The Spanish knew about Abdelbaki Es Satty's jihadist links, but they didn't bother to tell the Catalan police

The Islamist extremist who masterminded the August 2017 terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils had worked as an informant to the Spanish security services.

Spain's National Intelligence Centre (CNI) have admitted that they had contact with Abdelbaki Es Satty that began during his four year jail sentence for drug smuggling between 2010 and 2014.

It's also been established that Es Satty was known to the Spanish intelligence services when he first arrived in Spain in 2002, and that his contact details were included in the address books of the terrorists who carried out the 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 193 people.

Es Satty was killed in an explosion in the bomb factory he was operating in the small Catalan town of Alcanar in August 2017.

The CNI have refused to admit when Es Satty stopped working as an informant for them, or how much he was paid. They also failed to intervene when Es Satty appealed against his deportation from Spain in 2015 because the court were presented with no information whatever about his links with Islamist terrorists.

The CNI have not offered an explanation for why none of the information on Es Satty's jihadist links and drug smuggling activities were ever shared with the Catalan police when it became clear that he'd settled in Catalonia either.

What's even worse is that despite the Spanish security services having failed to share the information they had on Es Satty with the Catalan police, Spanish sources in Madrid even set about briefing the press that the Catalan police were at fault for "missing opportunities to uncover the plot".

Given how the justice system works in Spain nobody in the Spanish intelligence agencies will ever face criticism, let alone punishment over this scandal, and if Es Satty was still working as an informant while he was actively plotting terrorist attacks, the fact will never be made public.

We know this because if you're part of the Spanish establishment you can walk free even after being found guilty of vast multi-billion Euro frauds (like Rodrigo Rato and Iñaki Urdangarin have), while if you're considered an enemy of the Spanish state you can be imprisoned without trial for "crimes" like peacefully promoting Catalan independence and organising a democratic vote.

It's absolutely no surprise that the Spanish legal system is widely regarded as the most corrupt in western Europe, and it would take an extraordinary display of wishful thinking to expect anything resembling a proper unbiased investigation into the Abdelbaki Es Satty scandal.

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The danger of toxic political tribalism

One of the most infuriating things about writing about politics is the way that so many people don't even bother trying to understand what I've written these days, and just crudely caricature my views instead of actually considering what I actually said. 

People tend to do this because they're political tribalists who want everything to fit into simple and arbitrary "black vs white", "us vs them" type classifications, when things are rarely ever that simple in reality.

Labour 

Probably the most common politically partisan assumption that gets made about me is that I'm blindly pro-Labour. In fact I'm highly critical of many of the things Labour did and didn't do between 1997-2010, their unspeakably inept "austerity-lite" positioning for the 2015 General Election, and the fact that the upper echelons of the Labour Party are still riddled with active opponents of the kind of democratic socialism that the majority of Labour members and voters actually want.

Just because I think Jeremy Corbyn is a principled guy and the best Labour leader in decades, doesn't mean that I've completely forgotten about the toxic legacies of the New Labour experiment. Nor does it mean that I blithely imagine that the Labour Party isn't in need of massive structural reform before it could possibly become the kind of organisation that genuinely represents the will of it's members.

The Brexit debate

Another of the most common tribalist accusations that's hurled at me is that I'm blindly "pro-EU", but anyone who thinks I argued against Brexit in 2016 simply because I love the EU so much clearly wasn't paying any attention to anything I was actually saying.

It's clear that the tribalism cut both ways, with plenty of Remainers forming toxic tribalistic "us and them" mentalities too (look at the charts). However the overwhelming bulk of the insults and abuse I suffered during the EU referendum debate was hurled by Brexiters, so I can't help focusing on them.

I didn't argue against Brexit because I imagined the EU to be faultless (far from it), I argued against it because the leading Brexiteers were clearly willing to lie through their teeth to get their way, because they obviously had no plan for how to actually manage Brexit if they did get their way, and because it hardly took a visionary seer to predict that a "make it up as we go along" Brexit administered by the Tory party would turn out to be a disaster for pretty much everyone in the UK apart from the mega-rich with sufficient capital stashed in tax havens to insulate themselves from the chaos.

But as far as a lot of Brexit tribalists were concerned, that kind of analysis was enough to caricature me as a rabidly pro-EU, anti-British traitor so they could ignore what I was actually saying and instantly dismiss it as the crazed ranting of someone from the enemy tribal ideology.

Catalonia

More recently people have begun hurling accusations that I'm a supporter of Carles Puigdemont and his centre-right pro-Independence party in Catalonia, simply because I've been highly critical of the way the much-more-right-wing Spanish government and the Spanish nationalist establishment in Madrid have been handling the Catalan crisis.

It's as if people can only conceive two possible positions in this political debate too. You either support the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and the Spanish nationalist establishment in Madrid, or you support Puigdemont and his party. 

There is no middle ground, and just like with Brexit, if you criticise the behaviour of one side, you're immediately characterised by supporters of that side as a promoter of the enemy ideology to be hated, ridiculed and despised.

In my view the Catalan independence movement is actually much more like Brexit than the Scottish independence movement was, because unlike in Scotland in 2014 there isn't really anything resembling a detailed plan for how to manage transition from the union to independence, which makes supporting the Catalan independence movement very problematic for anyone who recognises that economic chaos tends to impact more seriously on the poor and vulnerable than the capital rich.

But Spanish nationalist tribalists don't give a shit about what I actually think about Puigdemont or the actual case for independence, because they're far too busy trying to shout me down as a despicable enemy to listen to what I was actually saying.

Self-determination

Despite my reservations about the unpreparedness of the Catalan government for the transition to independence they've been trying to achieve, I strongly believe in the right to self determination as a matter of principle.

I absolutely reject the idea that the right to self determination can be eradicated in perpetuity by a rushed 1978 constitution that was drawn up in the shadow of a brutal fascist dictatorship, under the very real and terrifying threat of more military rule if the constitution wasn't agreed.

Even if people interpret the Spanish constitution to say that the natural right to self-determination is permanently extinguished as "illegal", it's important to remember that a significant number of national independence declarations were made illegally. The United States, Belgium, Philippines, Albania, Ireland, Egypt, Bangladesh, Croatia and Slovenia are some of the high profile examples. 

It's also important to remember that within living memory it was illegal for black people to travel on the same bus or use the same washroom as white people in countries like the United States and South Africa. It was illegal for consenting gay men to have sex with each other in the United Kingdom (and many other countries). And it was illegal for Catalan people to speak their own language, or to give Catalan names to their children in Catalonia.

When it comes to imperialists and powerful political elites making and interpreting the rules in their own favour, and against minorities, there's often a hugely significant distinction between what is illegal and what is actually wrong.

Justifying violence and repression

The problem with the Catalan crisis of course is that the Spanish nationalists in Madrid have handled the situation about as badly as it's possible to imagine. They sent thousands of police into Catalonia from other parts of Spain to steal ballot boxes, attack non-violent civilians, shoot people with rubber bullets, and drag women out of buildings by their hair. Then the king of Spain deliberately made a bitterly partisan Spanish nationalist speech in front of a portrait of a brutal tyrant famous for repressing Catalonia and banning the Catalan language. Then Mariano Rajoy allowed one of his ministers to make a death threat against the Catalan President without the slightest censure. Then the corrupt and highly partisan Spanish judiciary set about rounding up Catalan political prisoners. Then the right-wing Spanish government overthrew democracy in Catalonia and seized control of the local broadcast media and police force for themselves. Then the Spanish nationalists announced an election for December 21st and set about arresting Catalan nationalist politicians and holding them without bail so that they can't actually stand in the sham election. 

The really sad thing is that a lot of people who oppose Catalan independence seem willing to justify, excuse or deflect attention away from the grotesque things Mariano Rajoy and the Spanish establishment have been doing to try to stop it from happening. 

Even when it comes to violence, death threats, government take-over of broadcast media, political censorship, the taking of political prisoners, and the holding of rigged sham elections, the reaction is to excuse such repressive measures with spurious appeals to legality, to condone them with victim-blaming tactics, or to distract from them with blatant displays of whataboutery.

Furthermore Spanish nationalist tribalists tend to immediately condemn anyone who criticises the divisive, belligerent and repressive approach of the Spanish nationalist establishment as a Puigdemont supporting separatist.

It's as if they're so invested in the anti-independence vibe that they refuse to see that it's a staggeringly counter-productive approach to opposing a non-violent political movement to brutally repress non-violent civilians, take prisoners of conscience, and bring back horrific memories of Franco era repression while gleeful Nazi saluting Falangists are simultaneously celebrating in the streets.

Misrepresentation of the enemy

Despite what tribalists try to claim about my views, there's actually a huge difference between blindly supporting everything that the secessionist leaders say and do, and believing that people have a natural and non-extinguishable right to self-determination.  

And there's also a huge difference between uncritically supporting all of the actions of all of the Catalan independence politicians, and simply pointing out that the violent, belligerent, divisive, oppressive and anti-democratic actions of the Spanish political establishment are creating a huge rift between Catalonia and Spain that is actually increasing the popularity of the Catalan independence movement. 

In fact the absurdly counter-productive attitude of the Spanish nationalist establishment should actually be something that every rational opponent of Catalan independence should be deeply concerned about. But because they've bought into the binary tribalist allegiances game, they'll actually defend (or attempt to distract attention from) what their side is doing, rather than think about the damage it's causing to their own position, and bitterly misrepresent anyone who raises such concerns as a Puigdemont-loving separatist from the enemy ideology who needs to be shouted down, criticised, and insulted.

They simply refuse to compute that someone could believe that the repressive actions of the Spanish nationalists are making the Catalan independence movement ever more likely to succeed, while the less belligerent and divisive approach of just allowing Puigdemont to hold his referendum with a 50% of the total electorate requirement, then calmly and peacefully pointing out that he didn't actually have a coherent plan for independence, would likely have seen the Catalan independence movement beaten at the ballot box.

Victimhood tactics

One of the classic tactics political tribalists use is to pick one of the most insulting things someone from the enemy ideology has said, and then cry victim by claiming that absolutely everyone from the enemy ideology uses insults and abuse like that. 

Thus the tide of victim-complex Brexiters who keep yelling at me that I've unfairly called all Brexiters racist (when I never have, and even actually published an article called "not all Brexiters were racist") and Spanish nationalists crying that I've called them all fascists (when I've done no such thing either).

People resort to this kind of fake victimhood tactic because it's very much easier to argue against a fabricated (straw man) misrepresentation of what the other person is saying, than to actually consider what they've said and find a real fault with it.

The danger of tribalism

Aside from people continually trying to stuff me into simplistic arbitrary positions that I don't actually hold (blindly pro-Labour, pro-EU, right-wing Puigdemont supporter) and totally misrepresenting what I've said to the point of outright lying about it (which annoys the hell out of me), there's something more sinister about this kind of hyper-partisan political tribalism.

We've all seen Brexiters performing bizarre acts of mental contortionism in order to defend the "£350 million for the NHS" lie (and making excuses for all kinds of indefensible stuff like their dodgy donations, their Twitter bot armies, their collusion with foreign interests, Nigel Farage's Nazi style anti-immigrant propaganda, and all of the other lies they told about the joys of the Brexit fantasy land). And now we're seeing plenty of Catalan independence opponents wilfully defending stuff like police brutality, the taking of political prisoners, massive acts of political censorship, and the holding of sham show elections where the leaders of opposition parties have been jailed without trial.

There are clearly a lot of people out there who decide a political position, then rapidly develop a tribal hatred of anyone they characterise (rightly or wrongly) as holding the opposite position, and a strong tribal affinity with others they identify as holding the same position, which is an affinity that stretches to defending the absolutely indefensible out of tribalistic loyalty.

Once people have got themselves into a position where they're actually defending the lies told by Brexiteers during the EU referendum, or the outright assault on democracy and civic freedom that the Spanish nationalist establishment has been conducting in Catalonia, it seems highly likely they'll defend literally anything, just as long as they identify the perpetrators as one of their tribalist allies, rather than a tribal enemy.

This is obviously an incredibly dangerous situation, because once we're willing to turn a blind eye when our tribal allies are doing things we'd scream blue murder at if it was our tribal enemies, we're not only utterly debasing ourselves, we're creating a rotten political environment where stuff like outright lies, corruption, state violence, repression, and political censorship become completely normalised.

for example if Britain somehow comes to its senses and stops (or at least pauses) the absolute farce that the Tories are making of Brexit, there's no doubt that there would be plenty of Brexiteers joining in with the riots when Nigel Farage and his ilk attempt to trigger a violent uprising in response, as they've openly threatened to do.

Similarly, even if Spain resorted to the re-imposition of military dictatorship in Catalonia, which seems to be getting closer by the day, how many of the anti-Independence people are going to suddenly admit that their fellow anti-independence tribalists have now gone too far, rather than blaming the whole thing on Catalans and saying "they brought military dictatorship upon themselves"?

More escalation

Just imagine how the Spanish nationalist establishment will react when the pro-independence parties win another majority in their sham election in December, despite having most of their high profile politicians taken as political prisoners and the regional means of communication either turned into Spanish nationalist propaganda or simply shut down?

The only reaction of the Spanish nationalist establishment to any event in Catalonia so far has been escalation and more repression, so why would they dramatically change position to a more democratic and conciliatory approach when their effort to rig the snap election ends up going all wrong, as it almost certainly will?

Expecting the Spanish nationalists to change tack away from spectacularly counter-productive belligerence is about as likely as expecting tribal opponents of Catalan independence to suddenly throw up their hands and say, "hang on a minute, maybe this guy I've been tribalistically smearing as a Puigdemont fanboy was right all along, and that resorting to violence, belligerence, censorship, and repression is actually a spectacularly counter-productive way of opposing a non-violent political movement".

They'll stick with their chosen tribe, no matter how disgusting and unjustifiable the violence and repression that they have to justify, excuse, or deflect attention from. And they'll keep labelling me as as a member of the enemy tribe and misrepresenting what I'm saying, because that's so much easier than listening to what I actually said.

The worrying thing is that political commentary seems to be ever more populated by tribalists like this.

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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The EU reaction to the Catalonia crisis is absolutely unacceptable

October 27th 2017 will go down as a historic day in Catalonia no matter what happens from here on in. The Catalan parliament has voted to declare independence from Spain, and the Spanish nationalist government in Madrid has responded by launching a coup against the democratic and social institutions of Catalonia. 

Within minutes of the Catalan declaration of independence the right-wing Spanish government moved to scrap the Catalan parliament, and to give themselves to power to seize control of the Catalan police (Mossos) and independent Catalan broadcast media.

The Spanish prosecutor in Madrid has threatened that everybody involved in the independence vote will be arrested and held as political prisoners like the two Catalan civic leaders Jordi Sánchez and Jordi Cuixart who are already being held captive.

Anyone with any political sense whatever must be able to see what an atrocious mess the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has made of the situation with his tactics of violent repression and continual bone-headed escalation.

When he used brute force against non-violent civilians on the day of the referendum he not only created a PR disaster for Spain, he also completely destroyed his ability to cite the low poll turnout as a reason the referendum lacks legitimacy (you can't steal an estimated 700,000 votes from ballot boxes and violently intimidate people away from the polling stations, then complain the turnout wasn't high enough).

When he continually refused to enter dialogue with the Catalan secessionists after the vote, and set about plotting a coup to abolish the Catalan parliament instead, he simply spurred them on to make their independence declaration before the Spanish nationalist coup was launched.

Sadly a lot of people who oppose Catalan independence have bought into the simplistic tribal mentality that if you oppose the Catalan secession, then you need to side with and justify the idiotic and self-defeating moves that Mariano Rajoy and the Spanish nationalist establishment have made in response.

Even more disappointingly, several politicians and institutions that should have been positioning themselves as neutrals have destroyed any hope that they can mediate between the factions by openly siding with the Spanish nationalist government in Madrid.

Just hours before the Catalan parliament declared independence and Madrid responded by launching their coup, the EU President Donald Tusk issued what is likely to be remembered as on of the most ill-considered political statements an EU representative has ever made.

His absurd proclamation that "nothing changes", his determination that the EU will only talk with Madrid, and his pathetic "hope" that the Spanish nationalist government don't resort to violence (again) are unacceptable.

Whichever way you look at it "nothing changes" is a delusional rejection of observable reality. Not only has the Catalan parliament unilaterally declared independence from Spain, the Spanish government is launching a social and political coup against Catalonia.

Spain is undergoing its worst political crisis since it joined the EU. In fact it's arguably the worst crisis since the 1936-39 civil war when the fascist  military dictator Franco seized control of the country and set about brutally repressing the Catalan people until 1975.

If this kind of extraordinary political meltdown is considered business as usual in the EU, then perhaps the Brexiters were right all along that the EU is an absolutely farcical organisation that the UK is better off out of?

Tusk's declaration that Spain remains the EU's "only interlocutor" is a catastrophic error of judgement under the circumstances. If the EU leadership had any sense whatever they'd be positioning themselves as neutral mediators not openly siding with Madrid and refusing to even talk to the Catalan political leaders, because after all, the Catalan people are EU citizens too.

Then to tack a vague wishy-washy sound bite onto the end of his statement about how he hopes that the Spanish government favours "force of argument not argument of force" is simply not good enough.

The Spanish government already graphically demonstrated its willingness to resort to violence and repression on October 1st (we all saw it happening on social media) and the EU demonstrated its refusal to condemn it, so EU figures simply hoping that the Spanish government don't resort to violent repression again is clearly no disincentive whatever.

What Tusk should have done is explain that it would be unacceptable for an EU member nation to resort to violence and repression against EU citizens, because all EU citizens are entitled to freedom of speech and freedom from state repression.

Another problem with this vague hope that the Spanish government don't resort to violence and repression is that it's stark-staringly obvious that the only way that conflict and violence can be averted now is through urgent dialogue and mediation. Something that Tusk made all the more difficult in his previous sentence affirming that the EU sides with the Spanish government and has no interest whatever in talking to the Catalans or taking on the role of the neutral mediator.

It's hardly possible to be disappointed with the belligerent, violent, and anti-democratic escalations of Mariano Rajoy and his party. He was always a fool promoted way beyond his abilities, and they were always a bunch of extraordinarily corrupt hard-right fanatics. Only a fool would have expected better from that repulsive bunch.

However, the EU stance, as outlined in Donald Tusk's Twitter statement, is absolutely exasperating. 

If they continue to bury their heads in the sand and refuse to act as impartial mediators this crisis is only going to get worse, and the EU's critics will have an absolute field day when Catalonia descends into tyranny, police violence, mass civil disobedience, the taking of political prisoners, or even tanks on the streets of Barcelona.

It's bad enough that the EU allows this kind of extreme political repression to go on just across the border in Turkey without imposing sanctions and demanding the restoration of liberal democracy, but it'll be a whole new level of wrongness if they allow this kind of repression within EU borders and against EU citizens, and insist on siding with the government that is inflicting it.

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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Imagine if the Catalan situation was happening in Scotland

One of the easiest ways to get an idea of how extreme the situation in Catalonia is, just imagine if the same scenario had been playing out in Scotland.

If this was happening in Scotland

Imagine that Nicola Sturgeon had used her democratic mandate from the Scottish parliament to unilaterally call another independence referendum, and that Theresa May's responses were to launch a sustained campaign of cyber attacks against the Scottish government and pro-independence websites.

Let's say that the cyber-attacks were an inconvenience, but the referendum went ahead anyway, so on the day of the referendum Theresa May sent thousands of police from English forces into Scotland to steal ballot boxes, drag women out of polling stations by their hair, beat up Scottish pensioners, and brutally attack crowds of non-violent Scottish civilians, all recorded by onlookers and broadcast to the world via social media.

Let's say that Theresa May refused to condemn, or even acknowledge the violence.

Then let's say that the Queen makes a speech in which she also refuses to condemn the violence, and blames the Scottish government, and the Scottish people for what is happening, and in front of a portrait of Henry VIII (who sent Edward Seymour to pillage and slaughter in Scotland).

Now let's say that a loud-mouthed member of Theresa May's cabinet decided to issue a veiled death threat against Nicola Sturgeon, but Theresa May and the Tories refuse to reprimand, let alone sack the blabber-mouthed gibbon who made the threats.

Now let's say that the ruling establishment in London decide to arrest the heads of civic Scottish independence groups (Common Weal, Radical Independence Campaign) and imprisoned them without trial.

Let's say that in response to calls for dialogue from Nicola Sturgeon, Theresa May's next move is to continue refusing to talk, and to actually collude with Jeremy Corbyn in order to shut down the Scottish parliament, take over control of the Scottish police force, and impose direct Westminster rule on Scottish broadcast media.

Do you think this sequence of events would crush Scotland into submission to London rule, or do you think it would probably have completely the opposite effect?

Similarities and differences

Of course it's not possible to draw exact parallels, but the similarities are uncanny. Both Theresa May and Mariano Rajoy are hard-right Prime Ministers with too few MPs to form a majority government. Both are far too weak to sack ministers who speak out of line (Boris Johnson and Pablo Cascado who issued the veiled death threat against the Catalan President spring to mind). Additionally both the Catalan President Carles Puigdemont and the Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon have established clear democratic mandates from their own parliaments to hold referendums on independence.

There are a few obvious differences too though. Although Scotland has obviously suffered tragic levels of economic neglect at the hands of the Westminster establishment, and been used as a testing ground for vile Tory policies like Poll Tax and the Bedroom Tax, they haven't suffered anything like the scale of repression that Catalans have. It's important to remember that within living memory Catalonia was ruled from Madrid by the fascist Franco dictatorship who banned the Catalan language, executed the Catalan President (Lluís Companys), and tried to eradicate the Catalan cultural identity.

