Kenneth McRoberts is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Glendon Campus, York University and author of Catalonia: nation-building without a state.
On Sunday, the international community was presented with graphic images of Spanish police seeking to prevent a referendum on Catalonia independence. Police used clubs and rubber bullets to disperse crowds of citizens seeking to vote. Videos show police pulling would-be voters by the hair and even tossing them down a flight of stairs. As reported by The Globe and Mail, more than 800 people were injured. At the same time, media coverage clearly revealed the determination of hundreds of thousands of Catalans to exercise what they saw as their democratic right to decide their future.
The government of Catalonia, which is located in northeastern Spain, was attempting to stage a referendum with the question "Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic?" The Spanish state had been seeking through all available means to prevent the referendum from happening.
Over the past few weeks Spanish police have infringed freedom of expression through a wide variety of measures: confiscating pro-independence posters and leaflets, seizing referendum ballots, halting a public speech by a Catalan parliamentarian, searching the headquarters of a political party favouring independence and summoning more than 700 mayors who had pledged to facilitate the referendums. Police arrested 14 Catalan government officials and a judge forced the closure of a website through which the Catalan government was seeking to organize the referendum. The Spanish Attorney-General even implied that Catalonia's President could be imprisoned over the referendum.
Given this pattern of activity, Sunday's chaos, including the police excesses, was entirely predictable. For its part, denying any police misconduct and declaring that no referendum had taken place, the Spanish government places all responsibility for the mayhem on the Catalan government and its effort to organize an "illegal" referendum. Pointing to a provision in the Spanish constitution that declares the "indivisibility" of Spain, the Spanish government has been claiming that it has legal authority for its various efforts to block the referendum and that it is seeking to defend Spanish democracy. Its Foreign Minister recently went so far as to attack the very notion of referendums as a democratic instrument, contending that "a referendum isn't the same as a democracy" and that "referendums are a weapon of choice of dictators."
In point of fact, referendums can be precisely the measure for dealing with secession demands in a democratic state. As Canadians well know, the country has experienced two referendums on Quebec secession. In respect of democracy, Canada's political leaders took no action to prevent these referendums from being held. Instead, they openly participated in the referendum debates, making the case for Canada and against Quebec independence. By the same token, a few years ago the British government jointly organized with Scotland a referendum on Scottish independence. As it happens, neither Scotland nor Quebec has seceded. In a judgment concerning Quebec secession that has earned international influence and respect, Canada's Supreme Court declared that "a clear majority vote in Quebec on a clear question in favour of secession would confer democratic legitimacy on the secession initiative which all of the other participants in Confederation would have to recognize."
Denying both the legality and democratic legitimacy of a referendum on secession, the Spanish government has relied on the courts, including the highly politicized Constitutional Court, to deal with an inherently political matter. It has made no concerted effort to persuade Catalans that it is in their interest to remain part of Spain nor has it made a serious attempt to develop new arrangements for Catalonia that could shore up support for staying with Spain. In particular, it has refused to contemplate the conversion of Spain to a plurinational federation, which studies have shown is precisely the option favoured by most Catalans.
In fact, going back a number of years, the party currently occupying the Spanish government (the Partido Popular) orchestrated a Constitutional Court judgment that severely curtailed a reinforcement of Catalonia's autonomy that the Spanish parliament, and a Catalan referendum, had already approved. That court judgment triggered the surge in support for Catalan independence that has dominated this decade.
In doing all it can to block a vote on Catalan independence, yet failing to develop a viable alternative to the status quo, the Spanish government runs the risk of making more likely the very outcome it is seeking at all costs to prevent. To the extent it succeeded in undermining Sunday's referendum, it may have won the battle but lost the war. Whatever the outcome, the cause of democracy has not been well served.