Catalonia Bid for Secession Met with Spanish Aggression

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

When the southern States seceded as America approached the dawn of the War Between the States, the secession was committed with the understanding that the United States is a voluntary union. The States have the right to secede if they feel the federal government has breached the social contract called the United States Constitution, or if they believe the conditions are not beneficial for them if they remained in the union. Alexander Hamilton suggested that the United States should be in perpetual debt, for if the States have a stake in the national debt, they will be less likely to secede.

Most other countries are not constructed in a manner similar to the United States. They are nationalistic centralized systems, with perhaps the exception of the United Kingdom, which is a union of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Spain was once divided. Prior to the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by the Roman Empire, the area was home to four primary groups, the Iberians, the Celts, the Lusitanians, and the Tartessians. After Roman control and the invasion and occupation by Germanic Tribes (during which the area was split into 11 regional divisions) that followed the fall of the Roman Empire, Muslim hordes invaded (711 A.D.) and took possession of Spain (718 A.D.). Under Islamic control, with only a sliver of a monarchy of the Christian Kingdom of Asturias along the northern coast, the Muslims used their control over the Iberian Peninsula as a base for invading Europe, reaching at one point into northern France, where the Islamic soldiers were repelled by the West Germanic Franks at the Battle of Tours in 732.

During the centuries approaching the Age of Exploration, the wars between Christians and Muslims in Spain increased, with the north eventually consisting of eight Christian kingdoms: Portugal, Galicia, Leon, Toledo, Castille, Navarra, Aragon, and the Catalan Counties.

By the 1400s, the Muslims had been driven to only a southern region called Granada, which also included at the western edge of the territory Gibraltar.  What remained was an independent Portugal, and Castille & Leon, Navarre, and Aragon.  Various minor regions exited within those three kingdoms.  Catalonia and Valencia existed withing the Kingdom of Aragon.  By the end of the 14th Century, the Muslims were completely driven from the Peninsula.  The Jews and Muslims who remained on the Iberian Peninsula were then compelled to convert to Christianity, or face death.

When Isabella of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon married, it united the kingdoms under Christian Rule and stet the stage for modern Spain.  In an effort to increase the strength of the new unity of Spain, and to compete with Portugal whose plan to round the horn of Africa had given the country on the western coast of the Iberian Peninsula a route to the Orient without having to deal with the Muslim hordes should they make a journey by land, when a young Italian sailor named Christopher Columbus with a plan to sail westward to reach the riches of the far east came to Isabella and Ferdinand with a request of financial help, the Spanish rulers agreed and fully funded Columbus's trip.  As a result Spain enjoyed a sudden influx of wealth, propelling Spain into a position to be the dominant power in Europe for the following two centuries.  Strategic marriages of the five children of Ferdinand and Isabella ensured political stability, and peace with Spain's European neighbors.

The Spanish Empire's growth led to Spain's global empire to be the largest geographical empire in world history.  Continued military campaigns, largely with the Barbary Pirates of North Africa, and a great plague during the intersection of the 16th and 17th Centuries that killed somewhere between 600,000 and 700,000 people, were early contributors to Spain's reduction in power as the world's greatest empire.  In 1640, during a war that turned in France's favor, Portugal and Catalonia rebelled.  Portugal was lost, but Catalonia's independence was suppressed.  In 1659, the Treaty of the Pyrenees finished off the world dominance of the Spanish Crown, and brought to the end the Spanish Golden Age.  By the end of the 17th Century, Spain's position as the greatest empire had been completely lost, and the Spanish Golden Age was becoming a distant memory in the rear-view mirror of history.

After rule over Spain by the Bourbons, who also ruled over France, Spain took advantage of the French Revolution that overthrew the Bourbons.  Though militarily ill-prepared as the Napoleonic forces began their age of terror, the peasants took to arms to defend Spain from France.  Spain, however, was defeated, and the Spanish King was eventually dethroned by Napoleon.  The Spaniards revolted in 1809, and the Spanish guerrillas proved to be too much of a headache for France, eventually resulting in a collapse of French power in Spain.  By 1812, after Napoleon's disastrous campaign in Russia, France recalled many of its forces from Spain to assist in defending France against Russia and other coalition forces.  In 1814, Ferdinand VII was restored as King of Spain.  During those tumultuous years, however, Spain had also lost all of her New World colonies to revolts, except Cuba and Puerto Rico.

