From the Daily Mail:
Catalan officials claimed 90% of 2.2million voters had called for independence in an ‘illegal’ referendum blighted by violent scenes which left at least 888 people injured.
World leaders condemned the brutal scenes after officials revealed that hundreds of protesters have been injured so far.
Officers were seen kicking and stamping on protesters as they stormed buildings and seized ballot boxes.
Footage captured in the village of Sarria de Ter in the province of Girona showed authorities using an axe to smash down the doors of a polling station where Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was due to cast his vote.
He said the region had won the right to become an independent state with the referendum results due in a few days.
And in Barcelona, the region’s capital, officers fired rubber bullets at thousands of protesters demonstrating against their votes being denied.
While one can argue over whether the referendum truly reflects the general sense of Catalonians, one thing is clear: Spain has lost the moral high ground. As Vox Day writes:
Spain is losing the moral level of war in Catalonia. Badly. The Spanish can cry “the vote is illegal” all they like, but the Spanish government can no longer pretend to have democratic legitimacy in Catalonia or to be anything but an imperialist state governing an unwilling people by force. The vote is no longer even necessary at this point; world opinion is actively turning against Spain. Had Spain encouraged the vote and offered incentives for a No vote, it might well have won. But by fighting against it and resorting to violence – even well-restrained violence of the sort it has utilized thus far – it has significantly increased the likelihood that Catalans will vote for independence.
I also agree with Vox when he argues that while the Catalonian elite may well be a collection of economically ignorant fools, and rule by the will of the people may well be an illusion, Catalonians have the right to decide for themselves how they wish to be governed. Or put another way, regardless of what Spanish law may say, Spain does not have the right to prevent Catalonians from seceding.
Of course, this devolution from the center could lead to the further splintering of Spain. And Catalonia, for that matter. After all, the principle of self-determination naturally flows down to the individual.
In any event, Spain and the European Union have their hands full. Central governments have been plying their socialist trade for far too long. They have clearly failed their subjects (as if the elite cared about them in the first place), and the subjects are fighting back. Time will tell how Spain’s Catalonian problem will resolved.
Hopefully it will be done so peacefully.
The post Catalonia votes for independence from Spain appeared first on A Simple Fool.
Source: A Simple Fool – Catalonia votes for independence from Spain