Seems random developers were targeted as well as European Parliament members (and more):
> Jordi Baylina is the technology lead at Polygon, a popular decentralised Ethereum scaling platform. He is also an advisor on projects related to digital voting and decentralisation, and has built a widely-used privacy toolkit. He was extensively targeted with Pegasus, receiving at least 26 infection attempts. Ultimately, he was infected at least eight times between October 2019 and July 2020.
> Baylina received a text message masquerading as a boarding pass link for a Swiss International Air Lines flight he had purchased. Targeting in this case indicates that the Pegasus operator may have had access to Baylina’s Passenger Name Record (PNR) or other information collected from the carrier.
Scare stuff that not just random text messages can infect you (we knew this) but combined with harvesting other data (like PNR), they can time to exploit messages with other actions you do (like buying an flight ticket) and get you that way.
I was scared of receiving random text messages already, but easy to just ignore them as they have nothing to do with me. But if I buy a flight ticket and receive a text message that looks relevant to me, I'm not sure I'd be able to guess it was actually malicious. Scary stuff.
Edit: The more I read, the worse it gets:
> Another common mode of targeting was to masquerade as official notifications from Spanish government entities, including the Tax and Social Security authorities.The messages also used SMS Sender IDs to masquerade as official agency accounts.
> Notably, fake official messages were sometimes highly personalized. For example, a message sent to Jordi Baylina included a portion of his actual official tax identification number, suggesting that the Pegasus operator had access to this information.
Seems clear at this point that the official Spanish government was behind these attacks, or the official registries got hacked (together with various delivery companies). Both are bad, but that signs are pointing to the earlier makes it even worse.
It seems that the Spanish government can't help itself to give more fuel to the fire that is the fight for Catalan independence. Who'd want to belong to a state that constantly suppresses and surveillance you?
‘Nation state’ is the appropriate term of art in the context of cyber security. The fact that a domestic service appears to be attacking an area that is seeking autonomy makes it more relevant.
Nowhere in its constitution is defined like that, it’s not a confederation of nations but a parliamentarian monarchy that respects regional cultural differences.
No official document, not even the Constitution, can be a final authority on what a nation is. That's just the official definition.
Many scholars, politicians, and citizens, even excluding people outside of the Overton window, describe Spain as containing several nations. At the very least Catalonia, the Basque Country / Euskal Herria, and Galicia are widely (but not unanimously) considered to have the historic, cultural, social characteristics that would make them nations. The spanish constitution is a document of compromise, born of a very special time in history; whatever it says about what Spain is, we don't have to accept it.
(Biases disclaimer: I'm Spanish, specifically castilian; I don't support Catalonian independence, and I dislike all nationalisms; all nations are more like big balls of wibbly wobbly... nation-y wimey... stuff)
This piece of news doesn't yet show up on the spanish newspapers I trust; I'm really curious to see if it makes the news. I'll be extremely concern if, as I fear, if doesn't.
Getting upset about people confusing the difference between nation and state is like getting upset about people using hacker to mean computer criminal. That ship has sailed long time ago.
Also when you dive into what 'nation' really means, it starts hitting people's racism and 'X supremacy' instincts fairly quickly, so people use the word ethnicity or culture instead nowadays.
> Only one of them control the state, and that is and has always been Castilla.
More BS. Are you saying that the Catalonian politicians in the government are spies from Castilla? Maybe disguised under evil twisted castillian moustaches?.
Please, lets be serious. I can see politicians from each coin of Spain in the government.
I'm not sure I understand. Let's say your SIM card has number X but you also use Google Voice number Y. If you buy flight tickets, you're probably going to give them number Y when you purchase your tickets. If a malicious state actor has access to the passenger flight manifests for the airline it's pretty likely that they also access to the other information you've given the airline, including the phone number and email you supplied the airline, so they'll also know that you gave them number Y in the checkout flow. What am I missing here?
To my knowledge NSO software (and similar) target exploits in OS-specific applications (think default Messages app on iOS) rather than, e.g., Google Voice. That being said, I personally don't know if Google Voice and similar are special enough not to have their own exploits (spoiler: they probably aren't, and Google Voice in particular would be a very enticing target).
I'd expect there's more to it than that, though. I'm really not familiar with these exploits.
Look into the Google Voice app. You can get a free US number that works with both SMS and calls. It routes calls through Google's VOIP I believe.
I use it as a burner for any website that requires a phone number. I figure it will be easy enough to change my burner phone number if it gets leaked to some shady DB.
I don't use those services. I change the SIM card in my phone (and its direct number) several times per year, it would make use of those services impossible.
> Seems clear at this point that the official Spanish government was behind these attacks, or the official registries got hacked (together with various delivery companies). Both are bad, but that signs are pointing to the earlier makes it even worse.
Not arguing again't your claim either way, but SMS sender can be set to anything, it's a feature of the system for it to work. The "DNI" (Spanish identification number) can't be considered private information and isn't difficult to find.
The mix of having access to Pegasus, PNR database, records from delivery services and more makes it clear that it's not a solo/individual hacker/group doing all of this, it would require extensive compromise of multiple organizations to get access to those kind of things.
That's similar to the Spanish government being behind the attacks... Effectively, a member of the Spanish government used (misused) their official capacity to take action against Catalan officials.
Perhaps that's not the official stance of the government, but an organization is only a monolith with a single public position to the extent that they're able to enforce proper actions. The official Spanish government being publicly neutral but actually unable to ensure that their own members act in accord with this position and instead instigating extensive attacks is not that different from the official Spanish government being behind the attacks. Will the insider be punished sufficiently to deter others from following in their footsteps?
"Insiders" are a very broad set of people, including low-level bureaucrats and motivations can include profit.
To pick one of the more likely scenarios: if a government worker sold a database on the open (criminal) market, there's no meaningful sense in which "the Spanish government is behind this".
I don't know him myself, and after a quick search he seems to be another blockchain developer involved in bunch of project, I have no idea about his ties to any "freedom fighting" organizations.
If what he is doing is illegal, does that mean there is a warrant out for his arrest? He seems to be doing talks, presentations and other things out in public, wouldn't he be arrested by now if he's doing something illegal?
UK? The SNP constantly champions for Scottish independence, plenty of people agree, plenty disagree, I don't recall any suggestion from either side it's illegal. There are also independence movements of varying sizes in Wales, Cornwall, "The North", and London.
The Texas Nationalist Movement may be funded and driven by Russia, but I don't believe Daniel Miller has been arrested or indeed broken any laws.
Corsican nationalists likewise seem fine. Corsica Libera for example got 8 seats in the 2021 regional elections in France
The general view of the world is that people have a right to self determination. Some governments trample on that - Spain and Argentina for example do not like the right to self-determination, but the UN GA agrees it's a universal right.
Thanks for this reply, it's great to have some global perspective on this. It is important sometimes to view things as an outsider and this comment made me realize a few things.
Texas has wanted to secede far before Russian influence was a thing. Similar movements are present in California (mainly to split it rather than secede, but same mechanics)
I don't think Texas wants to secede, polls in 2016 put it about 2:1 against, but some people in Texas have wanted to secede since the Civil War. Their's nothing illegal about their movements, and them trying to expand their cause.
Presumably if a majority* of people in Texas (or Alaska, or Nebraska, or New York City) wanted to be independent from the US then they would be allowed - certainly there would be a moral right to do so.
* Definition of majority, the location of borders, etc is a different discussion, but the fundamental right to people in New York City, Barcelona, Crimea, Portugal, etc, to determine their own affairs isn't up for discussion as far as I'm concerned.
I was agreeing, I was just being specific that secession has been on the table for Texans since it was a country being adopted into the United States. Russians might go ruffle some feathers there and make them talk about it more but it's an idea all to Texas' own.
I'm not terribly knowledgeable about Spain's "democratic legal framework" so maybe you can instead point me to what laws he's breaking?
Is it possible as well that you have a different understanding of that "legal framework" than the prosecution/government/courts of Spain has? Since again, he doesn't seem to be wanted nor arrested for anything.
Wasn't the Catalan politicians also jailed for "misuse of public funds" rather than "inciting against territorial integrity" just because opinions about independence is not illegal in Spain? Or maybe I have that wrong. In that case, it seems Jordi in this case cannot be held responsible for that since he doesn't manage any public funds.
I can't reply to the branch comment so I do here: I have edited my parent comment to reflect the fact it's an opinion and might not be true. Thanks for bringing some insight to this.
I must also add I'm a bit disappointed that people are flagging comments they don't agree with. I thought users here value freedom of speech highly. My comments broke no terms I know of. Perhaps a bit passionate, if anything.
Oh. Seems a bit extreme for you to claim "According to Spanish law [...] what he is doing, is illegal" then, don't you think?
If everything points towards him not breaking the law, shouldn't we by default assume that he in fact didn't break any law? Unless you have something pointing towards that he did break the law after-all.
It should be legal everywhere or else it’s not really a full democracy. Inciting violence to accomplish those ends should be illegal but not self determination itself.
Canada? The federal government literally had to resort to participating in the referendum campaign in quebec, since they couldn't really do anything more than that.
Any "democratic" framework that forbids advocating for regional independence is in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In Spain, such advocacy is called "secessionism", and is illegal, and sanctioned with long prison sentences.
> Supporting independence is not illegal in Spain.
This is debatable. Speech is not illegal, rioting in the streets or putting a log in a railway to stop a train and deploy a banner is definitely illegal. Spending millions of public money in a fake ridged election without any guaranties is 100% illegal, and it feels so close to a disguised coup that it hurts.
To everyone reading this comment please be aware of Poe's law. It's very hard to intuit intent online, this comment could be sincere, but it could also be satire.
So, good chance the author has the same views you do, so there's no reason to be mean to them.
Correction: Anyone doing things that the government doesn’t like will probably be forced to face the fact that the government is the arbiter of what is, and isn’t, “illegal”.
>Anyone doing illegal activities must face consequences.
While I'm not familiar with Spain's legal system, it is normally the case in legal systems that there is not a 'must' at play. Consequences can be given by the state, but the law does not demand they must be given. The state is not in violation of the law when it chooses to not attempt enforcement of the law. Be this a cop not choosing to give a speeding ticket to someone who wasn't speeding too dangerously, a prosecutor not enforcing a case they aren't sure they'll win, or for other reasons.
This is relevant because given that the law lacks a 'must' directive ensuring it is always enforced, we need to determine when should the law be enforced. Even if one really does support enforcing the law whenever it is broken with no exceptions, support for such a stance is as warranted as support for any other stance would be.
Candiru is the name of an amazonian species of fish with a history of anecdotes of entering the human urethra sometimes requiring amputation of genitals.
CEOs, executives, members of parliaments, journalists, researchers at industrial labs, those working in defense/military, etc are at elevated risk of being hacked by governments and hacking companies such as NSO.
I wonder how these people protect their digital assets?
Are there guidelines?
For example, if I am Microsoft CEO, would it be okay if I use the closed source iPhone from a competing company? Or perhaps these people use special hardened devices?
Because even Apple CEO uses iPhone, and Pegasus apparently could hack any iPhone with zero click. So what prevents acquisition of highly valuable inside information by NSO or its customers (sensitive data about the company, iOS source code, implanting malware by infecting Apple engineers for the next exploit, etc)?
> So what prevents acquisition of highly valuable inside information by NSO or its customers
Given the Bezos hack two years ago I think the answer to that question is actually, very little. Cisco and Blackberry for example used to provide hardened phones for executives but with the prominence of modern smartphones it seems like even CEOs of large companies are increasingly on insecure hardware.
This seems like a good time to remember when an (apparently solo) spanish speaking hacker completely owned Hacking Team's (italian company that sells spyware to governments and that was mentioned/used in this post/attack) network and then detailed all the steps in what is still a really fascinating read. [0]
The sysadmin's password was, wait for it... P4ssword
I reverse engineered a sketchy link I got in an SMS. I opened up Tor Browser Bundle (with JS disabled), then went to a URL 'un-shortener' service[0]. Furthermore, I saw an interstitial page with a JavaScript payload in it, and it was all obfuscated and obviously coded to hide what it was doing.
I could have gone further and unpacked the code, beautifying it to see what 0 day it was leveraging, but I didn't proceed further. Obviously, this was designed to take over my device. Luckily, my default browser on my phone is Firefox with JavaScript turned off, so it wouldn't have been able to execute if I did click on the link.
Javascript is absolutely not the only way these payloads can infect your device, so I wouldn't consider that particularly safe.
Also, if you aren't on a phone or similar, you can just use curl to expand shortened URLS. Tell it follow redirects (-L) and print headers (-I), and use the last "location: " header it spits out. e.g.,
curl -fsSLI https://t.co/blahblah | sed -n 's/^location: //p'
I know I'm replying to a 2 day old comment now, but I should add that I understand there may be a benefit to using a URL expanding service, in that the connection is not made from your host, so the various endpoints of your URLs won't see your IP address, etc. But the single URL expanding service will see all the URLs you expand and your IP address, etc., so you should trust it as much as any VPN service or ISP. That is to say, you should not trust it at all, until given numerous legal, technical, and reputational guarantees or assurances.
I see something very positive in this news - it looks like Apple and other companies have successfully blocked most if not all of Pegasus' 0-click exploits
The true scary portion of this world is not even being sent an SMS/clicking a dangerous link, for a while people were getting infected without ever clicking anything
To me the most interesting leak/investigation that can come out of NSO is what happens once a 0-day is patched, is there downtime? do customers need to wait for a software update? is there automatic rotation of exploits?
I wondered about how they manage their exploits too. Presumably they are constantly developing new exploits. I would guess that if they have a live 0-click that is working reliably they sit on the others until the current exploit is no longer effective. I doubt NSO considers their customers fully trustworthy. So they probably check every prerelease of ios and android for patches and ship the next exploit to customers only when a current exploit is being patched.
> To me the most interesting leak/investigation that can come out of NSO is what happens once a 0-day is patched, is there downtime? do customers need to wait for a software update? is there automatic rotation of exploits?
I'd have to think NSO Group has the finances to bank at least a few 0-click, zero-days. It seems that the price of such vulnerabilities is increasing however. Zerodium, a large zero-day broker, is paying up to 2.5 million USD for 0-click Android and 2 million USD for iOS: https://zerodium.com/program.html
All these spyware incidents by nation states prove one thing: how fickle the so called rule of law is in much of the western democracy. In fact west has increasingly become de facto kleptocracy with media and nation state security apparatus actively seeking ways to maintain and grow the power for the national elites leaving them unchecked.
I mean, this was all happening before too, we just had less visibility into it.
If you think that the governments of 'western democracies' weren't spying on their own citizens or going against their own laws - even in collaboration with private interests - before the advent of the Internet and spyware/malware, I've got bad news for you.
Sure, but even now with the greater visibility we have, these claims are never taken seriously en masse. One group would call you a traitor, and another would call you a conspiracy theorist.
I do not have a solution, but I'd just like to point out that if someone on HN makes a comment like the one GP did, they 100% understand that this isn't "new". I also don't think we should just accept this as a part of life because "it was all happening before", because the level of spying the internet has enabled is orders of magnitude worse than it was without it. We should be afraid and upset.
I agree with the latter part of what you're saying, but as for the former, you'd be surprised how many people I've met who really do think a lot of this surveillance and "our government does bad things" stuff is a recent development.
And yes, I have been, and remain, upset about it. No worries there.
If anything, what’s “new” would be any widespread-among-the-proletariat expectation that governments aren’t just a mixture of personalities assembled into ad hoc and historical factions feuding to control as much money and power as possible.
I would like to learn more about common views on this. Would my belief above actually be true going back as long as monarchies have existed, until maybe post WW2?
I’d see it as a magical period between WW2 and today where the belief was in fairness and universal rule of law.
Everybody is pointing to the government because yeah, Spain bad. I have a different candidate for you. Why not Interpol?
A lad involved in crypto trade and online voting travels to Switzerland, from a place notorious by recent suspicious money movements linked with Switzerland banks. I bet that this particular combination of keywords would raise some eyebrows and trigger a discreet interest by any police working in anticorruption or money laundering.
Where's that quote about how Spain always seems to be close to collapse, but still somehow keeps going? For a variety of reasons I am often surprised that Spain hasn't turned into a Swiss style federation, at the very least (i.e. with the Federal government almost being powerless). Madrid seems to be the only area that actually wants (or wanted) the state to be as it is.
Spaniard here, I don't believe a federation-like would work here. Historically the more independence/leeway that has been given to Catalonia, the stronger it has snowballed into more separatism (e.g. when allowed to have somewhat different media, education, etc. that was turned to teach the younger generations that Catalonia is a different culture and not belonging to Spain, which in turn ...).
TBH I do not know what the solution is here, I'd like to see a unified country, but I can see how both the left and right politic parties are destroying it (one with lies/doctrinism, other with oppression/treating them like they are still 3rd party) and makes me sad. When visiting Barcelona, Spanish is often the 3rd language, after the Catalan (for Catalonian and the rest of Spain) and English (for tourists).
Edit: look at the numbers, it's scary how in a single generation a whole region has gone from 90%+ wanting to be united to 50%+ wanting independence, specially during a "peace" era:
> When visiting Barcelona, Spanish is often the 3rd language
Non separatist Catalan here and I can say this is complete BS. There is no doubt that there is more people in Catalunya that doesn't know Catalan than Spanish. I have been raised in a family that has been speaking Catalan for many generations and everybody now is almost bilingual with Spanish. And oh hell if I wish that English was the second language there.
Tired of this propaganda that only causes more pain and exalts nationalist feelings in both sides.
Just my experience as an occasional visitor to BCN, lots of people will answer in Catalan when you talk to them in Spanish to make a point, but then in the tourist areas everyone speaks English. Not BS, maybe an isolated experience but that was my experience over there (and I only visited tourist-y spots, so there's a strong bias ofc). I'm not saying they don't know how to speak Spanish, I'm saying many people won't to make a point.
Based on a couple of occasions I've been in Barcelona and around Catalunya, people always answered me in Spanish (both in tourist and non-tourist locations) when I was in Barcelona and surrounding areas, while when I visited Lleida and Vic (and surrounding areas), they always answered me in Catalan (and one time even got visibly angry when I couldn't reply to them in Catalan, only in Spanish).
So my anecdote would be that generally Barcelona seems to be fine with Spanish (and walking around the city I heard a lot more Spanish than both English and Catalan) while areas up north/west seems to almost require you to speak in Catalan.
Makes sense too as Barcelona is aan international city and has many immigrants from Latin America. And many people from other parts of Spain live here too.
In the rural area that's much less except for the migrant farm workers
As a bilingual Spanish-catalan speaker this does not match my experience at all. I was raised in Barcelona and approach people in either language and I can remember maybe 2 occasions were sbdy demanded to be spoken in one specific language. You can see this a lot in groups of friends where people switch languages all the time. It is a beautiful thing to see.
Sorry but it is bullshit. I actually _tried_ to learn Catalan (I am already pretty fluent in Spanish) while I was teaching in Barcelona out of all places and found it impossible to use it in real-life. Everyone would just speak Spanish between themselves, even other teachers.
Is not BS it is a synthetic effort from the government? Lol.
Go there and experience it yourself and try to create an objective opinion from it. Another fact, most of the first generation immigrants will learn Spanish way earlier than Catalan, if they ever learn Catalan at all. And I am not saying this is bad, as for practical reasons they will obviously learn the 4th most spoken language in the world before learning a language that is spoken by 7 million people. Besides they know that with Spanish they can communicate with everybody, which is not the case with Catalan.
More rigor and an independent point of view from politicians and media is needed if there is a real will to solve the issue.
This is my reason for learning Spanish yes. It's just so useful in the world. Catalan is useless outside Catalonia.
If they do secede from Spain I will not learn Catalan, I will just leave. I'll probably have to anyway because I assume Spain will force them out of the EU and there's no way the multinational I work for will stay then.
It feels very similar to Ireland where they also use heavy handed methods to keep their language alive but in a globalized world it would hurt them a lot if it were actually needed to live there. So it has to stay this fringe thing. A lot of it is just to pacify the old people that still associate English with the British oppression (which was brutal to be fair)
I assume this will happen to Catalan too, the oppression is just a lot more recent to them. So it's more fresh and alive.
FWIW I'm Dutch and I wouldn't care if my country abolishes Dutch in favor of English. I view language as a means of communication, not cultural identity. And as such being able to communicate with as many people as possible makes a language more valuable.
That was an overwhelmingly optimistic article made long long ago. The truth is that not even everyone who got to learn it uses preferently within Catalan speaking regions. Let alone southern France or Alguer (Italy).
>TBH I do not know what the solution is here, I'd like to see a unified country, but I can see how both the left and right politic parties are destroying it (one with lies/doctrinism, other with oppression/treating them like they are still 3rd party) and makes me sad. When visiting Barcelona, Spanish is often the 3rd language, after the Catalan (for Catalonian and the rest of Spain) and English (for tourists).
What's wrong with having separate countries? Would Canadians be better off if they were part of America? I don't understand westerners who cheer for independence in places like Xinjiang and Tibet but steadfastly oppose the idea when any region of their own country wants to be independent.
Agreed! There's the theory that people don't willingly aggregate into large countries, they need to be manipulated or coerced (pledge every day in school, anthem at sports events, etc), and that large countries inevitably become bullies, unable to restrain themselves from dominating the weak.
The book Breakdown of Nations by Leopold Khor talks about this. He talks about the idea of dividing into smaller political units to fix our problems. He makes a lot of sense. There's a video summarizing the book [0].
To prevailing reasoning for not letting Catalunya decide that without involving the rest of Spain seems to be because Catalunya is one of the biggest contributor to the overall economy of Spain, so if Catalunya leaves Spain, it'll impact the entire country, not just Catalunya itself.
They are wealthy because they have high-quality policy-making and a less corrupt government than the other autonomous communities. Other parts of Spain could engage in reform efforts of their own and contribute just as much to the government budget. Why should this be an argument against Catalunya?
> they have a less corrupt government than the other
Yeah, sure.
"In July 2014, Jordi Pujol confessed that for 34 years, including 23 as the President of Catalonia, he had maintained secret foreign bank accounts inherited from his father".
"His children have amassed a fortune in private businesses that frequently did business and received contracts from the Catalan government" (The infamous 3% scandal).
"They have investments in the tens of millions of dollars in Mexico, Panama and Argentina. Financial records show the movement of money between foreign banks in Andorra, Switzerland, Jersey, Cayman Islands and other tax havens in excess of €100 million".
He and his seven children face charges for illicit association, money laundering, falsification of documents and seven different tax crimes. the prosecutor asks between that could compris between 28 and 7 years of jail. The wife has been recorded laundering money but has been exonerated by her problems of health.
Well, a much more desirable solution would be not having a corrupt government for most of the last decades.
At least four of the last presidents of Cataluña (all either from the Pujol's party or their legacy) had been involved in a rich catalog of scams and frauds, including one fugitive in search and capture and two inhabilitated by repeatedly disobeying the laws that they should represent or spending public money in very questionable ways.
There is material here for several godfather trilogies plus a police academy series. Is simply grotesque.
While there has been corruption in all sides, this statement needs clarification. The search and capture issued to interpol was obeyed by Germany. Upon examination of Spain‘s reasons the court in Germany decided it was not enough proof to send Puigdemont back to Spain. If anything, this seems to contradict what one would think of when reading the above sentence without context.
> Why should this be an argument against Catalunya?
I have no stake in either outcome of independence happening or not, but I can definitely understand that some people can see it as problematic if one part of a bigger thing wants to leave without considering the other parts.
I still think Catalunya should be able to decide themselves, just like the UK decided themselves if they wanna leave the EU. Forcing states to belong to other states is something I thought we left behind a long time ago.
You can't look at net contribution on its own. Catalonia didn't bootstrap itself into wealth just like that. There is infrastructure investment, which may be payed back net later. Other regions didn't get this treatment.
Infrastructure investment should not be an argument for imperialism. The British built plenty of railways in India too, doesn't mean they get to rule the country.
I did not say that Spain has a right to rule. I am saying that arguing around "net contributions" is moot (even contradictory) in the case of Catalonia and similar regions.
To force them to stay because other groups rely on money taken from them doesn't sound right. A similiar reasoning for keeping slavery existed in the US over similiar claims.
Slavery is an unfortunate comparison. Barcelona made a lot of money in the antiquity by being a main port in the slave trade that lasted until the XIX century it seems. Much later than other places.
The idea here would be more like: I rebuild your home, I spend a lot in infrastructures for you and now that you are rich you slam your door in my face.
Would this actually be such a bad idea if all parties were still part of some supranational entity like the EU with some level of free movement and common regulation?
I actually would like to see this type of balkanization happen while still keeping everything inside the EU, incl open borders. This was actually the idea of the early Pan-Europa people... As it is right now, the population heavyweights in the EU have way too much say compared to the smaller states.
Surely the kindergartener attitude is the attitude that a group of people should be denied self-determination and forced to be part of a larger political body against their will. It's the same kind of childish reasoning China uses to justify oppressing Xinjiang and Tibet, and that Russia's using for annexing parts of Ukraine.
> Surely the kindergartener attitude is the attitude that a group of people should be denied self-determination and forced to be part of a larger political body against their will
HN lately doesn't fail to disappoint. I don't know what else to do other than quote what you are replying to. Turn your auto pilot off.
> I am neither for nor against Catalan independence
The reasoning China and Russia give for their actions is facile. You're rather making my point.
"Catalonia should be independent! And Barcelona should be an independent city-state within it! Why not!"
"I am neither for nor against independence but this is an overly simplistic attitude, you clearly haven't thought about what you're saying seriously at all"
"You're just like China!"
> Voting independence is preferred over military or terrorist tactics.
I have a better idea, why not threat with stop breathing until their requirements are accepted?
Now seriously. This is a false dichotomy. Threatening an entire nation with terrorism until you have your candy and are allowed to stole the properties of the majority of your neighbors is neither acceptable, funny, or serious. Not when all that you have to sustain your utopia is a big mouth and guerrilla tricks seen in internet.
If suggesting naive adolescents to engage in terrorism is the level of the arguments, we need more adults entering the room. Blackmailing an entire country will often backfire.
Giving me a billion dollars is preferred over terrorist tactics. The argument makes no sense here.
What if that town votes for independence and then votes to be part of, lets say, China? They would have enough resources then. But anyway, nobody is using the resource argument here in the Catalonian independence issue.
> Giving me a billion dollars is preferred over terrorist tactics. The argument makes no sense here.
You may not like it but it does make sense - countries have come into existence as a direct result of "terrorism" leading to civil war. Given the demographic breakdown of HN, it is very likely you live in one of those right now. Also remember that Spain struggled with violent separatist movement which was still active well into this century, so it is certainly not outside the realm of possibility.
No, it doesn't make sense because we're not in a situation where we have to stop terrorism from happening. It's just a made up scenario, a false dilemma, terrorism or independence.
Terrorism in Catalonia was a thing years ago but it stopped. They never went as far as the ETA terrorist group from the Basque Country. And even then, independence was not an option. If you start conceding things under the thread of terrorism, where do you draw the line?
The Spanish constitution is clear. You can't claim/vote for independence. As in any other modern country we are subject to the rule of law so if they want independence, they should start by trying to change the constitution.
The point was that any government will consider ceding some sort of autonomy to a province that’s threatening to break away, if there’s a possibility that not doing so could result in terrorism. In Spain’s case they’ve had a similar situation in recent history, so you’d hope that they would be extra keen to avoid decades of train station bombings and such.
> Balkanization is the wet dream of many enemies of Europe
Meanwhile, back in the real world, states in the actual Balkans are actively joining the European Union and gaining freedom of movement throughout the region. Even Balkanization is not what it used to be.
He used the term not in reference to the actual balkan geographical area.
In the real world there are world powers that benefit from a unified Europe with strong central authority and those that don't. Brexit serves the interests of the later. Scottish independence would further those interests still.
Catalan independence weakens Spain and by extension NATO.
This is not a statement on the morality of such movements or whether they might be a good idea in the narrow sense for Scots, Catalans, the people of Flanders and so forth. Rather it is a look at the larger map and unintended consequences.
Finally, as to what is actually happening in the Balkans - the state of affairs between Kosovo and Albania (ironically they might form a union) and Bosnia is.. not fantastic to say the least.
Sadly memories are short and attitudes are cavalier.
I am not a conservative. Your attitude itself is an example of the division and political instability.
The SNP (love them or hate them, I don't care): "an independent Scotland would prioritise the speediest possible safe removal of nuclear weapons."
Say this populist party has its William Wallace moment, now what is left of the UK will have to disentangle itself militarily. It will certainly be a politically heated moment in time, I'm sure you're aware of Russian interference in these things if nothing else as agents of chaos - Voilà.
It is certainly easier to agitate an independent small country to force the Brits to move their nuclear subs.
You can be all for Scottish independence conceptually, morally, whatever - and still be concerned about the whole board.
an independent Scotland would prioritise the speediest possible safe removal of nuclear weapons
This is disingenuous without giving the context of that quote. The UK's nuclear submarines are stored in Scotland, near Edinburgh (the Forth estuary). The Scottish people don't want those nukes there, both because of the inherent danger these missiles pose, and because it paints a target on their head.
The SNP's position is that if the English want to keep their nukes, they should keep them in England. That's what "removal" refers to here, it is not about forcing the English to disarm.
GP: "Balkanization is the wet dream of several national adversaries (speaking generically)"
Response: "But the balkan countries want to join the EU, which is anti-Brexitesque which is the thing that I oppose and wish to grind my axe about. Checkmate!"
Me: "What he is talking about is that there are world powers that benefit from a unified Europe with strong central authority and those that don't."
Response: "You're a conservative!"
Me: "I am not a conservative. This is about divide and conquer. It is easier to take on multiple smaller adversaries that are preoccupied with in-fighting.
For example, I am neither pro nor against Scottish independence, but as part of that process the main political party involved has stated it will attempt to remove nuclear subs from its newly controlled territory - which will harm the British defence posture - for populist reasons and to the sole long term benefit of their adversaries"
Response: "This is disingenuous! It isn't about forcing the English to disarm, just to move!"
Me: "I said move.."
Response: "OK, fine you said move. But! Your argument loses quite a lot of value, since I personally don't understand the negative impact of moving subs"
And yet you still didn't explain the negative impact of moving (_not_ removing) subs other than generically saying "it will harm the British defense posture". Why?
I am not calling you a conservative -- few people can be defined with a single word -- but you do have a conservative position here: you just keep repeating an argument that boils down to "change is bad because of change". You even fail to see that you are not really elaborating on the reason, which only adds to the feeling of bias.