In 1820, due primarily to economic troubles that made it difficult for Spain to pay its soldiers, a revolution exploded on the Iberian Peninsula.  In 1822 France intervened as the unrest was reaching a crescendo.  During the 1830s, war broke out again, and the fight for control over Spain led to yet another change in power, and dictatorial-style rule. In 1846 another uprising, which led to the Matiner's War, emerged in Catalonia, but was suppressed by the centralized Spanish government forces in 1849.  In 1868 another revolution emerged, leading Spain into a two-year period of anarchy.  Another rebellion followed, but after the whole mess the First Spanish Republic emerged in 1873.  A year later Alfonso XII of Spain was crowned as King, and a restoration of Bourbon Rule led to more than a decade of economic and political stability.  Trouble once again began to brew with the unexpected death of Alfonso XII in 1885, and rule was given to his son who was born after the king's death.  The assassination of the prime minister followed in 1897.  A war with the United States in 1898 led to the loss of the Philippines, Guam, Cuba and Puerto Rico.  A bloody revolt in Catalonia in 1909 was savagely suppressed.  Though Spain remained neutral during World War I, a flu epidemic from 1918 to 1919 still devastated the population.  In 1923 a dictator, General Miguel Primo de Rivera, seized control of the government, but the economic disaster of the Great Depression weakened his rule, and in 1931 general elections were held to replace his oppressive government rule.

The rise of fascism and communism in Spain led to a full-scale Spanish Civil War in 1936, pitting leftists against leftists.  The Nationalist rebel forces supported by Nazi Germany and Italy defeated the socialists, anarchists and communists in the civil war, sparking the rise of yet another dictatorship.  Francisco Franco ruled over Spain with an iron fist from 1936 to 1975.  During his reign Spain eventually lost all of her remaining colonial possessions.

While Spain enacted its current constitution as a means of continued unification in 1978, the country admits it is actually comprised of 17 autonomous communities.  In 1982 the socialists gained complete control of the country, and only Catalonia has emerged as an economically stable region.  The Catalans embrace a free market style system that remains autonomous from the remainder of Spain.  However, Spain uses Catalonia's prosperity to fund her progressive programs of government dependence in other non-Catalan regions.  A campaign for independence has once again emerged in Catalonia, embracing the motto "Spain robs us."  The claim is that an independent Catalan State, released form its financial contributions to the rest of Spain, would prosper and enable the region to resolve their own financial difficulties.

The latest call for independence by the Catalans has been declared unlawful by Spain's left-wing centralized government.  Despite the order disallowing the vote, tens of thousands of Catalans are expected to defy Spanish authorities and attempt to vote in the banned independence referendum on Sunday.

At the potential polling places, people have brought sleeping bags and prepared to bed down on gym mats.

The ballot, according to government officials in Madrid, and Spain's Constitutional Court, has no legal status.  Spain's government claims the vote is at odds with the 1978 constitution.

According to polls, about 40 percent of Catalans support independence The region of 7.5 million people has an economy larger than that of Portugal.

It is believed the "yes" vote will win, considering most of those who support independence are expected to cast ballots while most of those against it are not.

Police monitored schools earmarked as polling stations and occupied the Catalan government's communications hub on Saturday in an effort to prevent the referendum from going ahead.

The government states police have been ordered to remove people from polling stations on Sunday.

Organizers are calling for voters to arrive at 5 a.m. for the planned 9 a.m. vote at polling stations and to wait in line until the schools open.

"We must be sure there are lots of people present of all ages," they said in instructions disseminated on social media.

Any volunteer staffing a voting station with use of a census listing eligible voters would be liable for a fine of up to 300,000 euros.

In Madrid, hundreds gathered waving the national flag and chanting 'Spanish unity' and 'Don't fool us - Catalonia is Spain'.

Clashes with police have already begun, storming polling stations, and already, more than 337 people have been injured.  Non-lethal rubber bullets are being used, and have already been fired at pro-independence members of the population. 

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary