governance. You were deeply involved with the School of Peace Culture at the UAB, in conjunction with its esteemed found-
I have no doubt, all barbarity comes to an end. Have no fear, we will work hard for this day to arrive 18
Catalan International View
er Vicenç Fisas. For many years you worked for the search for peace, committed to a transformation based on analysis and intellectual rigor. You decided to enter politics on the alternative left. And while you were at the European Parliament, you focussed on the environment and disarmament among other issues. You chose to work for a Europe that believed in democracy, human rights and peace. Finally, you continued your entry into the world of politics by standing for election on a transversal unitary ticket, committed to the construction of a new state for Catalonia that, in your case in particular, did not mean a closed state but one which was committed to a more just and worthy world. This all came back to me. Because I realised, Raül, that it’s horrific that a person like you, with your background, should end up in jail in 21st -century Europe. Horrific. I don’t like jails or believe in them. But if one has to incarcerate people, I can think of many others (corrupt politicians, mobsters, speculators, rapists, war criminals, arms sellers, murderers and so on) that would be better suited to such treatment. But not you. Nor Jordi, or Meritxell, or Oriol, or Dolors, or Josep, or Joaquim, or Carles, or Santi. I thought about you, and I have written this, be-
State of Emergency
cause we’ve known each other for a long time. But I could talk about some of the others too. In fact, I encourage people who know them more than I do to do this, to write a profile. That way we can appreciate the terrible significance of your imprisonment. I can’t stop talking about it because, I’ll admit I still can’t believe what happened to Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez. Dismissing a Parliament and a democratically elected government based on a political decision and, above all, sending it to prison, is extremely serious. But jailing two people in the social field is to lose, definitively, all sense of right and wrong. If someone out there truly loves Spain, they ought to try and
change these things. Because they’re leading them to the abyss. In short, extremely serious. Very sad. Highly irregular. And thoroughly sickening. But, I have no doubt, all barbarity comes to an end. Have no fear, we will work hard for this day to arrive. So I hope to meet you again soon. To you, and to all the other members of the government. And to the Jordis. I can’t get you out of my head. You and yours, Jordi Armadans (This text was previously published on Jordi Armadans’ blog https://jordiarmadans.wordpress.com)
(*) Jordi Armadans Director of FundiPau (Peace Foundation)
Catalan International View
19
State of Emergency
Turning their backs on rights
(like a telegram without the ‘STOP’s) by Carme Herranz*
A
n attempt to describe the immense chain of legal anomalies that have occurred over the last few weeks, and making it clear from the outset that it could never be a comprehensive list, forces one to adopt the style found in an old-fashioned telegram. Although it provides little by way of a narrative, it creates a picture consisting of fragments of illegality which together make up an image of the legal outrage (if this is the right name for it) that we are facing.
We condemn the fact that steps are taken in the name of the law, while turning their backs on people’s rights A rebellion without violence, sedition without a tumultuous uprising, the embezzlement of public funds with no mention of an amount. 24 hours to prepare one’s defence against charges for crimes liable to more than 30 years in prison. Legal assistance to provide the mere appearance of legal guarantees. A National Court hearing cases that are not in its jurisdiction. An Instruction Court number 13 in Barcelona enforcing reporting restrictions. A Criminal Court of the High Court
20
Catalan International View
of Justice of Catalonia stripped of its functions. A Supreme Court appointed by politicians. A Constitutional Court that abandons its function of interpreting the law in favour of executing it. A State Attorney General rebuked by Congress. Individuals who have returned from Brussels to give evidence in court treated as a flight risk. Accusations of the destruction of evidence, when the facts are a matter of public record. Repetition of the crime, an impossibility when those elected to office have been fired by decree. A European arrest warrant issued to Brussels which included two additional offences not in the State Attorney General’s original charges in an attempt to bolster the chances of extradition. Mayors from all over Catalonia declaring before the Public Prosecutor. Teachers at the courthouse in the Seu d’Urgell accused of indoctrination in the classroom. Spanish police taking statements from IT technicians for having reproduced a website. Searches of chancelleries, printers, people’s homes, police stations belonging to the Catalan police, telecoms centres. An attempted search of the CUP’s headquarters without a court order. Transferring of detain-
State of Emergency
ees to prison without respecting their dignity. Brutal police charges. Article 155 of the Constitution overstepping its own boundaries: jumping without a second thought from ‘giving instructions to the authorities of the autonomous communities’, as described in the original document, to sacking the government and dissolving Parliament. A radical questioning of fundamental rights such as the right to assembly and protest, the freedom of expression, personal freedom, political participation, ideological freedom, the freedom of the press, the right of association, effective legal protection, the privacy of communication. The legal system used as a tool for oppression and repression. We totally reject a clearly political conflict being passed to the judicial sphere. We object to an overwhelmingly peaceful movement being brought to the criminal sphere. We condemn the fact that steps are taken in the name of the law, while turning their backs on people’s rights.
(*) Carme Herranz Lawyer for the Col·lectiu Ronda
Catalan International View
21
State of Emergency
An urgent letter from a state of emergency by David Fernàndez*
T
opography of the kidnapping. 600 kilometres away and hostages of the state; Soto del Real. Alcalá-Meco. Estremera. Distance to exile: Brussels, 1,341 kilometres. They imprison us politically and claim we can’t call them political prisoners. But we will shout it far and wide on every street corner: that that is exactly what they are, and we want them home. Because this country was reborn from the ashes of fascism, a fact we will never forget: and of course, they’re not the same as the heroic anti-Franco prisoners at the time of the dictatorship. However, arguably, philosophically, their imprisonment is even worse: since they are political prisoners in what is supposed to be a democracy. And in answer to the idiots: no regime –ever, in any country– has ever acknowledged someone is a political prisoner. This is equally true of the Kingdom of Spain: What was Xirinacs? What was Vinader? What was Núria Pòrtulas? What were the 500 conscientious objectors? And the Egunkaria Six? 22
Catalan International View
Cartography of the repression. 700 mayors on trial, half a cabinet imprisoned and the other half in exile. 1,066 injured, 200 websites shut down, 10,000 members of the security forces monitoring and observing on every street corner. And Roger losing an eye while the schools resisted. They beat us, and we’re not even allowed to say so: if we do, they accuse us of incitement to hatred. They distort everything: the crime of hatred was created to protect vulnerable, discriminated and assaulted minorities, not those who too-often abuse them and discriminate against them. They manipulate everything: they convert saucepans into violence, active pacifism into turmoil and more active non-violence into rebellion. And though they only shout to see if they make us fall silent, we will continue to say: that you came for us and you didn’t get your way. And that those who respect people, don’t beat them. And that we will never ever respect those who beat our people. Ever. Geography of the always-sinister raison d’état. On October 1, decreed
State of Emergency
an official secret, when the rule is the exception. The institutional violence of persecution, a state secret. And some are still asking us for explanations. Turning the tables, I would ask them to explain the explanations they seek from us. You imprison us, you beat us, you gag us. And yet still you ask us for explanations. We will stubbornly continue to explain our position based on the democratic argument of Catalonia’s political freedom. The most simple being: that we have taken the humble decision not to retreat. That you will never defeat us again. That we’ve survived worse. That we will abolish the punishment, the wall and the sentence. That you want us alone, yet you’ll find us united. That you’ve been taking something away from us for a long time: our fear. In spite of it and because of it, since you’ve gone so far, we’ve had to learn to stand up to it. Each of us has acknowledged our fear and we are not ashamed to say we feel it, and above all, that we transform it into resistance, patience and persistence. By
the same token, we have had to forget and erase –since you’ve gone so far– a word from the dictionary: surrender. We no longer know how to surrender. Thank you, inquisitors, for reminding us that this time you can’t burn us and to let us see that we have many arguments –at least 155– and we have all the arguments we need. To help us see why we need to continue, indesinenter [ceaselessly], ever onwards without faltering: fighting, building and freeing. #llibertatpresospolítics
That we have taken the humble decision not to retreat. That you will never defeat us again. That we’ve survived worse. That we will abolish the punishment, the wall and the sentence
(*) David Fernàndez Social activist
Catalan International View
23
State of Emergency
Save the words
by Dolors Elias*
I
n these days of post-truth and lies, words are broken, they are corrupted in the service of the story concerned. Which explains why, in order to twist facts and justify unjustifiable actions, vocabulary has appeared in colloquial, every day usage which has nothing to do with our activities, such as a tumult, sedition, rebellion... In the era of post-truth, the public mobilized in a peaceful and civic defence of their institutions have become ‘tumultuous’. While social activists and members of the Government or the Parliamentary Bureau have become criminals participating in ‘an armed uprising against authority’, if we use the dictionary definition, since they are accused of sedition and rebellion. Conclusion: they deserve everything they get: ‘Let ‘em have it!’. Led by post-truth, by placing our trust in statements that sound truthful though they are not based on reality, they find it logical and decent
24
Catalan International View
to assault people who simply wish to exercise the right to vote. And they justify it in the name of ‘the legal and democratic order’ and the Constitution ‘we all agreed upon’ (although this use of all is not true since half of the Partido Popular’s predecessors did not vote for it). With the lie taken as truth, the evidence and recorded images can be denied. And the minister in line can defend, shamelessly, that the violence on 1 October did not take place. And that no one was injured, either. This is when post-truth is taken to the limit, which is when a reinforced lie becomes the shared belief of a group, and one can even assert that the police officers were the ones under attack. And the injured, too. It is in the name of this inoculated truth, which goes unnoticed, that the application of Article 155 is presented as the answer to all the evil. And the president of the Generalitat with half of his government goes into exile; dissidents are persecuted by the
State of Emergency
courts and the innocent are imprisoned; teachers have to give evidence before a court for teaching their pupils how to think and the media is searched and threatened; the ‘Men in Black’ ask for all documentation in Spanish; the army plants itself in the midst of the people; police vehicles fly Spanish flags and police officers smash up a bar for speaking ‘Catalan’. In the middle of this state of emergency created by Article 155, they celebrate 155 as the path that ‘will restore democratic normality’. In fact, however, in the name of the rule of law, Catalonia has been condemned to dissolve Parliament, sack its government and convene elections. Without prior judgment, nor the fundamental duty of hearing the accused. 21 December is not a reward. It is a consequence of a blow of authoritarianism. In this autocratic festival, Catalonia is a huge stage where the majority of the mass media unleash their creativity in stories at the service of
constitutional order. Where defending the rule of law is confused with crushing the right to self-determination. And ‘we are now going live’. But we have lived to save the words, To return the name of everything, So that you might follow the straight path To take full control of the earth. [from a poem by Salvador Espriu]
And ... we carry on!
With the lie taken as truth, the evidence and recorded images can be denied. And the minister in line can defend, shamelessly, that the violence on 1 October did not take place
(*) Dolors Elias Journalist
Catalan International View
25
State of Emergency
On violence
by Enric Borràs*
I
f the majority of Catalan society decides to be ungovernable by Spain because it simply cannot agree to defer to anyone, regardless of the national sentiments of every individual, there will be no going back. But it will need to take the conscious step of counting the cost and the difficulties involved in such a step. A revolution –which is what independence entails–, however peaceful it may try to be, does not come about thanks to coloured T-shirts, candles or mass choreographies. Acting as if violence was not a factor to be taken into account in the European Union of the 21st century is frankly naive. History shows that groups that accumulate power and capital do not let go of them without a fight, though this can take many shapes and forms. The current independence movement cannot win through the force of arms, but it is increasing the strength of its legitimacy.