Another major difference is that although I believe in the abolition of the British monarchy, I'm reasonably confident that the British royal family would not be anything like as foolish and unstatesmanlike as king Felipe. Although their inclination would obviously be to side with the Westminster establishment, there's no way they would make such an obviously biased political intervention. Even if Theresa May pleaded with the Queen to do it, she would be unlikely to agree to dramatically escalate the situation by spewing British nationaist rhetoric, condemning Scotland and the Scottish people, and actually doing it in front of a portrait of one of her ancestors who attacked and repressed the people of Scotland.

And one other obvious difference is that although Jeremy Corbyn opposes Scottish independence, there's absolutely no way he'd imitate the mistake of the Spanish socialist leader Pedro Sánchez by colluding with Theresa May to shut down the Scottish parliament, seize control of the Scottish police, and impose Westminster rule on Scottish broadcasters. Love him or hate him, Corbyn has stuck by his principles for decades, so anything other than calls for dialogue and deescalation would be a massive betrayal of the hundreds of thousands of people who have flocked to the Labour Party to support his leadership.

Conclusion

Although it's obviously impossible to draw an exact parallel between what is happening in Catalonia, and what could be imposed on Scotland if Nicola Sturgeon were to push on with another independence referendum, there are many similarities.

Just imagine for a moment that the Westminster political class responded in a similar manner to the way the Spanish nationalists in Madrid have (cyber war, violent repression of non-violent Scots by English police, taking of political prisoners, Tory government ministers issuing death threats, abolition of the Scottish parliament, and politically motivated take overs of the Scottish police and broadcast media).

Do you think the Scottish people would take this lying down and meekly submit to continued London rule? Or do you think this kind of violent and profoundly anti-democratic display of British nationalism would have precisely the opposite effect and fuel the campaign for Scottish independence?

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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The Spanish political establishment are plotting to attack Catalan political and social autonomy

The right-wing Spanish governing party (PP) and the pseudo-socialist opposition party (PSOE) have announced that they've concocted a plan to seize control of the autonomous region of Catalonia.

Just days after the Catalan President Carles Puigdemont decided to disappoint the secessionist movement by appealing for talks with the Spanish government instead of unilaterally declaring independence (like he said he would before the referendum), the response of the Spanish political class has been to completely ignore the calls for dialogue, and to further escalate the situation by threatening to launch a Spanish nationalist power grab in the region.

The Article 155 plan that the two main Spanish political parties have concocted isn't just to scrap the Catalan parliament and impose Madrid rule until new elections are held, they've also decided to take over local Catalan language TV and radio stations (TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio), and take over running of the Catalan police force (los Mossos) [source - in Catalan].

The reason the Spanish political establishment in Madrid want to exert control over the Catalan police is obvious. They're furious that the Mossos didn't join in with the Guardia Civil and Federal Police to violently repress the October 1st independence vote. In fact the Mossos were actually seen protecting non-violent civilians from the brutality of the Spanish police, and the head of the Mossos was hauled to Madrid to be questioned on trumped up "sedition" charges. 

The reason the Spanish nationalists in Madrid want control of Catalan media is even more obvious. They want to exert as much influence as possible over the Catalan public in order to influence the outcome of the election they're forcing.

They're obviously trying to claim that they're only planning to take over these broadcast organisations to "enforce neutrality", but the extreme lack of neutrality of those plotting this move was betrayed by the PSOE polotician Carmen Calvo who accused the Catalan President of "mounting a revolution against democracy". 

It takes a massive amount of chutzpah to make an accusation like that when you're the one who is plotting to force the closure of a democratically elected parliament and to seize control of broadcast organisations, and just weeks after your allies in the plot sent police in to brutally attack non-violent citizens and actually steal ballot boxes!

The problem is that this plot to seize control of TV stations and radio waves is a very 20th Century approach to mass indoctrination.

There's absolutely no way Catalans are going to take this attack on their autonomy lying down, and if their local TV and radio stations suddenly begin spewing endless pro-Madrid propaganda, they're hardly likely to remain silent about it on social media, or in the streets, cafes, and bars of Catalonia.

Sure, seizing control of broadcasters worked a treat back in the 1970s for the likes of the brutal Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, but in order for the indoctrination efforts to work these days the Spanish political establishment are clearly going to have to significantly increase the cyber-warfare tactics that they deployed against the referendum organisers in September 2017, including the kinds of social media clampdowns witnessed in dictatorships like Turkey and Egypt.

