Catalonia: One Symptom, Two Diagnoses

With European leaders incapable of managing diversity, the Catalonia crisis evolves into undermining Democracy

Lubomir Todorov PhD
Universal Future Foundation

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The essence of non-ideological political philosophy has always been and will always be represented by the United States Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

The Declaration of Independence is not just a simple political document that emerged within the circumstances of a historically and geographically confined event. The two fundamental understandings:

First, that humans represent the supreme existential value and are the measure of all things; and

Second, that human species have never had a viable strategy of individual survival strategy and that we have successfully reached the current Anthropocene age exclusively by riding on a group survival strategy,

predetermine the status of the United States Declaration of Independence as a universal set of existential principles for the human civilization to thrive — now, and ever in eternity. Any deviation from the basic concept of a political system as outlined in the Declaration of Independence usually points at an attempt to exploit politics in favour of certain group or partial interests. When positioned into this frame of reference, any political event or process can be analyzed without ideological prejudice and its basic characteristics can be clearly revealed.

And how the recent events in the European region of Catalonia, for example, fit in the picture?

Despite the circumstances where the Spain constitutional court declared the Catalan referendum illegal and hundreds of people were injured as police used force to try to block voting, the results of the Catalan independence referendum that took place on October 1, 2017 showed 92.01 percent support for independence, and only 7.99 percent of the voters were against.

On October 27 Catalonia’s parliament declared independence. Some minutes later the Spanish government reacted by imposing direct rule over Catalonia. The latter was apparently done without anyone looking at the calendar, for otherwise only a glimpse at the year there written: 2017 — would have hinted that the feudal ages have long gone.

One thing in the seemingly complicated and turbulent events in Catalonia is more than clear: it is all about a government executing brute power against the will of a large community of people who want to be independent, and about denying their right to self-determination. What is going on now in Catalonia is a 21st century “democratized” version of the same obsolete political exercise that resulted in Soviet tanks invading Hungary in year 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

In the aspect of political values the Spanish government tries to bluntly ignore the outcome of a referendum which is an instrument of direct democracy.

In the legal aspect, this reaction of the current Spanish government undermines one of the most proclaimed basic pillars of modern democracy — the principle of the Rule of Law. The Charter of the United Nations stipulates the right of self-determination in Article 1.2, and this foundational treaty of the United Nations Organization has legal priority over any internal legislation for any of its member countries, Spain included. That makes the position of the Spanish government perfectly illegal. It is true that Article 2.4 the same Charter protects also the territorial integrity of a country, but only in the meaning of a foreign aggression.

The measures of the Spanish authorities infringe practically all principles and categories of Human rights in their political specter.

In fact, the approach of the current government of Spain is exactly what everyone expected in the context of contemporary political realities which are prevailingly based on myopic political decisions and ubiquitously kicking the can down the road until the four year term in the government ends and the next elections come. This constitutes the much more severe civilizational problem of societies getting used to political practices which are inadequate and, in terms of democracy, distorted to their very core.

Sadly, the position of the European Union leaders is of a similar character — they have not prepared yet the only politically viable instrument which can gradually lead to united, strong and prospering Europe — a supranational mechanism with the functional capacity to manage diversity. The roots of European communities are historically deep, very diverse and extremely strong, and this is the reason why all previous attempts to build a stable multinational structure based on uniformity failed. That is why the issue of the European Union managing diversity in a manner adequate to the existing specific realities should have been raised for discussions long time ago. Long before Brexit, which is a very special case. One missed opportunity for upgrading the EU system was the Norwegian European Union membership referendum in 1994 which left many unanswered questions about what makes the European Union unattractive to the citizens of a most developed and democratic European country. And Catalonia with its 500 plus years long struggle for independence might not be the most essential, but definitely is the most symptomatic example of that integral component still missing in the European governance machine.

The Catalonia political issue is not unimportant.

There are, however, disturbing trends that present by far greater civilizational threat to humanity. They are related to politicians indulging in their self-created image of “political elites” - a status that has no professional, legal or social definition, and who brutally neglect basic political values such as democracy and the rule of law.

And the remedy for that was found in year 1776:

“… That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

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is researcher and lecturer in future studies, anthropology, artificial intelligence, and geopolitics; founder of the Universal Future civilizational strategy.