It's not like these borders are written in stone. It's not like balkanization in Europe will actually lead to a less powerful european govern structure -- it may actually lead to a more powerful EU; without large-population states monopolizing it, smaller states have one less reason to mistrust EU-centralized government. I even mentioned in another comment this was actually the real goal of the early pan-european people, and not what we have now.
But it's all hard to predict. What I'm not going to do is to say that all of this is bad "because it is change".
And these arguments about the omni-present "enemy state actors" contributing to almost practically every cause (except, apparently, the cause of preserving the status quo. a status quo which is not really that great and which almost certainly ends very bad for us. why would foreign actors want to meddle with that?) quickly get tiresome.
I am not calling you a contrarian -- few people can be defined with a single word -- but you do have a contrarian position here.
Your disdain for conservatives is palpable, and that is your business. The response some people have, especially nowadays, to even a whiff of conservatism is to reject everything out of hand often before reading or comprehending anything actually said.
It is tedious. Especially with the in vogue tactics of rewriting what somebody says into the usual talking points (both liberals and conservatives do this ad nauseam).
> you just keep repeating an argument that boils down to "change is bad because of change"
For the last time, that is _not_ the argument presented.
Try to read again carefully, without assuming I am a conservative, and better yet, without viewing everything through the prism of politics.
> than generically saying "it will harm the British defense posture". Why?
This should be your one and only concern. I hardly care where it fits in some provincial spat between liberals and conservatives.
Change is not bad, change is a fixture of life. Change for the sake of sticking it to your local political opponents is foolish short term thinking. Whether those subs are optimally placed truly has nothing to do with Scottish independence and the linking of the two subjects is due to myopic populism.
It is not difficult to understand how an external player could exploit these "cut off one's nose to spite one's face" feelings to get people to act irrationally. For example, Brexit exploited English conservative desires to stick it to liberals and moving subs exploits the Scottish independence movement and their desire to tell the English to get stuffed.
The winner in both cases is one and the same.
> You even fail to see that you are not really elaborating on the reason, which only adds to the feeling of bias.
> Your disdain for conservatives is palpable, and that is your business
This is ridiculous; the reason I defended myself, is because _I think of myself as a conservative_. But this doesn't free one from having to justify oneself; rather the opposite, and I very much understand that.
> For the last time, that is _not_ the argument presented.
Okey , so what is the argument presented?
Why is this creating destabilization? I only see two arguments in the entire conversation:
* Moving the subs "weakens the British defense posture". Why? Because it weakens it. I guess I should apparently read this again and again until I understand it.
* Change "for the sake of sticking it to the opposition and for the benefit of one's adversaries" is bad. Yet this is both a strawman and at the same time begging the question. First, you have not justified why this is done only to "stick it to the opposition", there are valid arguments for (some of them presented above) and against which you are not even entertaining, just discarding. Second, "for the benefit of adversaries" is _your conclusion_, not a premise, not an argument.
With this type of reasoning, it doesn't matter how many times you ask for people to re-read your comment; we are just going on in circles here.
> It is not difficult to understand how an external player could exploit these "cut off one's nose to spite one's face" feelings to get people to act irrationally.
Or to _prevent_ people from taking the rational course of action out of FUD.
> This sounds crazy but why not let go and allow them to decide their own fate?
Because is my country also, and they want to gag me and to steal me.
The sovereignty of a country relies in all citizens, and the citizenship came with some inalienable rights. In the same way as Nevada couldn't wake up tomorrow and decide that they will became part of China and the rest of the Americans can't enter or live there anymore. Changing the fate for every citizen would need to consult every citizen in the country about what they want to do, and the immense majority of us don't want to lose part of our country by a bunch of crooks. Period. Is called democracy.
The Basques got the right to manage their own finances and it seems to have quelled the independence push. Financial autonomy also helped to rein in separatists in South Tirol, a German-speaking region of Italy.
Maybe the same should be extended to the Catalans.
The Basques got their most extreme terrorists put into Jail after decades of blowing up people, which you could also argue might have helped quelling their independence push as well...
Luckily I'm too young to remember, but I do know older people talking about ETA with fear and me thinking they were overblowing it, until I stumbled upon the wikipedia article with all they did and holy cow when I looked at the list of the 2000s:
> Historically the more independence/leeway that has been given to Catalonia, the stronger it has snowballed into more separatism
Maybe this is what happens when you try strangle a nation and its culture, but you fail to do it entirely. Catalonia was conquered by force, and luckily its language and culture survived along the centuries (despite all attempts). You can't invade a region, enforce your language and culture and expect it to magically become yours. Look at what happened to all the other (former) Spanish colonies, how many of them fought for their independence (and won it)?
> TBH I do not know what the solution is here, I'd like to see a unified country
You would like a "united country", but this will prove difficult, as there is no such thing. Spain is just Castille and a bunch of other regions conquered by force – with more or less success at assimilating them into the Castilian culture over time. Some went along, some do not feel like they belong, some feel entirely mistreated but got an ok tax deal with enough leeway, and some just had enough altogether.
Many Catalans (me included) don't want to be part of Spain, and I doubt this will change any time soon. Especially on those who witnessed what happened during our attempt at a peaceful referendum in 2017. The speech the King of Spain gave after citizens where beaten for trying to cast a vote(!) is a great example. The silence of the non-catalans whilst the beating was happening another one. The former King doings, his fleeing out of the country with total impunity, and how the farce of a judicial system treated the whole thing, one more for the list. There's a certain "way of doing" embedded deep into Spain, that I fear will never go away ("atado y bien atado").
There's only one solution and it's what Catalonia has been asking for all along. Allow a fair referendum, where the repercussions of both options (stay and secede) are explained clearly to the population, and let the people decide. It seems inconceivable to me that a proper referendum about this ongoing issue is not allowed, especially in a supposedly democratic country like Spain.
I could see Spain and Catalonia being good allies within the EU; but as it is setup now, the relationship is just not working. And making it work "by force" will only stir more and more trouble.
> it's scary how in a single generation a whole region has gone from 90%+ wanting to be united to 50%+ wanting independence, specially during a "peace" era
I think you are confusing 90%+ "wanting to be united" for "not bothered enough to do anything about it".
The end of the dictatorship (without consequences the fascist side btw) gave hope to a lot of people, and attempts were made to "make it work" despite all the terrible acts Catalonia suffered. As soon as it became obvious there was no way to decide our own future whilst inside Spain (see Estatut d'Autonomia 2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Autonomy_of_Catalon...), it was clear that it was all a farce. Anti-Catalanism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Catalanism) and other attitudes / reactions from many parts of Spain towards Catalonia lead to this. It is way too easy for political parties to get votes around Spain by stirring anger towards Catalonia... I think most catalans would be happy remaining in Spain if their language, culture, traditions and pockets were respected. But that's just not what Spain wants Catalonia for.
I'm undecided between if is propaganda or trolling, but there are so many falsehoods and hallucinations in this post that I don't even know where to start.
> Spain is just Castille and a bunch of other regions conquered by force
Hem... not and not. Marriage arrangement is not the same as violence necessarily
Nobody has been beaten for "casting a vote" in this country in many, many time. That scam was not even a real election and the desired results were rigged from the start.
Please, stop with the Franco bullshit. You were not the only Spanish that suffered in the civil war.
Are the Galician, the Basque, the Catalan, and even some Andalusians happy to be part of Spain? Who is hallucinating here?
Were referendum voters not beat? Is this also an hallucination? That was just unjustifiable. Legal or not, Spain left the catalans who want to decide their future no other choice than to organize a mock referendum. This is what happens when you deny peoples rights for that long. And after seeing how the Spanish government reacted on its own peaceful citizens, how would anyone want to stay?