In any other country this kind of anti-democratic scheming would be seen as a political coup d'etat, but somehow there is very little outrage over this outright attack on Catalan political and social autonomy that the Spanish nationalist parties are plotting.

The EU have continued to do nothing to intervene, even after the grotesque displays of state violent state repression of EU citizens during the October 1st independence referendum, and neither have the governments of other supposedly liberal democratic European states like Germany, France, the United Kingdom or Italy.

The craziest thing of all is that this continuous escalation from the Spanish nationalist establishment (cyber-warfare, violent police repression, the taking of political prisoners, veiled death threats from Spanish government ministers, the abolition of democratic Catalan autonomy, seizure of Catalan broadcast organisations ...) is exactly the kind of behaviour that is likely to drive more and more non-partisan Catalan civilians into the welcoming arms of Catalan secessionist parties, who can easily position themselves as the moderate non-violent democrats in this kind of situation.

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

OR

Spain is taking political prisoners while allowing convicted fraudsters to walk free

A lot of people tend to get very angry when you point out that the Spanish political establishment is rapidly descending towards right-wing tyranny.

"But the vote was illegal" they say to excuse the shocking wave of brutal police repression against non-violent Catalan citizens that the whole world witnessed on October 1st. "But they don't represent all Spanish nationalists" they say about the Franco-worshipping fascist-saluting Falangists thugs who are gleefully celebrating the violent repression of Catalonia. "But everyone knows he's a nasty piece of work" they say about the Spanish government minister who wasn't even sacked for issuing a veiled death threat against the Catalan President Carles Puigdemont ...

And now they have something else to make excuses for. The Spanish establishment has resorted to taking Catalan civic leaders as political prisoners.

Jordi Sanchez, the leader of the ANC movement, and Jordi Cuixart, who heads the Ómnium Cultural association have been arrested and are being held without bail on possible charges of sedition because of their involvement in a spontaneous political protest on September 20th.

Jailing non-violent citizens without trial is obviously bad enough in its own right, but then if you look at some of the criminals from the Spanish political establishment who have been let off for massive corruption and fraud scandals, the shocking bias of the Spanish legal establishment becomes absolutely clear.

Rodrigo Rato (a former finance minister for the ruling Partido Popular) was found guilty of embezzlement from the Spanish bank Bankia, but was released on a technicality instead of serving a single day of his four year jail sentence.

Iñaki Urdangarín (the Spanish king's brother-in-law) was found guilty of tax fraud and corruption in Mallorca, but was released on a technicality instead of serving any of his six year jail sentence.

The Spanish nationalist establishment have got a proven track record of refusing to jail their own, even when they've actually been found guilty of incredible levels of corruption, fraud, and embezzlement. But when it comes to Catalan secessionists, they lock them up and throw away the key before there's even been a proper investigation, let alone a trial!

The crazy thing is that supporters of Spanish nationalism will immediately begin making excuses for the taking of political prisoners. They'll claim "it's for the good of Spain", and spread Orwellian propaganda about what a wonderful liberal place Spain is (while they're simultaneously excusing imprisonment without trial!). They'll turn a blind eye to the double standard that allows the convicted fraudsters Rato and Urdangarín to walk free, while Catalan civic leaders who haven't been found guilty of anything are locked up.

The big problem with this Spanish nationalist attitude is that it's massively counter-productive.

Their refusal to condemn the images we all saw of Spanish police brutalising pensioners, stealing ballot boxes, wading into unarmed and non-violent crowds with batons, and dragging women around by their hair; their blind acceptance of the belligerent escalations by the Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and the king of Spain; their excuse-making over the taking of political prisoners ...

These people don't even seem to realise that all of this violence,oppression and Spanish nationalist rhetoric has the appearance of a Francoist resurgence, and their blind support for it terrifies people who remember the same kind of blind support that millions of Spanish nationalists gave to the savage Franco dictatorship until his death in 1975.

If people are unwilling to condemn the wave of police brutality against non-violent citizens, Spanish government ministers making death threats (and not even getting sacked for it), and the taking of political prisoners, how far will they actually go in their appeasement? 

Would anything actually be too much for them? 

Would they still be making excuses and attempting to glorify Spain as a wonderful "liberal democracy" if the government in Madrid scrapped the democratically elected Catalan parliament? If the Spanish political establishment abolished free speech to make talking of Catalan independence a crime? If they sent the army in to occupy Barcelona? If they reintroduced Francoist concentration camps to punish political thought crime?