26
Catalan International View
When the Spanish National Police began charging voters at the Ramon Llull school in Barcelona, the general feeling was one of disbelief. It was one of the first polling stations where state violence was employed on 1 October. The hundreds of individuals who had gathered to defend the polling station would never have imagined that this could happen in a supposed democratic society in the 21st century. The school is where Roger was blinded in one eye due to a rubber bullet, where David was hit in the leg by the same weapon, one that has been banned by the Parliament of Catalonia, where the riot police forcibly removed Guillem from the building, in spite of his ‘press’ armband, so that he wouldn’t witness the violence. It’s also where some threw themselves in front of the police vans to try to stop them from confiscating ballot boxes at other polling stations. In spite of the thousands who were injured, the indiscriminate truncheon
State of Emergency
blows, the bruises and the bleeding heads, though it may not look like it and it wasn’t quite fine-tuned enough, on 1 October the intention was not to go too far. I saw several police officers calming down colleagues who were blinded by rage, stopping them before they got carried away with their truncheons. They wanted to fine-tune the level of violence, so it didn’t appear too excessive in front of the cameras. ‘That the effect is achieved without the attention being noted’. These instructions –dictated by the Spanish state apparatus in 1712– remain valid, and are being carried out today as badly as when they were dictated. Nevertheless, they suggest that the violence could have been far worse, and that it still may be. The violence on 1 October was unnecessary, excessive, unfair, undemocratic, irregular and surely illegal even according to Spanish legislation. Nonetheless it was pre-
The violence on 1 October was unnecessary, excessive, unfair, undemocratic, irregular and surely illegal even according to Spanish legislation dictable, as are the massive, dissuasory fines that will be handed out as a result of the shutting of roads and motorways on 8 November [as part of a general strike]. The Spanish state apparatus seeks to frighten Catalan society without looking too bad, and will use all the resources it deems necessary. If at any moment it thinks it can get away with going even further, there is no doubt that it will do so.
(*) Enric Borràs Journalist
Catalan International View
27
State of Emergency
Impartial justice and the rule of law by Eulàlia Pascual*
S
1. Directive 2004/83/EC of 29/04/84 and Directive 2005/85/CE of 12/12/05 transposed to Spanish Law 12/2009.
28
ince 1 October a series of events have occurred which, from a legal point of view, seriously question the impartiality of justice in Spain and raise some doubt as to the violation of fundamental rights. When part of the Catalan government, including President Puigdemont, journeyed to Brussels, it raised the question of the right to asylum. According to the 1951 Convention, a person may ask for asylum when, among other factors, they have a ‘well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of their political opinion’. In accordance with the Tampere Summit conclusions and the subsequent Directives1, acts of political persecution include, among others: legislative, administrative, police or judicial measures which are discriminatory or which are applied in a discriminatory manner and/ or prosecutions or penalties that are disproportionate or discriminatory. ‘Having received direct threats that they will be pursued’ is also considered grounds for asylum. The perpetrators of said threats may be the state or parties which control the state. These criteria are met, both by improper inclusion in the charges Catalan International View
filed by the State Attorney General of the crime of rebellion that requires the ‘violent uprising’ as a key feature, and by Judge Lamela’s decision, which failed to comply with the National Court’s 2008 ruling on jurisdiction. The latter threatened the defendants’ right to a fair trial thanks to its peremptory deadlines and the application of severe measures such as being remanded in custody without bail, based on highly questionable arguments, and adding two crimes to the EAW that did not figure in the original charges. These facts, in accordance with Framework Decision 13/06/02 on the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) may lead to a refusal to hand over the subject, in a process which is not automatic and in respect of which the national sovereignty of the host country serves as a limit. The EAW operates on the basis that the member countries respect fundamental rights and, therefore, according to the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) ruling in the Soering Case, ‘where it is certain or where there is a serious risk that the person will be subjected to torture or inhuman treatment the deportation or extradition would, in itself, under such
State of Emergency
circumstances constitute inhuman treatment’. One of these rights is the right to a fair trial, together with the presumption of innocence, the equality of arms between the prosecution and the defence, and an independent and impartial tribunal (Article 6 European Convention on Human Rights). Concerning this, reasonable doubt is sufficient, since ‘justice must inspire confidence in a democratic society’ (Langborger Case). Impartiality implies objectively and subjectively ruling out any legitimate doubt as indicated by the ECHR (Hauschildt Case). And when can this impartiality be called into question? When, for example, ‘there are indications that the judge has already made up their mind about the case’ (De Cubber Case). According to the European Commission (Dir. 216/343) public authorities ‘must refrain from making statements about those under investigation or the accused’. A respect for the presumption of innocence is not only a requirement for the judge but also
The conclusion is clear: a lack of democratic guarantees and the key elements of an impartial trial for individuals, especially journalists, and it is demonstrable that in Spain the state has orchestrated a media and political campaign demonizing Catalan independence. And that brings us to the heart of the matter, that is, as the ECHR states in the Zielinski Case, that ‘the principle of the preeminence of law and the notion of a fair trial are opposed to interference in the administration of justice with the aim of influencing the decision’. The conclusion is clear: a lack of democratic guarantees and the key elements of an impartial trial.
(*) Eulàlia Pascual Doctor of International Criminal Law
Catalan International View
29
State of Emergency
And we find ourselves fighting for our rights... by Francesc Mateu*
T
here is a great deal of diversity in this world and many different realities, but one of the most worrying common features of our times is that we are suffering from democratic involution. Civil society spaces are being reduced, while those who defend human rights are murdered with impunity in many countries. The co-opting of political spaces by the economic elites –which are increasingly elite– is troubling. The creation of growing, obscene levels of inequality means that there are a few individuals in the world who can do as they wish, accumulating wealth in an indecent way, while a growing part of humanity is destined to live without the bare minimum, while there is a failure to respect their basic rights. The image of a Europe of values has become blurred since people arrived on its beaches seeking refuge. The response they are met with is cruel and inhumane. European governments, the basis of this hypocritical, petty European Union, infected with the same virus, have been 30
Catalan International View
making similar decisions. On one hand, the extreme right is gaining in strength in most states, threatening human rights in general, while on the other, the citizens believe in the foundational European values and continue to defend human rights, peace and solidarity. The Spanish state is no stranger to these tendencies and for some time it has been implementing regressive mechanisms in the field of rights such as the adoption of unjust laws –for example the controversial ‘gag law’–, abuses of power, control of the media, express repatriation of refugees and failure to comply with quotas. And all while there are extremely serious cases of corruption that highlight the weaknesses in our democratic system. The extreme judicialization of the conflict with Catalonia and the application of Article 155 is, in this sense, a flight forward that is committed to a logic of confrontation to achieve political gains while relegating all other considerations to the background.
State of Emergency
In Catalonia we have seen how the public have taken to the streets since 2007 to peacefully seek solutions to a problem, to organize themselves to hold a referendum, to defend polling stations and to ask for the release of members of their government who have been imprisoned or forced into exile. Even Amnesty International has declared the imprisonment to be a totally disproportionate measure. This public have discovered, is discovering, that the struggle goes beyond what they had originally thought, that it transcends the initial goal, since it is a struggle to defend extremely fundamental rights that are being eroded on a daily basis. We are fighting in order that we do not lose basic rights as individuals, as citizens and as activists for a fairer world. Which is why so many people with such different ways of thinking and acting find themselves on the same side. This mass citizen movement and its non-vi-
olent way of sustaining itself is hopeful. The new awareness has planted a seed. When the prisoners are finally released, and a solution is found to the conflict, many more people will continue to fight for that which they have found to be essential. While they believed themselves to be fighting for independence, in reality they were fighting for their rights as citizens and as individuals. Their rights. And those of everyone. Everywhere.
This public have discovered, is discovering, that the struggle goes beyond what they had originally thought, that it transcends the initial goal, since it is a struggle to defend rights
(*) Francesc Mateu Director of Oxfam-Intermรณn
Catalan International View
31
State of Emergency
Respect
by Gerard Figueras*
O
ne often hears people defending the idea that sport ought to be kept separate from politics. It is a sentiment that not only do I not share, but I firmly fight to defend the exact opposite: sport is politics. That is how it has always been, and that is the way it must continue to be. The government of every country on the European continent appoints someone to manage sports –usually a Minister or the Secretary of State. It is a political post, charged with implementing public policies in the field of sport in accordance with an associated public budget. In 1981, the Catalan government assumed responsibility for sport, under the auspices of the first Secretary General of Sport –formerly Director– Josep Lluís Vilaseca. For 36 years, the Secretary General of Sport has promoted public policies related to sport that have led us to become leaders at the European and international level. Catalonia is a leader both in terms of its results –nowadays Catalonia’s sporting achievements are comparable to other countries of a similar size to our own– as well as in terms of the sports model it has adopted. I am referring to the Catalan model par excellence: a combination of public and private efforts. The Catalan sports model would never have been so successful were it not for a combination of public
32
Catalan International View
sector efforts with associations and the private sector, the true protagonists of Catalan sport. This sum of these efforts, resources and this strategy has allowed us to have the best possible sports structures at the service of performance sports, but also at the service of grassroots training and sports, where clubs form the backbone. 17,000 sports organisations, 40,000 facilities, 71 sports federations and 46 school sports councils make up a sector, among others, which today represent 2.1% of Catalonia’s GDP and which is prepared to continue growing. Growing at the service of sporting achievements, but also at the service of a more active and healthy society. A sector that has not been left out of the process that is taking place in our country. And that, all too often, in the interest of those who proclaim that sport ought to be kept separate from politics, some would have preferred to have silenced. Although the sector has not been left out, I wonder, is it currently acceptable that the world of sports in general and sportspeople in particular can freely express their political opinions without fear of reprisals? The answer is clear: no. Sports entities, sports leaders and sports people have made public declarations in relation to the independence process. Some favour one option, while others favour another. But there have
State of Emergency
also been those that have not taken any position. Some may simply not wish to express an opinion. Nevertheless, there are others who have been afraid of the retaliation that might result from them expressing their own opinion. In a society where we see it as normal that actors, intellectuals, academics, journalists, professionals, business people, trade unionists and workers freely express their political opinion, we should ask ourselves why we don’t treat the world of sport in the same way. For the situation to change, one value is fundamental: respect. Everyone, including all athletes, therefore, are free to choose our individual and collective opinions according to our will, as well as to be able to channel our emotions and feelings without anyone feeling coerced to declare themselves sympathetic to opposing views. A free choice that has the same value for every person and group, whether they form part of the majority or the minority, and that must be based on respect for the emotions, choices and feelings of all the sportspeople, whoever they may be. That Gerard PiquÊ publicly expresses his feelings should not be news. Nor should it be that, in spite
of thinking, believing or feeling differently from another athlete, for example Sergio Ramos, both of them should be able to play together in the state football team as long as this continues to be their shared, official framework. Such an attitude of respect and fair play ought to be the norm in the world of sport. All athletes, specialists and managers should be able to freely express their feelings and opinions. Free from being judged or the threat of reprisals from those who oppose them and feel differently. This attitude of respect and fair play should also be the norm in the world of politics. We are working in order that the road that lies ahead is somewhat more respectful and it allows us to take to the field under the same conditions, playing cleanly and with the assurance that, win or lose, we will respect the result.
That Gerard PiquĂŠ publicly expresses his feelings should not be news. Nor should it be that, in spite of thinking, believing or feeling differently from another athlete, for example in Sergio Ramos, both of them should be able to play together
(*) Gerard Figueras Secretary General of Sport for the Government of Catalonia
Catalan International View
33
State of Emergency
Limited rationality
by Guillem López Casasnovas*
I
n every matter in life, we often take decisions in a context of uncertainty. Adding collective preferences based on these options is one of the main challenges of the theory of social choice that we face as a society. We can assign probabilities to those uncertainties that are recurrent and those that we record after the fact, in spite of them having been unpredictable at the time. My grandfather always told me on the island that if the sunset was reddish the next day would be windy and we wouldn’t be able to go fishing. He wasn’t always right, but more often than not he was. In terms of non-recurring events that happen to us only once in a lifetime and of which we have no experience, whether personal or second-hand, we know far less. What we usually do is undertake an appraisal: we are ultimately pleased with what we have done when the most dubious thing we have decided continues to be better than the best of the alternatives we have not chosen. Many of us find ourselves facing this dilemma when it comes to evaluating the future of the Catalan economy in the new scenarios that politics provides. Each of them has pros and cons: to carry on as normal or to take a risk. The certainty of what one has versus the expected value of what one might
34
Catalan International View
have. All this multiplied by the (political) probability of achieving it, of course. The difficulty for an economist in assigning probabilities to political contingencies complicates everything. Certainly, the economic viability of an independent Catalonia, removed from the political difficulty of achieving it (what political scientists call achieving independence ‘at the press of a button’!) is more than guaranteed. For a type of economy such as our own, open to the exterior, with good human capital, business know-how, etc. (I could go on), the economic viability is in little doubt. The uncertainties arise from its political viability. And here the tour de force between one side and another generates unknowns that, according to Bayesian probability, often force us to re-evaluate the positions: independence by democratic means when we already know a part of society is against it, and those in power, by using and abusing the powers of the state, won’t let us count ourselves; a mismatch between democratic values in different cultures (intransigence, exploitation of national minorities within multinational states), and being considered differently among western convenience states. Pros and cons are thus part of an imaginary that entails different discount rates; that is, assessment of present-day sacrifices to make pos-
State of Emergency
sible future prosperity. Present sacrifices which are more certain than future benefits, possible but more or less likely depending on the movements of the positions mentioned earlier. These rates of how we view the event diverge among young people and adults (their periods of calculation of profits and losses are different), between already well-off classes and those who are in a more precarious situation (those who have nothing to lose often take more risk). And some benefits and costs that do not coincide either in space or time. In any case one can observe that we experience three phenomena that mark our day-to-day life in the process of uncertainties. First, when on one side more thought and reflection is put into evaluating the situation, more thought is given to the possible losses, and the more nervous they become: risk aversion takes care of the rest. On the other side, with more muscle than logic, and from their position of power and strength, a ‘let ‘em have it!’ is enough for them to go ahead. Secondly, all those that feel that an agreement is better (a win-win as it is now called) but spend their time in pointing out
The economic viability of an independent Catalonia, neutralized by the political difficulty of achieving it, is more than guaranteed the weakness of one side, agreement is less likely, in fact, since by weakening one part they strengthen the other. Why should the other party give anything if one has revealed one’s weaknesses in fighting them? Thirdly, those who seek self-confessed prophecies, unleashing judicial outrages, the exodus of businesses –which subsequently they fail to even admit is negligible– and once the stampede has begun they are unable to stop it, leaving the territory lifeless, forget that they are guilty, not only for the fact that the smaller country suffers, but also the larger one. All the previous reflections are a lesson for one who studies Political Economy, for an academic in the theory of social choice, for a citizen who, once in a lifetime, tries to shine a light to illuminate the welfare of their people.
(*) Guillem López Casasnovas Professor of economics at the UPF
Catalan International View
35
State of Emergency
Dissidence
by Joan F. López Casasnovas*
W
hen referring to the Catalan ‘process’, as far as I am aware, the Spanish government and its media mouthpieces have not employed the word ‘dissidence’, instead they employ such terms as challenge, drift, delirium, madness, etc., words preceded by the adjective ‘secessionist’. Such folly would be the result of the disease affecting Puig-
In the settlement by the force of the Prague Spring some parallelisms are acknowledged in an attempt to overthrow the liberating force of Catalan independence! demont, Junqueras et al., that prevents them from seeing reality for what it is. The totalitarian strategy is to consider those who do not share their beliefs to be mentally ill. Instead, they see independentism, or rather, the great wave in favour of sovereignty in Catalonia, as 36
Catalan International View
the work of dissenters. Perhaps because dissidence returns us to ugly situations for Spanish nationalism, which deeply dislikes being likened to repressors. For example, those of the time of ‘real socialism’, which crushed the peaceful revolt of the Prague Spring some 50 years ago. Following that episode, Warsaw Pact troops shipped President Dubcek and the Czechoslovak Communist leaders to Russia ‘on remand’, forcing them to sign the Moscow Protocol in compliance with the demands of the invaders, before immediately activating the Brezhnev Doctrine of limited sovereignty. This states that when hostile forces, conveniently indoctrinated in hatred in Spain, endangered the nation’s unity (chemically indissoluble, materially indivisible and religiously sacred), then the Law (and if necessary, with the help of the army, as outlined in Article 8 of the Constitution) would bring its full weight to bear on the insurgents.
State of Emergency
It can be seen that this reality has been transposed in time and space: Brezhnev spoke of the Soviet homeland, of socialist solidarity and popular democracy (when the reality was deceit, fakery and lies) and Rajoy took arbitrary measures under Article 155 in defence, he claims, of constitutional democracy and ‘the rights of the Catalans and of all Spaniards’. He’s not bothered about laws and courts, the supposed ‘rules of engagement’ and so on. The continuous appeal to the Law is an alibi for post-totalitarian regimes, which use it in ritual manner as a façade. They do not forget that laws are always imperfect and more or less external ways of guarding what is better in people’s lives from what is bad or worse. But the law never does on its own what is best for the community. In addition, laws must address the context in which they are applied and, in a democracy, they must respond to human rights as higher principles.
It is undeniable that in resolving the Prague Spring through the use of force, certain parallels can be drawn with the attempt to overthrow the liberating force of Catalan independence! The security forces ought to realise that, like what happened in Czechoslovakia, twenty-two years after that spring, the Velvet Revolution occurred and the dissident Václav Havel became president of the Czech Republic (Slovakia peacefully gained independence a few years later), in Catalonia, the bullies will be unable to stop history no matter how much power they have. With one condition: those ‘powerless’ must not stop their dissidence, nor lose awareness of their argument and radical need.
(*) Joan F. López Casasnovas Writer
Catalan International View
37
State of Emergency
An EU of cowards?
T
he European Union, which thinks nothing of declaring the arrests of political dissidents in Turkey ‘alarming’, which calls for ‘dialogue’, ‘regional mediation’ and ‘the release of political prisoners’ in Venezuela and which warns Poland that ‘an independent judiciary is a prerequisite’ to joining the club, falls silent when the Spanish state imprisons without bail half the Catalan government and two pro-independence leaders. Brussels keeps quiet over Catalonia and, despite the surprise and indignation caused by the violence on 1 October, in recent weeks it has reverted to murmurings of ‘an internal affair’ and respect for the ‘constitutional framework’, without renewing calls for dialogue. Moreover, it is now admitting that mediation is impossible since Spain does not want it.
38
Catalan International View
by Laura Pous*
The president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, who boasted of leading the most ‘political’ executive in history, remains silent in the face of the worst political crisis the continent has seen since Brexit. The despair of the international press, which has run out of ways to obtain answers from EU spokespersons on Catalonia, is more than evident. And Juncker himself supplies few answers, beyond making it clear that he sees independence as a hassle, since he doesn’t want an EU made up of 85 mini-states. ‘It’s already complicated enough with 27’, he says. The president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, is less subtle in trying to disguise his friendship with –and dependence on– the Spanish PP. In fact, he even stood outside the European Parliament to have his picture taken with unionist demonstrators. A spokesman justified it by saying that he always tries to be on the side of the people. However, he didn’t participate on the day on which a score of MEPs went outside to criticize the imprisonment of Catalan politicians, nor did he express his support for the numerous demonstrations organised by the Catalan community in Belgium, including one which saw more than 45,000 people taking to the streets. The only figure to keep European neutrality intact, for now, has been the President of the European
State of Emergency
Council, Donald Tusk, who called on Rajoy to use ‘the force of argument, not the argument of force’ to persuade the Catalans. Shortly after the imprisonment of Vice President Oriol Junqueras and ministers Bassa, Borràs, Romeva, Turull, Rull, Forn and Mundó, and President Puigdemont’s move to Brussels, the European Commission closed ranks –more than before! ‘The last time I checked, both Belgium and Spain were democracies’, declared in his usual ironic tone the spokesman of the European Commission, Margaritis Schinas –married to a Spaniard, Mercedes Alvargonzález, the European PP’s chief of staff. No sign of doubt or dismay at the fact that half of a democratic, legitimate government of an EU territory has been imprisoned, while the other half is in exile. He even failed to show any sympathy for two of them, Romeva and Junqueras, who were MEPs when Schinas himself was sitting in the European Parliament as the representative of Greece’s New Democracy (2007-2009). Only a few days later, another member of the European People’s Party, Gyorgy Schopflin, stated on Via Europa on El Punt Today TV that he remembered his two imprisoned colleagues ‘very well’. And like him, many others in the corridors of these institutions are shocked that they have been put behind bars. But at Berlaymont, the headquarters of the European Commission, the order of the day is silence. Or what’s worse: indifference. Of course, one only needs to take a quick look at how Belgian law has dealt with President Puigdemont and the four ministers who are with him in Brussels to appreciate the distance between Madrid and the Belgian capital. All of them, after appearing before the judge, were released without bail, only with certain precautionary measures
(forbidden to leave the country without permission, have a fixed residence and the need to report to a police station or court upon request). The judge agreed to the prosecutor’s request not to jail them: a long way from Maza and Lamela’s vehemence.
And while the apparent differences between the Spanish and Belgian judiciary continue to grow, there is also the risk that Catalan Europeanism will not survive an EU that makes excuses for the PP’s shame Indeed, a few hours earlier, all of the major Belgian parties had opposed the option of jailing them, with former Prime Minister Elio di Rupo –a francophone and a socialist– even going as far as describing Rajoy as an ‘authoritarian Francoist’. And the liberal and also former prime minister Guy Verhofstadt –who can hardly be suspected of being pro-independence– calling the decision to jail political leaders ‘disproportionate’. The current head of the Belgian government, Charles Michel, is one of the few European leaders who has not been tempted by the Spanish diplomatic pressure and has repeatedly said that the solution is clear: ‘Dialogue, dialogue and POLITICAL dialogue’. With their journey to Brussels, Puigdemont and his government in exile have managed to internationalize the conflict, which has exploded at the heart of the EU. And while the apparent differences between the Spanish and Belgian judiciary continue to grow, there is also the risk that Catalan Europeanism will not survive an EU that makes excuses for the PP’s shame.
(*) Laura Pous Journalist
Catalan International View
39
State of Emergency
From the attacks in August to the attacks in October by Llorenç Olivé*
I
t’s been virtually three months since the terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils. Not even a hundred days and it seems like a lifetime ago. It’s a long way away. The events brought out all manner of emotions buried deep inside of us. On the one hand, rage, pain, impotence and confusion while we tried to understand what we had done wrong, why Catalan youths would commit such barbarous acts. On the other, it brought out the best in us as a society: collaboration, solidarity, giving, as well as the profes-
Right now, we need calm, firmness and determination. Calm, in order that all the recent events don’t lead us to question ourselves and in order that we can continue to work for freedom and human rights and peaceful action in our country, which are our guiding principles sionalism of different fields. Doctors and health workers who took care of the victims, from the first instant. The teachers who, at the start of the school year, did their best to make children 40
Catalan International View
and adolescents understand what can’t be understood and encourage love and solidarity towards others. Professionals in the media, who minute by minute kept us informed of what was happening and tried to reassure and guide Catalan society; an example of which is InfoK’s excellent program, which explained to children viewers what a terrorist attack is, while engendering positive values. And the work of the police, under the command of Major Trapero, which ensured that a terrible tragedy involving the deaths of 16 people and a hundred injured, ended when it did. Now, just three months later, these same professionals have become the scapegoats of Catalan society and have suffered the wear and tear of an immoral attempt to discredit them on behalf of the state government and the power of the Spanish political press. Although the work of the police was exemplary, doubt was cast on it from the outset. While in the eyes of the world the Catalan police displayed great expertise, gaining them international respect; there were also attempts to downplay the efforts of the force’s commander and accuse him of diso-
beying orders and promoting sedition. Although the schools work to promote diversity, interculturality and peaceful coexistence –all with great difficulty due to the cuts of recent years– they have had to face the accusation of indoctrinating their pupils and that Catalan schools (both public and religious) promote hatred. The medical services, which work in strict accordance with the deontological code and the Hippocratic Oath in caring for their patients, have had to listen to the figure of there being more than 1,000 injured –as a result of the brutal police charges on 1 October–, called into question, with accusations of them having falsified the data. And, finally, those in the public media, which has always had an open door to diversity and the plurality of opinion –something which public and private broadcasters in Spain do not–, have had to endure a lynching in the media for their lack of ‘objectivity’ and for failing to follow Spanish government guidelines, to the point of being on the receiving end of fascist attacks carried out with total impunity. And now what? After so many days with ours heads filled with news of the situation, of the hundreds of messages that reach us on WhatsApp, which sometimes confuse us more than they
help, and the uncertainty of our daily lives, we don’t know where we stand. Right now, we need calm, firmness and determination. Calm, in order that all the recent events don’t lead us to question ourselves and in order that we can continue to work for freedom and human rights and peaceful action in our country, which are our guiding principles. Firmness, so that entities like our own, which participate at the state level, can serve as an intermediary to explain the truth of everything that is happening and what the Catalan people want; now more than ever, with empathy and without giving up, we have to explain and listen. And determination, since while the country is going its way, doing what it does now and will continue to do in the future, each of us will be working for the application of the rule of law, with genuine independence of the three powers, in order to democratize the justice system –which never went through the so-called Transition– and finally dissolve the National Court, a clear successor to Franco’s Public Order Court. Have no fear, as a people we are winning, our values and human rights are there to be respected.
(*) Llorenç Olivé Member of the Commission for Human Rights of Justícia i Pau [ Justice and Peace]
Catalan International View
41
State of Emergency
The current state of emergency by Manel Vila*
I
fully understand why the editorial team of the Catalan International View magazine intends to change the latest edition of the magazine and talk about the exceptional nature of the present events in terms of the public administration in Catalonia. On the morning of Saturday 28 October, 2017, thirty-nine years after the current Spanish Constitution came into effect, for the first time, the Official State Gazette (OSG) number 261 included Article 155, publishing the Royal Decree naming the bodies and authorities charged with complying with the measures directed at the government and the administration of the Generalitat of Catalonia, which had been passed by a large majority of the Senate during the previous day’s session. The decree designated which organs had been appointed to guarantee compliance of the agreement, which is: to carry out the necessary actions to ensure
42
Catalan International View
that the administration and the government of Catalonia as a whole restore and act in accordance with the ruling constitution and legal order, ensuring institutional neutrality, so that the general interest of the Catalan people is the governing principle of its political leaders above political interests; to guarantee the normal functioning of the public administration in Catalonia and finally to act with respect for the principle of prudence and proportionality and with full respect for the Autonomy of Catalonia. Next, and as outlined in the appendix to the agreement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation is charged with carrying out the functions that correspond to it in its field of competence. The document goes on to name other agencies and units of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Institutional Relations and Transparency, the two bodies belonging to the
Catalan Public Administration that develop public policy for development cooperation: the General Directorate of Cooperation and the Catalan Agency for Cooperation. The application of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution in the manner in which it has been carried out, with many legal and procedural discussions on the scope of the measures, means simply publishing in the OSG procedures and actions that we have already been analysing for a long time: the total economic takeover of the Catalan government from September of this year, which must be added to all the economic and treasury decisions that have been taken by the state in recent years, with which they have completely denied the Catalan government any room for manoeuvre. It is true that as part of the application of Article 155 we have personnel in the offices of the Catalan Ministry of
Foreign Affairs sent from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to monitor adherence with the adopted measures, but it is also true that since the middle of September we have not had the least amount of financial autonomy to execute the 2017 Action Plan for International Cooperation, Peace and Human Rights that specifies the annual activities of the Master Plan for Development Cooperation currently in force. The Master Plan for Development Cooperation, which was approved by a large majority of the Parliament of Catalonia, following an extended period of debate, proposals and amendments, and that is annually debated by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament (Minister Romeva on two occasions) and the finer details presented and discussed with the different parliamentary groups. We could say that if one of the considerations of Ar-
Catalan International View
43
State of Emergency
ticle 155 is that the general interests of the Catalans is the governing principle of the political leaders rather than political interests, then the procedures already in place were entirely successful. This general interest that many times we have found to be entirely absent from all dealings with the Spanish state. It harmed us badly when, after many months of talks with the Spanish Cooperation Agency as to a cooperation program with the countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean in the fight against the rise of violent extremism, to change partners and activities we were finally informed that the project was very good but that at the current time it was not possible to finance, nor to present a project to the European institutions if it is designed by Catalonia. We have never felt that Catalan cooperation is ‘decentralized cooperation’, though it is not due to any political consideration of the current government team. For many years we have been claiming that we would practice decentralized cooperation if a part of the state’s budget was transferred funds for the execution of a specific program, in the sense of what is known as subsidiarity, the principle by which each 44
Catalan International View
administration does what it does best and according to its level of competence. In the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation’s last appearance before the Congress of Deputies, where he was criticised by the political groups for disregarding the lack of budgetary execution of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, he mentioned the amounts transferred by the European Union in the Spanish State intended for decentralized cooperation. These funds have ever arrived in Catalonia. We do not practice decentralized cooperation because the total amount of money which the Government of Catalonia spends on global development programs and projects comes from the distribution of the Generalitat’s budget. In public international cooperation policies, we have never seen the general interest over the political interests of the Spanish state. Nor have we seen the Spanish state take a general interest in actions during emergencies and humanitarian crises, to the extent that at present a protocol of actions between the central government and the bodies of cooperation and solidarity of the different autonomous communities, who
State of Emergency
are tired of acting in crises without any recognition or coordination at a state level, is being discussed. The Catalan Agency for International Cooperation has participated in every meeting held to improve the Spanish state’s emergency, solidarity response, which unfortunately is repeated year after year due to natural disasters or wars, but at the current time, with little specific details and very little general interest. We will take care of the Catalan institutions, we will ensure the management of projects and programs in agreement with civil society organizations function with normality. We will ensure that our counterparts on the ground that work in development projects, peacemaking, historical memory and human rights, the weakest part of cooperation projects due to the tough conditions in the countries involved, encounter the minimum administrative impediments to continue their work. We will fight for the multi-year programs with NGOs that this year
we have undertaken again and that have a major impact in working on Sustainable Development Goals. We will resist this administrative situation that we do not like because it stops im-
We will take the opportunity to explain to those amateur legislators how Catalan cooperation operates, and we will be resilient, emerging from the current crisis stronger than before portant processes generated with Catalan and international entities, with solvent counterparts, in the struggle to meet the objectives of the Cooperation Master Plan and the Annual Plans presented by Minister Romeva in Parliament. We will take the opportunity to explain to those amateur legislators how Catalan cooperation operates, and we will be resilient, emerging from the current crisis stronger than before.
(*) Manel Vila Director General of Cooperation for the Government of Catalonia
Catalan International View
45
State of Emergency
State of emergency, resistance and warnings: a feminist perspective by Marta Jorba*
S
tate of emergency. The state of emergency created in Catalonia in recent weeks has a familiar face: that of the old dictator who never quite died in 1975, not even years later when the Constitution was signed while the army waited at the door. It is a face that can be seen in the will to repress the people’s legitimate desire for self-determination. Now, in Catalonia, it takes the form of occupation and police and sexual violence, the taking over
A state of emergency that is the normal state of affairs in a country of dubious democratic quality of institutions, of a Catalan-phobic discursive warfare, of manipulation by the public media. And of emergency courts that unjustly and unjustifiably jail the presidents of two civil organizations and eight ministers from the Catalan government. The Spanish state has let its mask slip, revealing the inheritance of a beast that now sees the chance to remerge under a decrepit, corrupt PP government, backed by the PSOE (and 46
Catalan International View
the PSC!) and assisted by Cs. Because the sacrosanct unity of Spain must prevail above all else, isn’t that right [King] Felipe? Unionists that tolerate and whitewash the unpunished presence of the fascist far-right on the streets. A presence accompanied by high levels of testosterone directed at flagrant sexism and racism, that celebrates disharmony and humiliation. Taking the opportunity, once again, to assault women whenever they have an opportunity. A state of emergency that is the normal state of affairs in a country of dubious democratic quality. The mask has simply slipped. Resistance. We women, as a people, have a long history and have plenty of experience of disobedience: as Professor Encarna Bodelón reminded us in a talk she delivered in Ca la Dona, Antigone was the first person to commit civil disobedience when she buried her brother in defiance of the law of the city. It is clear that disobedience is collective, but feminisms also know that the personal is political and, therefore, collective. The disobedience of the people of Catalonia of laws they consider unfair has shown to the world the power of an organized, determined and peaceful civil society. The price
of the bold feat of wanting to vote in a referendum on self-determination on 1 October has awoken a beast that is anxious for punishment and revenge. However, we feminists know how to organize and create networks of mutual support and resistance, while at the same time helping to build a popular counter-power that begins to take shape with, among other networks, the Committees for the Defence of the Republic. The general strike on 8 November also showed that we don’t need the regime’s unions, we have enough with the population being organized. We know that it’s not possible to normalize a state of emergency –with a mask or without one– that attacks the basic rights of people and the most basic democratic freedoms. We can’t make Article 155 and all that it supposes for all the peoples of the state a natural occurrence. Nor can we uncritically accept the imposition of elections in a state (of explicit) emergency or anything else that will come after the 21 December. For this reason, we must denounce each deprivation of freedom, we must resist together basing this resistance on our differences and particularities. Warnings. Resistances, which are both the construction of discourse and of a country, must come accompanied by selfcriticism that allow us to choose paths that do not reproduce discrimination and oppression. Thus, feminisms have been calling for and at the same time opening spaces for peaceful dialogue between
women during frenetic political moments. There are some, but we need more, of different kinds. The personal and collective care will be the honest engine of this revolution we are experiencing. Because fear is human, and we are vulnerable, and dependent, and people with different feelings, ideas and needs. We give ourselves support, warmth, and try to understand dissent. At the same time, we must be vigilant not to reproduce bellicose speeches that want to ‘overcome’, ‘destroy’, ‘not to surrender’; we must practice the antimilitarism we preach. But without them taking (also discursively) all the mechanisms of resistance that we can invent. Let us also ensure we leave no room for ethnic, exclusive forms of independence discourse. And, above all, that we do not allow exceptionality to go beyond the visibility and demands of women, LGBTI people, migrants, and every minority group that struggles to have a voice. Everything composes the foundations of the Republic. (diverse) Women are at the forefront of the (multiple) struggles –we have no need of heroes to save the people. Making room and moving forward together we can start to build the new Republic.
(*) Marta Jorba Feminist activist and postdoctoral researcher in philosophy at the University of the Basque Country
Catalan International View
47
State of Emergency
Defending civil and political rights at home and around the world
by Meritxell BudĂł*
T
he defence, guarantee and dissemination of human rights is a priority for Catalan municipalism, as decreed the European Charter for the Safeguarding of Human Rights in the City. The charter, which emerged from the 1st European Conference of Cities for Human Rights held in Barcelona in 1998, is a non-legal political instrument, built upon an idea: the city belongs to everyone who lives in it and everyone has the right to the city, the rights of citizenship. Today, the human rights-based approach has become the conceptual framework that places respect, protection and a guarantee of human rights as the foundation, objective and tools to enable sustainable human development. Using this approach is a commitment for Catalan municipalism, and doing so through its policies of cooperation for development, an example of policy coherence that we at the Catalan Fund for Development Cooperation encourage. Last October, as part of the 5th edition of the Human Rights Defender 48
Catalan International View
Cities project held in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, I had to adapt a speech that was originally intended to welcome the defenders who were visiting us from around the world with the will to support them in their daily work, to explain to these same people the situation of the violation of the civil and political rights that we had been suffering in Catalonia for some weeks. In the field of cooperation it is common that we explain the risks assumed by local elected representatives in many countries when we join the citizens in exercising their civil and political rights, despite the fact that the state authorities not only disagree with them, they systematically violate them. But this time it was necessary to explain that this situation is occurring today in Catalonia, and that it has caused more than 700 mayors to be threatened by the State Attorney General for alleged crimes of disobedience, the neglect of one’s duty and embezzlement in complying with a law passed by the Parliament of Catalonia. A law that allowed people to vote in a peaceful way in a referendum
State of Emergency
that ended up being celebrated under the truncheon blows of the Spanish National Police and the Civil Guard against thousands of neighbours who defended the ballot boxes and polling stations, and that gave an unequivocal democratic mandate. In 1966 the United Nations approved the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The first of these international agreements refers to the area of ​​freedom of persons and their participation in social and political life. A pact to which the Spanish state is a signatory, and which is currently called into question in Catalonia due to the intimidating measures that the government of the Popular Party has applied, in contravention of the European Convention for the Safeguarding of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,
It is the task of the local world to defend all these agreements, treaties and guarantees in favour of human rights and civil and political rights, to denounce their violation and to protect those who defend them the Spanish Constitution itself and the Statute. It is the task of the local world to defend all these agreements, treaties and guarantees in favour of human rights and civil and political rights, to denounce their violation and to protect those who defend them, and especially those who are punished for exercising them in Catalonia and the world as a whole. Because individual and collective rights are defended everywhere, also from the local world.