Nobody said Catalonia was the only one suffering during the dictatorship, lots of people from many places in Spain did. And I am not sure why they want to stay in, especially seeing how certain things will never change.
Will the pestiferous snipers glance, in these days of news reporting "Victims of war rape have no right to abortion in refuge Country", at the flow of "This about to be illegal in this State" in the past few years within a most prominent federation...
There is no "love it or leave it" if there is no "leave it". Existence should not be a bed of Procuste - least you accept that /I/ take the measures and /you/ submit to them.
Surely there will be some place where "debate" is not different from "pooling", and they will be as comfortable there as we find it a buggery.
There is also a nice quote from when, after a period of chaos in the late 19th century, Spaniards democratically chose to bring in a foreign King to govern them (sorry if I got this wrong -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeo_I_of_Spain ).
In a short two years, Amadeo ended up fleeing the country claiming Spain to be simply ungovernable; and that the most dangerous enemies of Spain where the Spaniards themselves.
I was very surprised how little education there is amongst Spaniards about the Franco area, how this plays a significant role in the catalonian independence desires. Also how little processing of the Franco regime there was (compared to Germany), I mean the last Franco statue was removed only last year.
Like just rebranding their fascist tribunal? In the same building with the same people, but one day they become Democrats.
Amazing story.
Also, they have a tribunal that has two powers, and another one that decides if money has been well spent, if they decide otherwise you get to pay with your properties.
It's kinda funny to see vague speculation of nefarious Russian involvement in the pro-independence side when we're discussing a very concrete case of espionage in the anti-independence side. The implication - and we see it sometimes in Scottish independence too - is that the separatist side is radical and sinister. And that the robust support the movement has is simply a mirage, artificially inflated by a foreign government who wishes to do harm.
Is a known fact that Russian farms played a huge role in the flooding of fake news supporting Catalonia secession movement and tagging Spain as evil 24 hours a day. You can spot some patterns here also.
But there are other actors. Politicians used this card for decades as leverage to obtain more and more power and to divert the focus from their own corruption
Catalonia has been trying to secede for longer than Russia has existed in its current form. It may well be that Russia is funding separatist campaigns like they've done in many regions, but there's a genuine desire for independence regardless of Russian activities.
I really never got the Catalonia crisis, especially around 2017, 2018. A region of approx. 8 million Catalonias who see themselves as Catalonians first and as Spanish second, with their own distinct history, vote with over 80% for their indipendence from Spain. People representing the interests of Catalonians go to the Spanish parlament, explain their goal of indipendence.
And then stuff happens that I only read from bad China and bad Russia. Those political leaders are arrested. Police is sent in to stop the protests. Protests are suddenly called "the rebellion", people are arrested, the representatives of the indipendance movement have to flee Spain. Later it comes out that the police was seizing ballet boxes during the election.
Spain then acts hard on the region, holds a gun against the head of many businesses located in the Catalonian region so they have to move out from there.
So much more bad stuff has happened around that.
I am just wondering - where is the outcry? I cannot stop overseeing the paralls to other conflicts around the world, very hot conflicts.
I'm not one to approve of the spanish government management of the crisis, which was terrible, but there are quite a lot of missing things here that are important to the story.
> vote with over 80% for their indipendence from Spain
The 2017 referendum vote ended up with 90% of votes for independence. However, only 43% of the census participated, mainly due to the fact that this referendum was not binding at all, and wasn't even "legal". Other referendums have had similar results.
> And then stuff happens that I only read from bad China and bad Russia.
I think regular media picked up on that with no issues. I remember reading detailed articles on Politico or The Guardian, for example.
> Those political leaders are arrested.
They were arrested not for explaining their goal of independence but because they exceeded their functions and competences when they held the referendum. Now, there's a lot of discussion to be had about the political motivations of those charges and the punishments, but I think the reality that they used public resources to hold a referendum that they legally couldn't hold is undeniable. That was the trigger, not just saying they wanted independence.
> Spain then acts hard on the region, holds a gun against the head of many businesses located in the Catalonian region so they have to move out from there.
That's not exactly what happened. Some companies legally moved headquarters from Catalonia to other regions, and some new investments were reduced, but those are mainly motivated by the legal insecurity about what was going to happen (and also, take into account that businesses are led by people with their own ideologies and biases of the situation). But it hasn't been that impactful overall.
> I cannot stop overseeing the paralls to other conflicts around the world, very hot conflicts.
For starters, other than the police action in the referendum, there's been a remarkable lack of violence on both sides. I mean, every 11th of september there are demonstrations for independence around the Diada (day of Catalonia) celebrations, political calls to action and such, and those things are not repressed. So I don't think pointing parallels to "very hot conflicts" is warranted.
> Some companies legally moved headquarters from Catalonia to other regions, and some new investments were reduced, but those are mainly motivated by the legal insecurity about what was going to happen (and also, take into account that businesses are led by people with their own ideologies and biases of the situation).
This happened in Montreal. It was the business capital of Canada until the referendums. Now Toronto is.
> they used public resources to hold a referendum that they legally couldn't hold is undeniable
If the constitution says that calling for secession is a criminal offence, it follows that holding an indendence referendum is also criminal. I'd argue that a constitution that criminalises campaigning for secession is a bad constitution, and that the central government should have (a) staged the referendum and (b) campaigned in it.
Calling for secession is not directly a criminal offense. The charges were sedition and misuse of public funds. The latter is fairly clear, the former is a more gray area (in Spain, sedition is a public tumultuous rising to stop laws from applying, using violence or illegal methods) and one could debate whether it applies or not. But in both cases, the reasoning was that the Catalan government did not have the competence to hold that referendum, was notified of that by legal means and they disobeyed those orders. That was the core of the decision, not about the contents of the referendum but the fact that they didn't have the authority to do it and did it nevertheless.
> and that the central government should have (a) staged the referendum and (b) campaigned in it.
When some people think that giving Catalonia enough entity to even consider independence is too much, a referendum is out of the question. If the central government had been open to hold the referendum they would also have been open to previous smaller claims from Catalonia that would probably have satisfied enough people and dropped support for independency.
Those are crushing numbers. 90% of 43% of voters who made a choice to vote and leave. Such overwhelming numbers. Do you think the other side would have gotten everyone who didn't vote?
Not everyone, but a majority. Going to vote was strongly correlated with being for independence: it was clear the referendum wasn't legally binding and wasn't approved by the Spanish government. People who didn't want independence didn't even bother to vote in that.
And it's not an hypothesis: polls and parliament votes have shown for years that the support for independence (or for independentist parties) has been fairly stable at around 45-50%. Support for a referendum vote has been wider (up to 70-80% depending on the poll and how you count some party's positions) but similarly fairly stable over the years.
> for a referendum that everyone knew would not actually matter.
Surely if people thought the referendum "didn't matter", then they'd be less, not more likely to cast a ballot? I'd say that 40% is a pretty strong vote, in those circumstances (and given the risk of being beaten up by riot police).
Not, because here lies the trap. This was a farce, not a real election.
It was practically guaranteed that the votes would be replaced later in the cardboard urns guarded exclusively by the separatists. The obvious plan was to drag as many millions of people as possible to vote and then use this number as new upper limit to made up a separatist support number (see? 80% of this new cipher voted separatist, we counted the votes ourselves, [invented a number], and this is two million more of supporters than before, so I'm right. Now lets negotiate how money you own me to not secede).
It must be noticed that they printed 10 millions of ballots, for a pool of voters much lower. Why they needed to have like two ballots for each possible vote?... well, fill the dots.
The only good move in that situation is avoid voting
It wasn't a valid referendum. It was illegal, and everyone knew that it was against the Spanish constitution. 90% of 40% in what amounts to an opinion poll is not "nothing" - it's a remarkable turnout, given that voters knew the Spanish government had sent in shiploads of non-Catalan riot police to suppress voting.
Can't tell if this comment is tongue in cheek. 40% is crushing and overwhelming? Like, maybe next time all those other supposed hidden supporters of independence can be arsed to get off their butts and show up to the most important vote of their life (at least if it was binding or legal according to Spanish law).
>The 2017 referendum vote ended up with 90% of votes for independence. However, only 43% of the census participated.
That is not true. Those are the numbers given by the independentist people themselves, with some people voting 5 times as there were no the required warrantees(as it was an illegal referendum).
The real numbers are those that supported an independentist party for the local elections, over 50% of the electorate.
Catalonian secession would precipitate a similar push by the Basque region. From what I understand, these are two of the wealthiest areas in Spain, so them leaving would be a huge blow.
Another reason for the lack of support is that other countries don’t want to create a precedent for similar breakaways. Catalonia would have a hard time joining the EU for this reason (similarly Scotland if they were to secede).
The second reason hints at the explanation for the difference to other regions of the world. There is no hard and fast rule to apply to see why self-determinism is championed for one group but admonished for others. The sentiment is wholly a consequence of the motivations of the country in question and other interested nations.
Any moral rhetoric deployed by nations to justify policy is just post hoc rationalization of the underlying pragmatic decision making calculus. I think most people implicitly understand this. Which is why I’m incredulous when people act surprised by governments acting hypocritically
No country likes itself to be split apart, especially when a relatively rich part of the country tries to separate. I don't know about Spanish law, but serious attempts to break up the country could be considered treason where I'm from. On the other hand the whole civil war they fought 90 years ago makes the point quite complicated to the Catalan people.
If California tried to leave the USA, the American government would do anything in their power to keep them from leaving. This is still quite different, as Spain isn't as loosely structured a government as the USA, but it's equally preposterous from a government point of view.
Happened because of the "Velvet Revolution" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution) which was yet again the people pushing the government to do something. I think when parent said "No country likes itself to be split apart" they refer to the current people in power (the government), not the people actually living in the nation. Otherwise all successful independence efforts can be considered "The country wanted to be split".
As the industrial heartland of Spain, a lot of non-Catalans live in Catalunya. They don't want to suddenly find themselves in a foreign country. That's not "the people in power" - that's ordinary people.
There's quite a lot of nationalism in Spanish politics; when Franco died, there was no proper national reconciliation. Catalunya suffered quite badly in the Civil War and afterwards, and there should have been something like the SA Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Instead, they restored the monarchy, which was, as you'd expect, nationalist.
Indeed. But some countries handle independence movements with more grace than others. It's perfectly legitimate for a region to ask for independence. If the host nation is graceful, and (for example) allows independence referendums, a civil war becomes much less likely.
The host nation always fights back; but passing ten-year imprisonment sentences on the leaders of the secessionists isn't very graceful. Sending paramilitaries to beat up prrotestors and voters isn't graceful at all. A little more "graceful" is to resort to dirty tricks; Alex Salmond, former leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, was dragged into court on trumped-up sexual harrassment charges.
Spain supports separatist movements elsewhere though. They have no issues supporting western saharan independence, even if the separatist groups are engaged in armed conflict.
Imperialism against people with abominable ethics is still imperialism.
When the southern states used their democratic institutions to secede, and then the North invaded 'to preserve the union', that was imperialism. Waging an imperial war and then freeing the slaves of the conquered doesn't retroactively make your war a just, non-imperialist one. It just makes you an imperialist whose moral views on slavery are superior to those of the people whom you conquered. But you're still an imperialist.
Now, if the Yanks had actually engaged in a moral crusade to free the slaves, that'd be one thing--but they didn't. If you think they did, then I'm guessing your understanding of the civil war comes from your education by said Union, or from movies. If this is the case, read a history book (Battle Cry of Freedom is a good start) and you'll find it impossible to believe that the Union fought the war to free the slaves. That the "moral crusade" nonsense is still peddled throughout the United States is a simple matter of the winners writing the history books (and nobody wanting to be seen sympathizing with slavers).
And since I'm certain you'll follow up with that tired old canard about the South starting the war at Ft. Sumpter, I'll provide you with the relevant history in advance:
0) Abraham Lincoln wins the 1860 presidential election on November 8, 1860.
1) On November 10, the South Carolina General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the people of S.C. to elect a commission to determine whether the state should secede.
2) Convention delegates were democratically elected on December 6.
3) These duly elected delegates convened in Columbia on December 17th.
4) They voted unanimously for secession.
5) The South Carolina General Assembly declared their independence on December 24.
6) At this point, American troops occupy Fort Sumpter, which at this point is foreign soil.
6) On Jan 9, the US attempts to reinforce the fort. They are prevented from doing so when Confederate artillery fires on the resupply ship.
7) On Jan 31, 1861, Governor Pickens demands the surrender of Fort Sumpter.
8) Lincoln sends multiple ships, with hundreds of soldiers and sailors, to reinforce the fort.
9) On April 11, knowing Lincoln plans to reinforce the occupying force, the Rebs once again demand the surrender of the fort. The commanding officer refused (then tried to play for time by making up conditions, which were refused).
10) At this point, American troops have been occupying foreign soil for ~4 months, and are effectively signaling their intent to stay indefinitely.
11) On April 12, the Rebs start shelling the fort. They shell it for 34 hours, then the Americans surrender.
12) After their surrender, before the Americans took down their flag, the Confederates allowed them to honor the flag with a 100 gun salute. One of the Yanks' guns misfired, killing Edward Galloway--the only American soldier who died.
You should feel free to say "well they were slavers, so fuck them". That's perfectly valid! But facts is facts, and the Civil War was imperialism.
Neither the north nor the south can really be considered democratic institutions by modern standards - less than half of their population could vote at the time of the civil war (women's suffrage) - and far less than half in the south (millions of slaves). The country as a whole elected Lincoln, and the southern states (via their mostly-undemocratically-elected leaders) rejected that slightly-more-democratically-sourced outcome. The democratically-elected leader and his political party then brought more democracy to the entire country by emancipating the enslaved and subsequently gave them (the men, anyway) the right to vote. Whether or not that was their intention at the outset doesn't change the fact that the north brought more democracy, which the south hated, and continues to hate.
So much for those vaunted democratic institutions you claim to hold so dear.
This doesn't contradict anything I said, unless you're under the impression that broad suffrage is a free pass to invade and conquer any nation with less-broad suffrage.
The North had broader suffrage than the South. The North freed the slaves after the war, and gave Black men the right to vote. And the Civil War was still imperialism. Do you disagree?
>vote with over 80% for their indipendence from Spain.
You should inform yourself before you talk. In Catalonia NEVER over 80% of the population voted for independence. This is BS.
What happened is that a 50 something percent of the votes(not of the population) wanted to impose independence over the laws of the parliament that require at least 2/3 majorities for anything substantial.
>And then stuff happens that I only read from bad China and bad Russia.
More BS. How many people died on that rebellion? How many died in the US Black lives matter incidents? How many people die on South Africa incidents each year?
>Spain then acts hard on the region, holds a gun against the head of many businesses located in the Catalonian region
Nobody hold a gun against business but the independentists. They just could move freely around national territory, protecting their assets against radicals.
>More BS. How many people died on that rebellion? How many died in the US Black lives matter incidents? How many people die on South Africa incidents each year?
This is whataboutism, I don't see how those are relevant to the situation in spain
Part of what you are saying is misleading for the simple reason that Catalonia does not consist solely of Catalans (i.e. an ethnic group as opposed to just anyone living in that region). It is a part of Spain, and thus people from anywhere in Spain can move there. They did not participate in the referendum with the argument that it was illegitimate.
The closest parallel is probably Quebec in Canada, for what it's worth. Highly contentious. One thing I've learnt is that if I want to keep my friends in these places, I don't mention politics.
