Why were the pro-independence leaders sent to prison?
López: Those pushing for Catalonia’s independence claim they have a right to vote in a referendum. They claim that voting is not a crime, and that the Catalan people have a right to determine whether or not they want independence. They compare themselves to Scotland because Scotland had this type of referendum. The Spanish government has responded that the sovereignty of Catalonia doesn’t belong solely to Catalonia but to all of Spain. Historically, Scotland became part of the United Kingdom as a sovereign country. That was never the case with Catalonia, which was a part of the Kingdom of Aragon. Aragon, including Catalonia, and Castille united in the 15th century, forming the main two kingdoms of Spain.
The argument that voting is not a crime is a twisted way of looking at the problem. For instance, driving is not a crime but if you drive against the traffic laws you are committing a crime. Voting is not a crime, but if you are voting to break a law then it becomes a crime. This is the argument in Spain, and this is the argument that sent the leaders of the movement to jail for embezzlement because they used public money to prepare the referendum.
Why do some in Catalonia want to separate from Spain, and is it realistic?
Guillén: Catalonia is a competitive, vibrant economy and has excellent companies. They export a large amount of goods and services to Europe, but they export way more to the rest of Spain. That’s not the issue. The real issue is that people believe the decision for Catalonia about its future is not up to Catalonia alone. It’s up to all of Spain. There are many people who are from Catalonia but live elsewhere in Spain, and vice versa—there are many people from Spain who live in Catalonia. So, it’s not as simple as saying, ‘Oh, people who today happen to be in Catalonia should decide this.’ That is not fair.
One important thing to note is these referendums polarize public opinion. In surveys, if you give people an intermediate option, for instance to increase the autonomy of Catalonia, even to the point of Spain becoming a federal system like the United States, then that becomes the preferred option for a majority of people in Catalonia.
Why did the protests turn so violent?
Feros: The problem is the separatist leaders were given very high sentences. There was no possibility to find a political solution; that was very clear by the sentences. This is what immediately provoked these protests in Catalonia, many of them extremely violent, and this in many ways is not a surprise. Not all the Spaniards agree with the independence push, but they also don’t agree with the state that provoked this kind of sentencing.
They are criminalizing what should be a political and constitutional debate. Many people in Spain think that this is not the way to find a solution. Because some believe that the Catalans have the right not to decide what to do but the right to express their feelings about whether or not they want to keep being part of Spain. The only way to find a solution is by going back and solving these questions in political terms.
How will the events in Catalonia affect the Nov. 10 elections?
López: The events in Catalonia have had an impact in the politics in the rest of Spain. Spain was one of the few countries that did not have an extreme right party in Congress. When the events in Catalonia started, the far right started emerging. The Conservative party in Spain has actually been very moderate compared to other countries like Hungary, but this is going away. The politics in Spain are changing. Can we anticipate an attack against democracy like what happened in 1936? I don’t think so. But we cannot discard further destabilization in the future. A dramatic sequence of events has happened before in the history of Spain: the Spanish Civil War started in 1936, as it is commonly known, but the first shot of the war actually took place in 1934 when Asturias started a revolution and Catalonia declared its independence and the Army said ‘no.’
Feros: Until the sentencing came out, polls predicted that the Socialist party was going to get the absolute majority. At this moment they are going down and the Conservative party, the Partido Popular, and the extreme-right party, VOX, are going up. The conservative party is making the Catalan question the main question of the political debate, and the extreme right is doing the same. In Spain, the main political idea, the ideological center of extreme right politicians, is the unity of the country. It’s not like other countries in which migration, foreigners, and race are the main topics for the extreme right. For extreme-right parties in Spain, Catalonia has come as something of a gift from heaven, by allowing them to portray themselves as the defenders of Spain.
Guillén: I think the biggest outcome from that election is that we are going to go back to the two-party system. Whenever you have these strong conflicts over identity and culture, people get polarized. You’re either for or you’re against, and that will benefit the two-party system.
In Spain about 10 years ago, we used to have only two dominant parties, like the United States. Then two new parties were launched, and they were growing very quickly, and three years ago everybody declared this is the end of the two-party system in Spain. Now, the Catalonian conflict has reversed that trend.
