Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Spanish "democracy" The challenge for Sanchez

"The regime's parties, in the hands of the EU"  have dismantled "social rights, through labour reforms, gag laws, attacks on the Catalan language". Independence of Catalonia would provide a chance to cope with "unfettered capitalism". However, independence alone would not be enough. A struggle would revolve around the "constitutional process". A struggle for a Catalan constitution in the interest of the working class. A struggle against "certain Catalan economic elites who intend to implement a constitutional process from a conservative base". And a struggle against the European Union itself. Catalonia: A Democratic Opportunity

"Who can doubt—after massive demonstrations on two successive Sundays in Barcelona (followed later by a general strike in Sabadell and a building workers’ strike in the capital)—that Catalonia is closer to the ruptura than any other region at present. If pushed to it—by an ‘accident’ or by mass popular pressure or both—the bourgeois opposition parties would certainly be willing to lead it, if only in the end to try to control it. But without such pressure? Of if they fear that such pressure may escape their control?" — Ronald Fraser, 1976

Catalonia: all point to a protracted crisis Barage to Catalonia

The big powers and their imperialist institutions decide. [S]ome recognition means the state "enjoys some of the benefits of being a state such as access to the World Bank, the IMF, and the International Olympic Committee."  "It's essentially impossible for a group to become independent and claim its own statehood unless others, other powerful states, are willing to support it" The cases of Somaliland, Kosovo, and East Timor