(*) Meritxell BudĂł President of the Catalan Fund for Development Cooperation
Catalan International View
49
State of Emergency
On my flight to Baghdad... by
Mireia Termes*
I
write these lines sitting on an airplane from Erbil to Baghdad. Iraqi Kurdistan has also had a referendum and there have also been consequences: the indefinite closure of international airports, the Iraqi army’s occupation of disputed areas and political uncertainty. I would say that throughout recent history there have been certain specific episodes that have shaken the world and have opened times for change. We are probably now immersed in one of those eras, with important events that we are not used to and which will shape the near future: the refugee crisis in Europe, Arab revolts, political changes in Latin America and the United States, Brexit and the rise of the extreme right in Europe combined with leftist social movements where the Europe of capital is called into question. The world, politics, borders and society evolve throughout history. The referendum in Catalonia is part of this evolution in a country where the right
50
Catalan International View
to decide is still not normal. A positive evolution in democratic terms and necessary in social terms. In Catalonia we have to know what people think after years of debates and demonstrations. But the concept is frightening, because political power goes before the rights of citizens. Here and almost everywhere. It is a long process, but it is also increasing our society’s political culture, which considers and reflects on how we want our country to be. And this is a very positive evolution. We also face a crisis of information, where the media have lost their professional values and ethics, where it is difficult to work out what is true and what is not. A crisis in the media at a time when it is possibly more necessary than ever, when it could serve as a forum for these essential debates and which currently serve to cover cases of corruption and to manipulate society. The media at the service of politicians. However, this also creates insecurity, violates the right to be informed and creates social conflict.
State of Emergency
We are also faced with a crisis in the judicial system where it is no longer only a classist system that favours the rich, but now it is also at the service of the Spanish government. It favours corruption, turns a blind eye to actions of the extreme right and imprisons legitimate governments and peaceful social leaders, while believing that it will solve the problem. It is the end of the separation of powers guaranteed by every democracy. And this generates even greater problems for society. Though perhaps not for the government. It would seem that this situation is taking us a step back in our rights, but the power is in our hands to respond to these cuts and take a step forward in order to evolve and create a free country. Repression and imprisonment do not change ideas. Neither here nor anywhere else in the world. We have to defend our rights and freedoms more than ever before in order to create a country where freedom of expression, respect for diversity and transparency are guaran-
The referendum in Catalonia is part of this evolution in a country where the right to decide is still not normal A positive evolution in democratic terms and necessary in social terms teed. Where feminism, renewable energies, the fight against poverty, shelter for refugees and quality social services build a better society. We now have the opportunity to build a better future for all, without the laws that protect citizens being overturned. Within a few years, we will look back and ask if we could have done better. Probably yes, and then we will also have to think about how to keep changing things in order to make a country that is even more just.
(*) Mireia Termes Humanitarian aid worker
Catalan International View
51
State of Emergency
First they came for the migrants by
Montse Santolino
O
ne of the first things that the protagonists of the ‘regime of 78’ did was to ratify in 1979 the European Convention on Human Rights that had come into force in 1953. In October 2017, and thanks to charges filed by two Africans who were deported on the southern border, the European Court of Human Rights condemned the Spanish state for ‘forced repatriations’ in Ceuta and Melilla, due to the violation of the human rights they entail. It is illegal to collectively expel migrants, to fail to identify them, bring them before a court and not offer them a translator or medical attention. In November, the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture also called for such deportations to be stopped. The treatment of migrants always serves as a barometer of democratic quality and the respect for human rights, and there are few more scandalous episodes than forced repatriations and the management of the southern border by the Spanish government, giving us a glimpse of how it would face the so-called ‘refugee crisis’, and a classic example of how the Partido Popular uses the apparatus of the state. In March 2015, the Senate, a body that
52
Catalan International View
appeared to be largely ineffective, proceeded to ‘legalize’ a practice contrary to international legality by means of a crude modification of the Immigration Law, while making use of the so-called ‘gag law’. The Rajoy government also opened two offices for requesting asylum on the border itself, offices that incredibly did not already exist and whose absence was scandalous when Syrian refugees began arriving in Melilla. Left-wing forces in the Senate failed to succeed in reversing the situation, both in March 2016 and in November 2017, despite the ruling of the European Court. Recently, a repatriation at sea resulted in the deaths of six Africans. Minister Zoido never admits responsibility or a lack of proportionality, whilst declaring last summer that NGOs that help migrants were to blame for the deaths in the Mediterranean. Paraphrasing the famous poem-sermon, first they came for the migrants (and before them the squatters and the anarchists) and we didn’t say much since it didn’t affect us and we didn’t want to believe what was being reported. And when they came for the Catalan independentists we saw how, with simplistic arguments and twisted legal mechanisms, they made a state of emergency
State of Emergency
into the norm, and before we realised it ten people were in prison. And with practically the same story as is used against migrants. With the argument that the ‘organized’ attacks against Spain (the state’s lawyer told Strasbourg that the repatriations were necessary to defend itself from organized attacks by individuals and Mafias that wanted to invade Spain); of the ‘need’ to defend itself (anyone would do the same in our situation, we must guarantee the security –of the borders– of Spain and the European Union); and the existence of legal channels and mechanisms (it isn’t necessary to climb over the fence or commit illegal acts). The reality is that the possibility that the Constitution can be modified to allow for a negotiated referendum or to change the relationship between Catalonia and the Spanish state is as remote as the possibility that Spain
will accept the refugees it can receive or that sub-Saharan immigrants could ask for asylum with guarantees in Ceuta or Melilla. The reality is that the true rule of law, real and not symbolic, apart from the laws and powers which regulate it, is characterized by its desire to respect and promote fundamental rights. And the reality is that, in this, we have not advanced as much as it initially appeared since 1979.
The treatment of migrants always serves as a barometer of democratic quality and the respect for human rights
(*) Montse Santolino Journalist
Catalan International View
53
State of Emergency
A message in a bottle by
Pere Perelló*
-How can you fit a hundred Catalans in a Seat 600? -Chuck a peseta through the window. -And how can you get them out? -Tell them it’s a taxi. -How can you fit five million Jews in a Seat 600? -Stick them in the ashtray.
Spanish popular culture
P
erhaps I first heard these jokes during my adolescence and it’s highly likely they made me laugh at the time. Popular culture synthesises the wisdom and misery of the people, and jokes, which are one of the most commendable expressions, often become the sincere testimony of their moral tone. After five minutes of channel hopping through the state media or listening to the expressions of hatred that are often heard in the Balearic Islands or the Valencian Country, such as the recent destruction of a statue of the poet Estellés in Burjassot (Valencia) or the multitude of conversations one can hear in any bar or market in Palma (Majorca), all help to explain why the Spanish popular culture is in agreement when it comes to putting both the Catalans and Jews in one of the main icons of pro-Franco propaganda: the Seat 600.
54
Catalan International View
Auschwitz didn’t appear overnight on the whim of a madman, it had been brewing for centuries in European culture, perhaps even before the Queen of Castile decreed the expulsion of the Jews. Everyone knows what happened after 1714, when the forefather of the current Head of State began to simultaneously exercise the right of conquest and revenge, giving rise to the project of the ‘Spanish nation’. According to Catalanophobic ideology the anti-Semitic figure of the ‘Greedy Jew’ has its counterpart in the mantra of the ‘Catalan bourgeois’ that they use a destra e sinistra [on the right and the left]. Little does this sinistra care about the irrefutable evidence that, not the so-called process, but the aspiration to independence itself would not have survived if it had not been served and promoted from one of the most organized grassroots
State of Emergency
leftist movements on the continent, of which the CUP is merely the latest and most successful example, or that this ‘process’ is the most serious challenge to the regime of the Bourbon restoration of 1978. However, it’s not the future of Catalonia that I feel most sorry about. It will suffer repression, perhaps of a brutal kind, but it will survive, since it has already freed itself from the yoke. Independence, which is the same as self-determination, is a fact, though it has yet to be bureaucratically realised, which may take some time, but its day will come, I have no doubt. Now, what really concerns me is: what will happen to we Catalans in the Balearics and the Valencian Country? We can hardly call our arena a country, where we are increasingly limited to defining ourselves as an ‘ethnic minority’ (I repeat: ‘ethnic minority’, and you will feel all the fateful weight
Independence, which is the same as selfdetermination, is a fact, though it has yet to be bureaucratically realised, which may take some time, but its day will come, I have no doubt of the term) that bleeds self-hatred and colonial servility. In some way, we are the potential Kosovans of this conflict, and if when faced with the Catalanophobic speech unleashed, normalized and legitimized by the highest authorities of the Spanish state, no one does anything to limit them, the consequences may well be irreversible and terrifying.
(*) Pere Perelló Writer and poet
Catalan International View
55
State of Emergency
Antidemocratic normality by Ruth Gumbau*
I
no longer see Minister Comín in the mornings. Before we used to cross paths in the neighbourhood taking our girls to school. He doesn’t know me, but I think that on more than one occasion we have exchanged glances as if to say ‘we’re also running late’. Normality is like that, that you’re not surprised to see a government minister going about his everyday business. In Mònica Terribas’ interview with the government in exile, when Comín spoke about his imprisoned colleagues who were unable to be with their children, he underlined the fact that although nothing can replace an absent father or mother, the legacy of dignity they were leaving their children was extremely important. In the same interview, President Puigdemont declared that ‘nowadays dignity is behind bars’. The worst thing with everything that’s happened in Catalonia since the end of September, with the Ministry of Finance under state control, the first round of arrests, the beatings by the police on the 1 October and the sad culmination of the incarcerations, is the degree of demophobic normality that we are getting used to. The diminished
56
Catalan International View
ability to feel surprise that we show in each new attack that Catalonia and its legitimate government are subject to. I had to report, live on TV, during the first aggressions –some of the most serious– that occurred on the day of the referendum on 1 October: those that took place in Sant Julià de Ramis, the polling station where President Carles Puigdemont was expected to vote. It’s a fact that when you’re working you view the news with a certain distance and it’s not until you wipe off your makeup and unclip the microphone that you appreciate the seriousness of what you’ve been reporting on. The evening in which it was announced the Jordis had been imprisoned, on the other hand, I was at home, but I didn’t react until the next morning: the torment turned into rivers of tears. Not cathartic, because I didn’t feel any better later. And when the next group were imprisoned I wasn’t even surprised, I simply felt disappointed and a great deal of anticipated sorrow. The affliction did nothing but grow with the president of the Generalitat and the four ministers being forced to go to Brussels to avoid the full weight of Spanish (in)justice. An exile –with all
State of Emergency
the nuances you want, but the truth is that they had to leave their homes– that has also become part of our normality. Unfortunately. The Catalan and the Spanish governments have gone from playing chess to a game of Risk, with the map of Europe as the board. And I’m seriously afraid that if it were down to the Rajoy government, they would be playing Ludo, where one is unable to jump one’s opponents. With the risk of falling into a time loop, if the 21 December elections are won by the pro-independence forces, we will have to see if the Catalan Republic goes ahead. Let’s not forget that Republic is a woman’s name in Catalan (‘la República’). She is feminine and strong. She is neither candid nor fragile. And it’s everyone’s responsibility to accept her with pride and dignity in order to ensure it becomes our new normal.
Let’s not forget that Republic is a woman’s name in Catalan (‘la República’). She is feminine and strong. She is neither candid nor fragile. And it’s everyone’s responsibility to accept her with pride and dignity in order to ensure it becomes our new normal
(*) Ruth Gumbau Journalist
Catalan International View
57
State of Emergency
Parasitic pseudo-democracies or impromptu polyarchies? by Saoka Kingolo*
R
obert Dahl (1971:13) theorizes that a democratic government is characterized mainly by its continuous ability to respond to the preferences of its citizens, without establishing political differences between them. The Spanish parliamentary monarchy, internationally recognized as democratic, is a strange asymmetric federalism whose leaders are acting with unequivocal arbitrariness and distinct differences in the treatment of its citizens. In 2006 the Partido Popular government made discretionary use of the Constitutional Court by challenging 114 of the Statute of Catalonia’s 223 articles, of which 58 were identical or similar to the Statute of Andalusia, among others, without seeing in the other autonomous region any charge of unconstitutionality. A more surprising example is the ostracism manifested in investments made in Catalonia, or the systematic pursuit of legislative measures of social protection created by the Catalan Parliament. These examples signify an apparently deliberate, undoubtedly differentiated, attitude of domination and submission, something approaching humiliation, ‘made to measure’ for
58
Catalan International View
the autonomous community of Catalonia. An empirical sociological and political observation of electoral behaviour would lead to the plausible conclusion of a binomial between anti-Catalan populism and the Manichaean defence of the unity of Spain, as a guarantor of Spanish votes and seats; all the unionist parties, with their diverse interests, are invited and identified in this. For Dahl democracy is a perfect system, and polyarchy is an approximation to the democratic ideal or hypothetical system; a vision of democracy through a scale of significant values which define the degree of approximation to this materialized perfection. If we go on to observe countries and systems more or less removed from Dahl’s perfect polyarchy, we can establish interesting comparisons from apparent contrasts. There are many differences between the Spanish monarchy and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in terms of the degree of democracy according to the world-renowned reports of prestigious agencies. At present the DRC is led by one of the most corrupt, despotic and blood-
thirsty regimes on the planet, imposed and sustained by certain world powers, mainly for the benefit of their multinationals. Meanwhile, the Kingdom of Spain faces the threat of separation emanating from Catalonia, and initially starts with passive media hedonism with camouflaged dissuasive campaigns, leading to a strategy based on the post-realism of the status quo, to the discretionary use of the judiciary and a monopoly on violence. In a clear contradiction of the consensual definitions of democracy by prestigious theorists such as the liberal Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1950:250), in 21st century, the Spanish state imprisons the top representatives and elected officials of the Catalan people. Some are detained and mistreated to allow for a legislative debate on the political future of the country, the others to carry out a proposal electoral program, democratically legitimized by
Corruption, the discretionary use of justice and legalised violence, with various levels of despotism are anti-values shared by the two examples of the observed regimes: Spain and the Democratic Republic of the Congo the clear popular desire to become a new state. Corruption, the discretionary use of justice and legalised violence, with various levels of despotism are antivalues shared by the two examples of the observed regimes, and their chief executives are parasitic pseudo-democrats that induce impromptu polyarchies. Unfortunately, there are many more systems with these features.
(*) Saoka Kingolo President of Espai ÀfricaCatalunya
Catalan International View
59
State of Emergency
Republican ideas
by Tayssir Azouz*
S
hortly before the French Revolution, Voltaire, one of the great defenders of the Republic, wrote a type of political pamphlet entitled Idées républicaines, in which he presented critical comments on Rousseau’s Social Contract and Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, two works which are fundamental to understanding the concept of the rule of law. He defended the natural right to the freedom of thought and the freedom of expression beyond the general interest. In one of the fragments, Voltaire reproached the
The general cause orchestrated by the Spanish state shows that it is willing to undermine the rights and freedoms of the citizens it claims to represent Petit Conseil of the city-state of Geneva for ordering the burning of copies of Rousseau’s book before the city hall. He said the following: ‘If the book was dangerous, it was necessary to refute it. Burning a book on reason is like saying one lacks the intellectual capacity to refute it’. The authoritarian drift of the Spanish state in Catalonia has a lot to do with the inability of its rulers to
60
Catalan International View
respond adequately to the democratic aspirations of a mature and peaceful people, the majority of which demand to be able to vote on their political future. So much so that the Spanish government, with the connivance of the Spanish political class, had no scruples when it came to suspending Catalonia’s limited self-government through the application of Article 155, which is in complete contradiction to the democratic principles of a state governed by the rule of law in the 21st century. The Spanish state has perpetrated an authentic coup d’état with the arbitrary dismissal of a government which had been democratically elected by the citizens of Catalonia. As we speak, half of this government is behind bars for having done everything possible in order that the citizens of Catalonia, however they think, were able to decide their own future at the ballot box. Even more outrageous, if it were possible, is the ideological persecution of some of the members of the Parliamentary Bureau, particularly its president, Carme Forcadell. All for having allowed a parliamentary debate to go ahead. How can the right to parliamentary initiative, deliberation by the legislative powers or the freedom
State of Emergency
of expression of the legitimate representatives of the people be curtailed? How can judicial decisions depend on what each of the defendants thinks or represents? What kind of rule of law is this? Perhaps we’re seeing what Voltaire was afraid of, that a possible abuse of power on the part of the authorities would end up becoming a serious threat to fundamental freedoms. What is at stake here is not only the sovereignty of Catalonia, but democracy itself. The general cause orchestrated by the Spanish state shows that it is willing to undermine the rights and freedoms of the citizens it claims to represent. They said that in the absence of violence everything was open for discussion. But it has been shown that this is not the case. The president of the Supreme Court at the opening of the judicial year declared: ‘The unity of Spain is the irreducible basis of the rule of law’. If this is the case, does it mean recognizing that the unity of Spain is not as democratic as they would claim? Or perhaps simply the rule of law is applied according to one’s ideology?
(*) Tayssir Azouz Philologist and translator
Catalan International View
61
State of Emergency
Reporting on a democratic train wreck by Mònica Terribas*
T
elling the truth is all part of building a democratic society. But what is the truth? What is the point of view that allows us to understand the facts when we are dealing with complex causes? This is journalism’s job. When we report on a traffic accident, we explain its causes –technical, human and meteorological factors. When we have to explain a democratic train wreck like the conflict taking place between Catalonia and Spain, we are also looking for the causes to offer interpretations and elucidation when faced with the daily onslaught. However, when we have to report on the democratic train wreck that is subjecting Catalonia to a state of emergency within the structure of the powers of the Spanish state, the value and weight of these causes are not always interpreted or underlined or remembered with the same intensity. Let’s consider some examples. We are citizens of the EU in 2017, but within Spain, a state that has existed with a compromised constitution since 1978, where the forces that wanted democracy made a pact with the survivors of the Franco regime that changed the Principles of the Movement [one of the seven guiding prin62
Catalan International View
ciples behind the Franco regime] and the NO-DO newsreels that linked them to reality with seats in Spanish Courts which sought to participate in Europe and a TVE [Spanish TV] that only put an end to the monopoly with the appearance of ETB [Basque TV] and TV3 [Catalan TV] in 1983. The compromised and committed Constitution, conditioned by the fear of the army and democratic fragility, is still the Constitution that exists in 2017. Therefore, for some, the unmovable Constitution of 1978 and the Criminal Law that is applied to contravene it is irrelevant, while for others it is of the utmost significance. For some, the legitimacy of a Constitution is maintained when it corresponds to the will of the majorities and also of the minorities it protects. While for others, legitimacy always coincides with legality. Full stop. To see the cause of this political train wreck involving Catalonia and Spain as due to the collection of signatures against the Statute by the PP as its appeal to the Constitutional Court after the Spanish Courts had altered it and it had been submitted to a referendum in Catalonia on 18 June 2006, carries a lot of weight for some, while
State of Emergency
for others it does not, or not so much or they prefer not to think about it. To also situate in the middle of these causes international rights covered by the Right of People to Self-determination, recognized in the Charter of the United Nations in Article 1 of its Covenant of Civil and Political Rights for some is a priority and for others it is one of so many pacts that are subscribed to but that remain in second place behind the states’ interests and legal frameworks. And, therefore, to see as the other cause of the unilateral path the refusal and almost systematic impossibility of the PP, PSOE and Cs bloc to agree to a referendum on self-determination for Catalonia, requested via political channels on more than 18 occasions, although it is called for by a great majority of Catalan society, for some is the explanation of the desperate leap on 1 October and for others the delegitimization of the process that justifies violence, court cases, exile and prisons, and the suspension of self-governance. In the exercise of telling the truth, these causes are highlighted or ignored, bandaged or forgotten, smoothed over or relativized. Every media organization and every professional accepts the responsibility to decide which of these
causes are vital to understand what we are experiencing and to describe it as gagged, repressive democracy or criminal acts based on the fulfilment of the law and, in between, the nuances that each wishes to point out. Of course, there is a ‘but’ that changes everything: to admit that the sought-for equidistance has been destroyed by the conflict itself when the journalistic story becomes ammunition for entrenched positions. Two fissures of resistance: an amendment of
Two fissures of resistance: an amendment of the mistakes we make when we ceaselessly interpret a crazed reality and awareness of human rights and the democratic principles that govern us when we observe it and try to share it the mistakes we make when we ceaselessly interpret crazed reality and awareness of human rights and the democratic principles that govern us when we observe it and try to share it.
(*) Mònica Terribas Journalist
Catalan International View
63
State of Emergency
An exception to the law by Xavier Antich*
W
alter Benjamin said it a long time ago: ‘The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the state of emergency in which we live is not the exception but the rule’. The fact that it is true illustrates a fundamental perversion of the law that consists in its ability to suspend itself with the paradoxical objective of ensuring its own existence and continuity. In the space of less than a month Catalan society has gone from suffering the effects of the modern form of state coercion, physical violence against peaceful citizens while exercising their fundamental rights, to the postmodern form of state coercion, the law that suspends itself –with respect to legal guarantees– and the state of emergency, employed to eliminate the political opposition and institutional dissidence. It is clear that the police brutality that occurred during the 1 October referendum shocked the world, with the exception of Spain, and has been condemned by international human rights organizations. However, the legal operation orchestrated by the Spanish government, the Public Prosecutor, the National Court and the Supreme Court, is no less an exercise in violence, in spite of the fact that it does not impinge on the 64
Catalan International View
public as such, since it aims to modify their collective and institutional nature from a political point of view. Thus, we have seen the leaders of the two major pro-independence civic organizations being imprisoned, with the excuse of a completely non-existent violence, invented by police reports uncritically accepted by the prosecution, and by the judge, which is even more serious. We have seen how the Spanish government, without having the legal power to do so, has fired the president, vice president and ministers of the legitimate Government of Catalonia, and how it has also illegally dissolved the Parliament of Catalonia democratically elected at the ballot box. We have seen how the National Court has imprisoned more than half of the legitimate government as a precautionary measure and, therefore, without a trial or a sentence, merely as revenge and with the intention of instilling fear. We have witnessed part of the Catalan government, headed by its president, seeking temporary exile in Brussels due to the lack of legal guarantees in the Spanish courts. In addition, prior to 1 October, the Spanish state had already suspended the citizens of Catalonia’s fundamental rights and freedoms.
State of Emergency
The Spanish state, without declaring a state of emergency, in accordance with Law 4/1981 (which deals with such instances), is putting into practice Articles 16, 21, 22, 26 and 29 without guarantees or control, a fact which can be easily verified, and is directing political repression and persecution against political adversaries and democratically elected representatives. The symbol used by Òmnium, the ANC and the AMI for Catalonia’s 2017 National Day, featuring the word ‘Democracy’ and a face with a red stripe covering its mouth, was seen by some an exaggeration. Two months later, it is clear this is not the case. We are in a state of emergency in which fundamental rights and freedoms have been suspended.