But Québec would've been independant if the referendum was successful. Even at 50+1, it is now clear that the federal government would've accepted the results even if they didn't explicitly said so back in 1995. So I think there's a huge difference, considering that in Catalonia the referendum was completely ignored
The Spanish state doesn't make any provision at all for secession or independence movements; it's all criminal. They even have a special court for dealing with these matters. Any attempt to campaign for independence puts you beyond the law.
In those circumstances, it's hardly surprising that independence campaigners broke a law.
This happened very recently. I still vividly remember the stories on the radio. The artifacts are online & visible if you really cared to look. I'm not quite sure of the point of questions like this.
If I were in the Spanish government, I would give Catalonia a legal binding referendum.
But splitting a country is not something you do in a weekend, we can't have Catalonia splitting with 50% + 1 of the votes just for "+1" to change his mind next week and Catalonia joining again.
So I would give Catalonia a legal binding referendum... with a requirement of at least a 66% vote in favour. For each person that wants to remain, there would be two that don't; and if you are at that point, it's probably better just to let them go. Being a politician, I would surely try to at least round it up to 70%.
They would never get 66% of the vote. If it looks risky, I could send the police in the Looney Tunes ship again... to vote!
And if they refuse my offer... well, it's way easier to argue "I have given them the referendum, they are not taking it". Right now, Catalans have the easy "freedom" argument.
> And if they refuse my offer... well, it's way easier to argue "I have given them the referendum, they are not taking it". Right now, Catalans have the easy "freedom" argument.
This would change nothing. And they would never do a referendum on those terms. The whole thing, politically, is not meant to actually go through.
(Not to mention all the other images of police violence).
Being able to say "I have given them the referendum, they are not taking it" vs giving the other party such a great narrative "That's why we want independence. We are more civilized than them. They are aggressive animals." changes something.
Their narrative would just change slightly, to not getting a "real" or "fair" referendum, one that they could win. And they would not be wrong.
Yes, sending the riot police was a very, very bad move in terms of defusing a conflict. Literally all they had to do is let them run their big show, and expectedly declare the result void. At most, prosecute the politicians that unilaterally proclaimed independence in the parliament based on that puppet referendum.
However, the political party in power at the time, Partido Popular, knew that they would win some (right/fascist) votes everywhere else in Spain by exceeding force in Catalonia, in a kind of "scorched earth" move. They historically got almost no votes represented out of Catalonia anyway.
> vote with over 80% for their indipendence from Spain.
92% with a turnout of 43%. Hardly a resounding win for the independence side. Since the referendum was arguably illegal, a lot of people voted by staying home.
This is completely wrong, sorry. The 1936-1939 Spanish civil war was a coup from the right-wing against the left-wing government. Of course, Catalan autonomy was an issue there too and one of the motivations for the coup, it but was nowhere near the main reason. And no, catalan independence is absolutely not at all equivalent to neo-confederate secessionism.
Yes, because Catalonia was resisting the fascist coup with their own revolutionary struggle to collectivize agriculture based on consent of the farmers, and worker ownership led by the labor unions who had been providing education and other community services for years.
Its a lesser known fact that George Orwell wrote a book on his experiences there, and that the people's struggle inspired him so much he took up arms and joined them. The guy who's work people claim is an indictment of socialism, fought for it against the rise of fascism.
I've reflected on the subcomments I've received. Evidently there's a consensus of sorts that the whole northern part of Spain is "northeastern Spain", even if the northern part is on the Atlantic and the southern part is on the Med.
That's fine - it seems to be about the semantics of "northeast", which I don't care to take a stand on. So I yield.
I'm looking at a map! The eastern border of Spain is the pyrenees, and Catalonia lies at the south end of the pyrenees; it as far south as you can go, down the eastern border. North-east Spain lies on the Bay of Biscay; South-east Spain lies on the Mediteranean.
The north-east portion of Spain is the Basque country. That does lie on the Bay of Biscay.
I agree that Catlunya is north of e.g. Madrid, or Grenada, or whatever. But Catalunya is certainly the southernmost part of eastern Spain. Saying it is "the northeast of Spain" is just wrong. Hell, look at the wikipedia link that sibling posted: it's as clear as daylight. You can't go further east without arriving in France; but you can leave Catalunya through it's northern border, without leaving Spain.
Catalunya is therefore not "the northeast of Spain".
Seems like like you don't know your cardinal directions or are trolling. I guess this was obvious from the start, but I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt.
OK; so in which corner of Spain is the Basque country located?
I've heard it said before that Catalunya is north-east Spain, so I was surprised when I learned that it is south of the Basque Country, and situated on the mediterranean.
I can see how someone from Madrid might consider both the Basque Country and Catalunya to be "north-east". But I think it's misleading to describe Catalunya as the "north-east" corner, when there are three other regions further north than Catalunya on the eastern border, and none further south.
> The simplest test is to cut a country into quadrants with lines running and north-south and east west.
Sure, OK, maybe that way of thinking is why I've had so much kickback. If you draw a rectangle around Spain on a map and divide the rectangle into quadrants, then Pays Basque and Catalunya both fall squarely in the northeast quadrant.
But by that reasoning, the entire eastern part of Spain is the "northeast". Spain is not rectangular.
Gosh, I've been to both Catalunya and Pays Basque. I've lived in France. Catalunya is on Spain's south coast. North of Catalunya is Pays Basque, which also adjoins the pyrenees to the east. The north-east portion of Spain is the Pays Basque, not Catalunya.
You can certainly get further south than Catalunya; but only by going west or getting on a boat. Catalunya is the southern portion of eastern Spain; it is therefore south-east, not north-east.
I've lived in France; but I haven't lived everywhere in France. And I'm certainly not French.
I'll assume goodwill, although you've thrown me a trick question; so my answer is that France doesn't have a northeast "corner". Looking at that wikipedia map, I'd say they're both in the northeast, but neither is in the corner (Belgium is).
Check out The Silence of Others (2018) on Netflix, produced by Almodovar for more background on the Franco atrocities and how it still is echoing today.
> Jordi Baylina is the technology lead at Polygon, a popular decentralised Ethereum scaling platform. He is also an advisor on projects related to digital voting and decentralisation, and has built a widely-used privacy toolkit. He was extensively targeted with Pegasus, receiving at least 26 infection attempts. Ultimately, he was infected at least eight times between October 2019 and July 2020.
> Baylina received a text message masquerading as a boarding pass link for a Swiss International Air Lines flight he had purchased. Targeting in this case indicates that the Pegasus operator may have had access to Baylina’s Passenger Name Record (PNR) or other information collected from the carrier.
Scare stuff that not just random text messages can infect you (we knew this) but combined with harvesting other data (like PNR), they can time to exploit messages with other actions you do (like buying an flight ticket) and get you that way.
I was scared of receiving random text messages already, but easy to just ignore them as they have nothing to do with me. But if I buy a flight ticket and receive a text message that looks relevant to me, I'm not sure I'd be able to guess it was actually malicious. Scary stuff.
Edit: The more I read, the worse it gets:
> Another common mode of targeting was to masquerade as official notifications from Spanish government entities, including the Tax and Social Security authorities.The messages also used SMS Sender IDs to masquerade as official agency accounts.
> Notably, fake official messages were sometimes highly personalized. For example, a message sent to Jordi Baylina included a portion of his actual official tax identification number, suggesting that the Pegasus operator had access to this information.
Seems clear at this point that the official Spanish government was behind these attacks, or the official registries got hacked (together with various delivery companies). Both are bad, but that signs are pointing to the earlier makes it even worse.
It seems that the Spanish government can't help itself to give more fuel to the fire that is the fight for Catalan independence. Who'd want to belong to a state that constantly suppresses and surveillance you?