As far as I'm concerned, they've already gone way too far if they're making excuses for the state violence and political repression that's already happening.

If they can watch a video clip of a Spanish police officer violently dragging a woman around by her hair and believe that "she deserved it" because she was trying to vote in a referendum they didn't want to happen ... or if they're prepared to actively celebrate imprisonment without trial for Catalan civic leaders while establishment fraudsters like Rato and Urdangarín still walk free, then they'll likely find an excuse for pretty much anything the Spanish ruling elite do.

But what is worse, from a pragmatic perspective, is the sheer self-defeating idiocy of it. Every step the Spanish political establishment takes towards the resurrection of the Franco dictatorship is another step towards the eventual secession of Catalonia.

When the king of Spain refuses to condemn the violent oppression of his own people, when the Prime Minister of Spain refuses to discipline his own government minister for making death threats against the elected Catalan President, and when the corrupt Spanish establishment turn Catalan civic leaders into high-profile political prisoners while allowing convicted fraudsters from their own class to walk free, they're not dampening Catalan secessionism, they're wilfully pouring fuel on the fire.

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King Felipe's hypocritical and cowardly speech about Catalonia

After social media was flooded with images of the violent repression of peaceful Catalans by the Spanish nationalist government the king of Spain refused to speak out for over two days. 

In an atmosphere of rising criticism of his silence Felipe finally spoke out, not to condemn the violence, but to accuse the democratically elected government of Catalonia of being "disloyal to Spain" and "undemocratic" for having organised a democratic vote on Catalan independence.

The brass neck of the man is incredible. He's the unelected king of Spain, and he knows perfectly well that he only holds that title because his dad was appointed king by the brutal military dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

It just goes to show the extreme levels of contempt he has for the Spanish public that someone in such a position could dare to consider accusing others of being undemocratic, but he seriously seems to believe that his subjects are that thick that they'd accept an unelected monarch attacking an elected regional government as undemocratic.

Despite an estimated 700,000 people taking to the streets in Catalonia to protest the violence on the same day as his speech, Felipe's speech made no reference at all to the brutal police repression of the Catalan people, and instead focused on Spanish nationalist themes that could have been written for him by the hard-right Spanish nationalist government in Madrid.

Such an act of cowardice makes it absolutely clear that despite his claims to the contrary, he had no intention of addressing the concerns of the Catalan people, and that his words were intended solely to shore up support for Spanish nationalism in the rest of the country.

Aside from his ludicrous attack on the Catalan regional government and his cowardly refusal to condemn the police violence, there was also some very sinister stuff going on too.

People were quick to pick up on the fact that the painting behind his head was a portrait of a baton-wielding Charles III, who was the king who tried to eradicate the Catalan language by imposing the Spanish (Castillian) on the Catalan education system in 1768.

There's no way that this particular choice of backdrop was a coincidence. 

Felipe deliberately decided to send the Catalans a message that his continuing silence over the wave of police brutality against non-violent Catalan voters is because he actively supports the violent repression of Catalonia by Spanish supremacists.

How else is it possible to explain his decision to sit in front of a baton-wielding oppressor of Catalonia just days after the world witnessed Spanish police thugs attacking non-violent Catalan civilians with batons for the "crime" of desiring democratic self-determination?

It wasn't just the glaring hypocrisy, the visual backdrop, or the shocking lack of condemnation of the brutality of the Spanish police that are concerning about Felipe's speech either.

Another major concern is the way that he banged on about the "permanence of Spain" and threatened that "no democratic co-existence is possible in peace and liberty" without "respect" for the supremacy of the Spanish nationalist rulers in Madrid.

Such language clearly comes across as a threat that peace, liberty and democracy in Catalonia are at stake if they don't obey their superiors in Madrid.

This kind of attitude is alarming because it implies that the Spanish nationalist establishment have already decided that if the Catalans decide to continue moving towards independence, then the peace, liberty and democratic rights of the Catalans will be sacrificed in order to keep the region under Spanish rule.

The Catalan President Carles Puigdemont has already stated that he intends to use the 90% yes vote to move towards a declaration of Catalan independence, so it remains to be seen what the Spanish nationalists in Madrid intend to do about it. 

If the one-sidedness, hypocrisy and blatant Spanish supremacism of Felipe's speech is anything to go by, then a suspension of Catalan democracy and the violent repression of the Catalan people are the cards they're already preparing to play.

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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