The word ‘Democracy’ and a face with a red stripe covering its mouth was seen by some an exaggeration. Two months later, it is clear this is not the case
(*) Xavier Antich Philosopher
Catalan International View
65
The Artist
Beauty and the sinister: dialectical confrontations by Daniel Giralt-Miracle
I did not really know the work of Lita Cabellut until the exhibition Trilogy of Doubt at the Espai Volart 2 in 2013. Reading a review in an international magazine could not convey the feelings her work provokes when it is right in front of you, when you are viewing the original works by this artist, who likes and needs to push beyond the conventional limits of painting. Lita Cabellut’s compositions are anything but conventional. Indeed, it seems that she works independently of rules imposed by art schools, fashion and styles. She knows the classics from Spanish and Dutch museums very well and they are always present in her work, one way or another, thematically or formally. She uses historical elements and modern references to create pieces that appear to be festive yet counterpose tragedy and comedy –as in Greek theatre– and try to shake us up and make us think. In fact, her work is a reflection with existentialist roots (more related to Kierkegaard than Sartre) in a postmodern world that is uneasy about what its customs, ways of life, human values and ideals need to be. The first time I visited the exhibition in 2013 I was under the impression that I had to analyse the purpose and intention in Lita Cabellut’s work from the perspective of my university teachings by the philosopher Eugenio Trias –a specialist in Nietzsche– who asserted that one had to locate thought at the ‘limits’: the place where counterposed positions are found, the verse and reverse of a question. In 66
this artist’s work, nothing is black and white, and anything could be true or false; so we need to look for its background context. She is convinced that ‘art is a product that is velvet on the outside, but made of bleach on the inside’. She creates a sumptuous plastic that does not forget to highlight the weak points in contemporary society, and builds narratives which are more realist than real, that describe to us radical lives of ordinary people and human existence which all play a role in –as Calderón de la Barca described it– the ‘great theatre of the world’. The philosophy which Trias outlined in his book Beauty and the Sinister (1981) incorporates, to a certain degree, the thought of post romantics such as Rilke, Schelling, Kant and Freud, who asserted that everything that brings us adversity, misfortune and destruction is an integral part of life, just as is joy, enjoyment and experience of the sublime. This is what clarifies the apparently contradictory, yet very real and explicit, thesis in Lita Cabellut’s work: that the sinister is a limiting aspect to the beautiful, to everything which appears to be affable, gratifying or flattering. In this way, she invites us to wake up, to lift the veil that hides the reality in her pieces. PLASTIC IMPULSES
Having said that, an analysis of Lita Cabellut’s work cannot only be done using aesthetic parameters, because her iconography is completely polysemous. The cultural, social and
Catalan International View
The Artist
moral elements that people experience in the twenty-first century appear in an explicit, not only kind, way; perhaps in a more impertinent way because they really twist the knife in the wound. I do not know if it was coincidence, but when I was preparing this text I received one by the Portuguese author António Damásio. He is a specialist in the neurosciences, winner of the Prince of Asturias prize in 2005 and author of the book The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness (1999) in which I read these words: ‘Emotions are expressed through the theatre of the body. Feelings are expressed in the theatre of the mind’. I find this phrase to be highly pertinent at this time when I cannot stop thinking about the immense representation that is life and the decisive role played by emotions and feelings within it, because it is these raw materials that Lita Cabellut uses. She is essentially an instinctive artist who obeys her impulses (in fact, that is the title of one of her series: ‘Impulse’). The word impulse originates etymologically from Latin and is
She creates in a state of propulsion, pushed, incited or spurred on, and that is precisely what her work induces in the viewer made up of two parts: in, meaning against or towards a specific thing, and pellere, meaning to drive, to follow an irresistible desire. Indeed, Lita Cabellut creates while in a state of propulsion, pushed, incited or spurred on, and that is precisely what her work induces in the viewer. In order to understand this methodology, it is important to watch the documentary that Curro Sánchez made about her, in which we see Lita Cabellut’s creative process at work, and how in reality it forms such an important part of her art, as much as the completed work itself. She does not paint on a traditional easel but instead works from impulses dominated by her strong desire and by personal energies that bring to mind the action painting of ab-
Catalan International View
67
The Artist
stract expressionism, Pollock’s drip painting, Yves Klein’s body maculatures or the spontaneity of the subconscious proposed by Dubuffet. I am still convinced that she ignores these precedents, though she knows of them, because she behaves in an uninhibited way and maintains her own concept of art, which she has been consolidating over time. A KIND OF STURM UND DRANG
The fascinating life of Lita Cabellut –in which she has experimented with the sharpest contrasts– has been dominated by a strong personality, an incorruptible determination and passion. All of these elements have enabled this instinctive artist to make the most of the opportunities life has given her, albeit belatedly. As such, her painting does not arise 68
out of nothing. She began her artistic interest in her teenage years with private classes in Barcelona, though it was a course at Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam that was crucial to her training. However, as she has explained on several occasions, what most inspired her motivation to be an artist were the visits to the great museums, beginning with the Prado and the Rijksmuseum. She openly admits to being a great admirer of Goya, Velázquez, Ribera and Rembrandt, and I would add that she also likes Dürer, Rubens, Zurbarán, van der Weyden, and the portraits by Raphael and Titian. The knowledge of these paintings, the deep analysis of their compositions, the treatment of colours, the gesticulation and the realism all form part of the basic elements of her artwork. I would say that they are the foundations be-
Catalan International View
The Artist
cause, whether it is in her drawing, painting or making use of photography, this classicism is latent in her work. It is just that her temperament and impulsiveness draw her to such non-academic examples as the primary arts, the visual shocks of surrealism, the doughy materials of informalism, or the primitivism of graffiti. When she creates, she follows the axiom of the Dutch painter, and founder of the CoBrA group, Karel Appel: ‘Art is a festival!’ THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS
Through this exhibition –which reviews several series she has made over the last decade– Lita Cabellut has sought to share with us the apparently broad range of themes that have most concerned her in recent years. However, it does not take much to realise that they all have a deep psychological root, whereby the physical and metaphysical meet, and confront and oppose each other. Moreover, all of them are related to diversity, a diversity that she defends through this privileged medium that is art, and in which –in her case– she mainly uses human figures to express the moods they find themselves in, through the body and its clothing. We attribute part of the communicative effectiveness in Lita Cabellut’s work –generally using mixed media on canvas, or photographs on dibond– to the formats she works in. These are surfaces that usually range between four to six square metres, which she occasionally puts together as triptychs or altarpieces that impose themselves on the viewer and physically overwhelm them because the dimensions of the characters which she represents are almost always larger than their natural size. However, it is undoubtedly the treatment of these beings that surprises the viewer. For this reason, I think it is important to high-
She is at ease confronting the interior and exterior of human beings, the body and the soul duality light, albeit briefly, some of the series included in this exhibition, because I believe this could help identify and understand Lita Cabellut’s interests and concerns. SCENES AND ACTORS
If ‘Trudi’, ‘Cruzita’, ‘Lens’, ‘Evelin’ and ‘Meril’ –all from 2008, and chronologically the oldest of her artworks you can see in Barcelona at the moment– show us the faces of certain characters who, by their expressions, grimaces and gestures, seem to live between reality, confusion and utopia; then the pieces which make up the later series –‘Coco’ (2011), ‘Camarón’ (2012) and ‘Frida’ (2012), dedicated as you might have guessed to Coco Chanel, Camarón de la Isla and Frida Kahlo respectively– not only seek to pay homage to, or make the most of these powerful characters, but also to penetrate their interior. In this exploration of the human spirit and soul it is logical that the dialectic sanity–rage would have attracted Lita Cabellut’s interest so much so that, in 2012, she made the series ‘Madness and Reason’. Here she interprets the characters in Don Quixote: the visionary knight; the ingenious, uncultured yet wise Sancho Panza; and the beautiful and virtuous Dulcinea –three different ways of being that the artist conveys with realism and dramatism. In another attempt to analyse people and their truth, in the series ‘After the Show’ (2012) she dismantled the model of behaviour that is expected of entertainers. These are overwhelming pieces because they create another unmask-
Catalan International View
69
The Artist
ing of the characters featured in them who – after all the exultation, and the physical and mental expansion that the show has brought them– now appear in their reality, which goes much deeper than beauty and ugliness. If that series is moving, then ‘Memories wrapped in Gold Paper’ (2012) is captivating. It focuses on women with Arabic features and Lita Cabellut highlights their faces and the clothing that covers them. Their faces stand out because we identify each of the women – their eyes, nose and lips– and Lita gives them the greatest expressiveness, even though they only occupy 10%–15% of the surface area of the picture. The rest of the area is taken up – in a typically Rembrandt style– with all the clothing that covers the body. Therefore, it is that, which in some cultures is hidden and above all forbidden, which Cabellut wants to highlight; to assert that behind the clothing and veils there is a person with feelings, desires and a soul. A woman is also the protagonist in ‘Dried Tear’ (2013–2015), a title that is both poetic and dramatic. Here Cabellut offers a reflection on how women feel after having suffered scorn or mistreatment that has damaged their soul, because –as we can see in these works– although the tears may dry, the pain endures. ‘Black Tulip’ (2014–2015) is a tribute to the Dutch Golden Age. The author –who knows the society in The Netherlands very well because it welcomed her over three decades ago– brought together the entrepreneurial, hard-working spirit of the Dutch which thrived throughout the seventeenth century. It was a period when trade, science, thought and the arts flourished and generated an international recognition of their power and influence. The tulip is the national icon, although the bulbous plant actually comes from Turkey and arrived in The Netherlands 70
in the early part of the eighteenth century. In all the work we have reviewed so far we can already see that Lita Cabellut is at ease confronting the interior and exterior of human beings, the body and soul duality, which is a dialectic she specifically dealt with in ‘Disturbance’ (2015). This series helps us understand well the artist’s intention not to stay within appearances, but to penetrate the most remote or intimate place in people. On this occasion, she achieved this through the interplay between double portraits of the same person that, on one side, show the image which Lita wants to project of the subject and, on the other, a stripped down image, not just in a physical nudity sense but also liberated from any kind of emotional armour. These pieces are realist, not because the description is pictorially real, rather through the attitude, gesture and facial expression… she tells us a lot about each of the subjects of the portraits. Hence, the title of the series is highly appropriate since it disturbs and upsets us to confront people liberated from their mask –which the Greeks called πρόσωπον, the origin for the word person and personality. The influence of different religions on society is well known, but what differences are there between one religion and another? Moreover, what mark does it leave on each of us? This plurality is what Lita Cabellut wanted to analyse in the portrait series ‘Blind Mirror’ (2015). With this metaphor, the artist brings the viewer face-to-face with a series of characters who profess diverse religions –from those of the spirit to those of capital– leaving the door open to feel mirrored in the work, or find oneself in front of a blind mirror. THE EXPANDED WORK
I would like to end this review of the artwork that makes up this exhibition of Lita Cabel-
Catalan International View
The Artist
lut’s works in Barcelona, by commenting on two works which are different from the ones mentioned before due to the way they have been made. In her photographed or filmed version, ‘White Silence’ (2014) creates a whole story that, in my view, has a lot to do with the interpretation Sigmund Freud made of dreams and the subconscious world. The figure of Pegasus serves as the trigger for an especially dreamlike narrative whereby some ghosts glide in space and where the artist blends imagination and reality to tell us a story in which children, and their feelings and dramas, are the main characters. On a completely different note to that piece are the floral installations (2015) where Lita Cabellut reveals the most baroque and far-fetched side to her character. They involve pieces that are composed of an accumulation of elements (vases, flowers, tables, paintings…) which are preceded by a performance that she creates in some sculptures and photographs that are, or want to be, authentic still-lifes of post modernity.
Through her compositions, she reflects the heartbeats of her own existence and reveals new mutations and creations located in two extremes: the raw descriptiveness of Goya –who caught her attention when she was younger– and the charm, beauty and intimacy of Vermeer. She fires up her works with vibrant colours and material textures for which oils are just as useful as frescos, photography or new resources, and her ultimate aim is to give life to a picture and transmit this to the viewer.
CODA
Lita Cabellut is a prolific creator and this exhibition only includes a small part of the immense body of work she has produced over the last decade. It is a strange work that neither leaves you indifferent, nor knowing how to evaluate it technically. It does not abandon ugliness or kitsch but is undoubtedly personal and powerful, just like her. She is an artist who, through her compositions, reflects the heartbeats of her own existence, and an acute sensitivity, and reveals new mutations and creations. Although I am sure she will not give up searching for the depth in things and mistrusting appearances in order to give us her opinion of what she sees and feels, she will always do it Catalan International View
71
Editorial Board Martí Anglada Former foreign news editor at TV3 (Catalonia Television). He has been foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Italy and Great Britain (1977-1984) for the Barcelona newspaper La Vanguardia and TV3’s foreign correspondent in the United States (1987-1990), Brussels and Berlin (2009-2011). He has also been an international political commentator. His books include Afers no tan estrangers [Not So Foreign Affairs] (Editorial Mina, 2008), Quatre vies per a la independència: Estònia, Letònia, Eslovàquia, Eslovènia [Four Ways To Independence: Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia] (Editorial Pòrtic, 2013) and La via alemanya [The German Way] (Brau Edicions, 2014). He was named the Government of Catalonia’s new delegate for France and Switzerland in September 2014.
Enriqueta Aragonès A research professor at the Institut d’Anàlisi Econòmica (IAE-CSIC) and affiliate professor at the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. She holds a degree in Economics from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a PhD from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. Most of her research takes place on the frontier between economics and political science. In particular she examines questions concerning political science using the instruments of economic analysis and game theory. Her articles are published in leading journals in both political science (American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science) and economics (American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Theory).
Jordi Basté (Barcelona, 1965). Journalist. He worked at Catalunya Ràdio, collaborating on Joaquim Maria Puyal’s football broadcasts (1982-2004). He also r eported on basketball matches and presented the programs La Jornada and No ho diguis a ningú. Later he joined RAC1 radio station, where he presented the sports programTu diràs (2004-2007). S ince then he has been the director and presenter of the morning magazine El món a RAC1 (currently the leading program in Catalan radio history) f or whichhe received the Premi Nacional de Radiodifusió in 2010 and the Premi Òmnium Cultural de Comunicacióin 2012. O n TV, he has w orked on Basquetmania and a s a c odirector and presenter of Gol a gol for Televisió de Catalunya (2001-2003). In 2010 Basté received the Protagonistas award f or communication and in 2011 he r eceived an Ondas award i n recognition of his distinguished career in broadcasting.
Enric Canela (Barcelona, 1949). Holds a degree in Chemistry from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) and a PhD in Chemistry, specialising in Biochemistry. He has taught at the UB since 1974, where he is currently professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and collaborates on research into intracellular communication. He also conducts research on theoretical Biochemistry and regularly publishes in scientific journals of international repute. He is a member of numerous scientific societies. Between 1991 and 1995 he was vice-president of the Catalan Society of Biology. Between 2007 and 2009 he was president of the Circle for Knowledge. Between 2007 and 2011 he was a patron of the National Agency for Evaluation, Certification and Accreditation (ANECA) in Spain. He is currently vice-rector of Science Policy at the UB.
Salvador Cardús (Terrassa, 1954). PhD in Economics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge, Cornell University (USA) and Queen Mary College of the University of London. Currently he is professor of Sociology at the UAB and the former Dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology. He has conducted research into the sociology of religion and culture, media, nationalism and identity. His published works include, Plegar de viure [Giving Up on Life] with Joan Estruch, Saber el temps [Understanding Time], El desconcert de l’educació [The Education Puzzle], Ben educats [Well Educated] and El camí de la independència [The Road To Independence]. In the field of journalism he was the editor of the Crònica d’Ensenyament magazine (1987-1988) and was deputy editor of the Avui newspaper (1989-1991). He contributes to Ara, La Vanguardia, Diari de Terrassa and Deia newspapers. He is a member of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans. www.salvadorcardus.cat
David Fernàndez (Vila de Gràcia, 1974) is a journalist at La Directa and a member of Coop57. He has been a member of alternative social movements since the 90s, is a member of the Amical de Mauthausen, the Intersindical Alternativa de Catalunya, Entrepobles, and the Coordinating Committee for the Prevention of Torture. He was an MP for the CUP-Alternativa d’Esquerres in the Parliament of Catalonia during the 10th Legislature (2012-2015), where he chaired the Commission of Inquiry on Tax Fraud and Corruption. He currently works in the fight against poverty and social exclusion and as an activist is involved in the anti-corruption project llumsitaquigrafs.cat. He is the author of numerous books, including Cròniques del 6, Cop de CUP and Foc a la barraca.
August Gil-Matamala Has been a practising lawyer since 1960, specialising in the fields of criminal and labour law. He has taken part in numerous cases in defence of those on trial for their demands in favour of people’s rights, as well as hearings before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Gil-Matamala fought the first successful case against the Spanish state for the violation of basic rights. He is a founder member of the Commission for the Defence of Individual Rights of the Col·legi d’Advocats de Barcelona [the Barcelona Bar Association] and the Catalan Association for the Defence of Human Rights, which he presided over from its foundation in 1985 to 2001. Gil-Matamala has also been president of both the Fundació Catalunya and the European Democratic Lawyers organization. In 2007, coinciding with his retirement, he received the Creu de Sant Jordi (St. George’s Cross, the highest honour awarded by the Catalan government).
72
Catalan International View
Editorial Board
Montserrat Guibernau Professor of Politics at Queen Mary College, University of London. Holds a PhD and an MA in Social and Political Theory from the University of Cambridge and a degree in Philosophy from the Universitat de Barcelona. She has taught at the universities of Warwick, Cambridge, Barcelona, the London School of Economics and the Open University. Guibernau has held visiting professorships at the universities of Edinburgh, Tampere, Pompeu Fabra, the UQAM (Quebec) and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Currently she holds a visiting fellowship at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics. Montserrat Guibernau is the author of numerous books and articles on nationalism, the nation-state, national identity, and national and ethnic minorities in the West from the perspective of global governance.
Manuel Manonelles A political scientist specialised in international relations and human rights, he has been Director General for Multilateral and European Affairs of the Catalan Government since June 2014; a position he combines with that of associate professor of International Relations at the University Ramon Llull (Barcelona). Member of the Steering Committee of the Jean Monnet Centre of European Excellence on ‘Intercultural Dialogue, Human Rights and Multi-level Governance’ located at the University of Padua (Italy), he has participated in the work of the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development (2009-13) under the coordination of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in support of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty (2011-12). He has been special advisor to the Co-chair of the UN High Level Group for the Alliance of Civilizations, as well as director of the Foundation Culture of Peace and the World Forum of Civil Society Networks (known as the Ubuntu Forum). He has been an international electoral observer and supervisor for the OSCE and the EU on many occasions, and has participated in several international intergovernmental and non-governmental processes. He is currently the Government of Catalonia’s Director General of Multilateral Affairs.
Eva Piquer (Barcelona, 1969).Writer and cultural journalist. Works for several newspapers and magazines. Has been a lecturer at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a New York news correspondent. Won the 2002 Josep Pla prize for her novel Una victòria diferent [A Different Victory]. Also author of several books, including La noia del temps [The Weather Girl], Alícia al país de la televisió [Alice in Television Land] and No sóc obsessiva, no sóc obsessiva, no sóc obsessiva [I’m Not Obsessive, I’m Not Obsessive, I’m Not Obsessive]. Her latest book is called La feina o la vida [Life or Work].
Ricard Planas (Girona, 1976). Journalist, art critic and cultural promoter. Studied Philology and the History of Art at the Universitat de Girona. In 1999 he founded the magazine Bonart, dedicated to the contemporary art scene in the Catalan Countries. More recently he created and directed the Catalan art fair INART in 2005 and 2006. Has worked as the curator for exhibitions by important artists such as Arranz-Bravo, Lamazares, Formiguera, Cuixart, Ansesa and Grau-Garriga. Ricard has collaborated with Ona Catalana, Catalunya Ràdio, iCatfm and Onda Rambla radio stations. Has also worked for the Diari de Girona, El Punt and El Mundo newspapers, among others.
Clara Ponsatí Professor of Economics at the University of Saint Andrews. Holds a degree in Economics from the Universitat de Barcelona, a Masters in Economics from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and a PhD from the University of Minnesota. She is a research professor and director at Institut d’Anàlisi Econòmica-C.S.I.C., affiliated faculty and research fellow at the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. She has been senior researcher at C.S.I.C., associate professor and assistant professor at UAB and Postdoctoral research associate at Bell Communications Research, Morristown, NJ. She is a member of the editorial boards of The International Journal of Game Theory and The Review of Economic Design.
Arnau Queralt Holds a degree in Environmental Sciences from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and a Masters in Public Management from ESADE, the UAB and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Since October 2011, he has been the director of the Advisory Council for the Sustainable Development of Catalonia (CADS), an advisory body of the Government of Catalonia attached to its Presidential Department. Since October 2012, he has been a member of the Steering Committee of the European Environment and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils (EEAC). From May 2010 to October 2011 he was secretary general of the Cercle Tecnològic de Catalunya foundation. He has been on the board of the Catalan Association of Environmental Professionals since 2004 and was its president from 2010 to 2012.
Vicent Sanchis (Valencia, 1961). Holds a degree in Information Sciences from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. In his career as a journalist it is worth highlighting that he has worked and collaborated on many publications and with numerous publishers; he is director of El Temps magazine, and he has been director of Setze magazine, the Catalan supplement of Cambio 16, and director of the newspapers El Observador and Avui. He has also excelled as a scriptwriter and director on different TV programmes. At present he is president of the editorial board of Avui, and vice-president of Òmnium Cultural. Vicent is also a lecturer in the Faculty of Communication Sciences at Universitat Ramon Llull in Barcelona.
Catalan International View
73
Editorial Board
Mònica Terribas (Barcelona, 1968). Holds a degree in Journalism from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Stirling (Scotland). She is a lecturer at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. From 2002 to 2008 she presented and subsequently directed the current affairs programme La nit al dia for TV3 (the Catalan public television). From 2008 to 2012 she was Director of TV3 and the following year, the CEO and editor of the newspaper Ara. Since September 2013 she has presented El matí de Catalunya Ràdio, Catalonia’s public service broadcasting flagship current affairs programme.
Montserrat Vendrell (Barcelona, 1964). Has been BIOCAT’s CEO since April 2007. As a cluster organization, BIOCAT’s goals include promoting the development of biotechnology companies and research institutions. Vendrell has been the Chairwoman of CEBR (the Council of European Bioregions) since 2012. She holds a PhD in Biology (Universitat de Barcelona), a Masters in Science Communication (UPF) and a degree in Business Administration (IESE, PDG). Before BIOCAT she was linked to the Barcelona Science Park, where she held several posts such as Scientific Director (1997-2005) and Deputy Director General (2005-2007). Among other tasks, Dr Vendrell led the design and implementation of the Park’s Strategic Plan, as well as the organization and management of scientific activities and technological platforms. She was a member of the Steering Committee of the Park’s Biotech Incubator, and in charge of international relations.
Carles Vilarrubí (Barcelona, 1954). Businessman. He is currently Executive Vice-President of Rothschild Spain Investment Bank, specialising in key mergers and takeovers in the financial sector on an international scale. President of CVC Grupo Consejero, an equity and investment advisory firm, with a portfolio of shares in consulting and service companies from the world of communications, the media, marketing, technology and telecommunications. President of Doxa Consulting Group, independent consultants on technology, media and telecommunications, leaders in the sector and with a presence in Spain and Portugal. He is a member of the advisory board of the Catalan confederation Foment del Treball Nacional [National Employment Promotion] and patron of the Fundació Orfeó Català - Palau de la Música. He has also been a member of the governing council of ADENA WWF (World Wild Fund for Nature), and sat on the boards of the Fundación Arte y Tecnología, Fundesco and Fundación Entorno. He is vice-president of F.C Barcelona.
Vicenç Villatoro (Terrassa, 1957). Writer and journalist. Holds a degree in Information Sciences. He is director of CCCB (Barcelona’s Center for Contemporary Culture). Former president of the Ramon Trias Fargas foundation and the former director of the Institut Ramon Llull. As a journalist he has worked for numerous organizations. He was the editor of the Avui newspaper from 1993 to 1996 and head of the culture section of TV3. Between 2002 and 2004 was director general of the Catalan Radio and Television Corporation. He has contributed to a range of media companies, such as Avui, El Periódico, El País, El Temps, Catalunya Ràdio and COM ràdio. He has written a dozen novels.
Francesc de Dalmases (Director) (Barcelona, 1970). Journalist and consultant in humanitarian aid and cooperation and development. Has been president (1999-2006) of the Association of Periodicals in Catalan (APPEC); coordinator for the delegation to the Spanish state of European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages (1995-1999); coordinator for the third conference of the CONSEU (Conference of European Stateless Nations) (1999); and coordinator for the publication Europa de les Nacions (1993-1999). Has acted as a foreign expert in aid projects in such diverse locations as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mongolia, Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mexico, Guatemala, Morocco and Congo. He is a member of the Cooperation Council of the Catalan government. In 2011 he joined Barcelona’s Council’s Aid Commitee and is a board member of the Federation of Internationally Recognized Catalan Organizations.
Víctor Terradellas (Editor) (Reus, 1962). Entrepreneur and political and cultural activist. President and founder of Fundació CATmón. Editor of Catalan International View and ONGC, a magazine dedicated to political thought, solidarity, aid and international relations. Víctor has always been involved in political and social activism, both nationally and internationally. The driving force behind the Plataforma per la Sobirania [The Platform for Self-Determination] as well as being responsible for significant Catalan aid operations and international relations in such diverse locations as Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Pakistan and Kurdistan. He is the former General Secretary of International Relations for Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya.
74
Catalan International View
Digital consulting agency focused on creating and building highly-interactive digital user experiences that push the limits of user design and development.
And much more! We offer all-in solutions Fine design, great interactions & correct usability Our work is durable, functional and highly useful. Designed with its users in mind, offering the best experience possible.
Full develompent iOS, Android, HTML 5 Development, Agile Methodologies, App Hosting & Maintenance, IoT Integration, Wearables, Cloud Computing, m-commerce, Mobile Testing.
Digital business strategies We guide and support or clients in their digital transformation and help them to shape new business models within the digital world.
Created ErnProject from theby Noun
www.wearecode.io Many worldwide companies and institutions trust us. Why? It’s simple. We get the job done. If you’re looking for a solution don’t waste time, contact us and we can discuss your needs.