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The Catalan Economy is Not Collapsing (Jordi Molins, Spain, 12/29/17 4:13 am)In my post of December 26th, I incorrectly stated that "The Constitutionalist bloc got fewer votes [in Catalonia's parliamentary election] than the Republican bloc: 1.8 million votes versus 2.3 million votes."
The final electoral results show the Republican bloc got 2.1 million votes, and the Constitutionalists, 1.9 million votes. The reason of my mistake is the results at the time of writing that email were only provisional. I did not foresee the very low proportion of voting among Catalans living in foreign countries (the participation was provisionally announced to be 82%, as per José Manuel de Prada's last post, but the final results show only a 79% participation), which skewed my estimate.
I hope WAISers appreciate a data-based approach in political analysis. Everybody has an opinion, but when providing data backing up one's claims, one has to be much more careful about stating seductive, but wrong, hypotheses. Most Constitutionalists writing on WAIS do not provide data to back up their claims, making much more difficult a comparison of the merits of both sides, using a fact-based approach.
In my opinion, the reason why Constitutionalists do not provide data is they have none. For example, yesterday the AIReF (the Spanish equivalent for the Congressional Budget Office) estimated the Catalan GDP growth for 2017 Q4 at 0.7%, and 0.8% for 2018 Q1. This GDP growth is higher than the corresponding for 2016 Q4, and consistent with around 3% YoY GDP growth, which is pretty high for European standards. The claims the Catalan economy would collapse in the last quarter of the year, which was repeatedly stated during the electoral campaign by the Constitutionalists, have proved to be ill-founded. It is not possible to estimate how many Catalans voted for Constitutionalist political parties due to that fear, believing the Constitutionalists could not cheat in such an indecent way.
The comments about an unfair electoral law in Catalonia are also unfounded: the Catalan electoral law is ruled by the Spanish law 5/1985. The Catalan Parliament has never changed that Spanish law, so the Catalan electoral process was defined by the Spanish Parliament on 1985. That law may be fair or not; but such responsibility is on the Spanish Parliament, not on the Catalan Parliament (as implicitly suggested by several Constitutionalist WAISers).
The Spanish Senate skews much more the number of seats towards small constituencies: a vote in Soria is worth around four times a vote in Madrid, resulting in systematic absolute majorities for the Popular Party. The Spanish Senate started the application of the "article 155" in Catalonia. I do not see Constitutionalists in WAIS complaining about it.
Finally, again the issue of racism and xenophobia in Catalonia: apart from opinions, Constitutionalists in WAIS do not provide a single piece of evidence about the supposed xenophobia by the Republicans. Instead, I believe I have provided ample evidence of a distressing dehumanization process on the Constitutionalists' side. Republicans support the "Refugees Welcome" campaign, and they are mostly composed of Catalans of mixed origin (such as myself). There is not a single piece of evidence that Republican leaders are racist or xenophobic, quite the opposite. As a consequence, repeated accusations of xenophobia are, in fact, a clear case of xenophobia.
JE comments: Jordi, what are the next steps? My preliminary question: Will the new Parliament be able to use its majority to bring back Puigdemont, or will Madrid's final say still apply?
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Catalonia Again; Who is the Xenophobe?
(José Ignacio Soler, Venezuela
01/06/18 4:51 AM)
Jordi Molins (29 December 2017) wrote the following: "I hope WAISers appreciate a data-based approach in political analysis. Everybody has an opinion, but when providing data backing up one's claims, one has to be much more careful about stating seductive, but wrong, hypotheses. Most Constitutionalists [those opposed to Catalonian secession] writing on WAIS do not provide data to back up their claims."
Since I believe Jordi is referring to me as one of the Constitutionalists, I would like to clarify a few things.
First, my "opinion" on the Catalonian electoral result is very much fact- and data-based. Unfortunately, our esteemed editor did not publish my post on this matter, with figures and conclusions clearly supporting my "opinion." Of course room for biased interpretation is limitless, but my conclusions are only derived from data.
Regarding the economic issues Jordi mentions, my "opinion" has also been more than once based on facts and data with several post published on WAIS, which is more than Jordi has done on this issue. I won't add more data to support my "opinion" on the negative impacts of the crisis for Catalonia and Spain. These are crystal-clear to all except for the most zealous proponents of Catalonian independence.
Jordi claims that the electoral system in Cataluña is not unfair because is the same throughout Spain. He is right in one sense, as "fairness" in this case means legal and institutional. I never claimed it is unfair, but I believe it is unbalanced in Cataluña as in the rest of Spain (the system does not equally distribute the votes in proportion to the population), or perhaps as many other electoral systems in countries with a similar distorted distribution of votes, for instance in the US which resulted in the unfortunate election of Trump.
Regarding racism and xenofobia, Jordi claims that "there is not a single piece of evidence that Republican leaders are racist or xenophobic, quite the opposite. As a consequence, repeated accusations of xenophobia are, in fact, a clear case of xenophobia."
Jordi seems to make a far-fetched argument that Constitutionalists are xenophobic. Again he might be partially correct because unfortunately xenophobia is a social disease implicit in any form of nationalism. However, he might be wrong in the statement that "there is not a single piece of evidence that Republican (independentist) leaders are xenophobic or racist."
I have found plenty of newspaper articles where examples are quoted of racism or xenophobia by independentist (Republicans) leaders.
The most relevant example is Jordi Pujol, a notorious Republican leader, who in 1976 wrote, "El hombre andaluz no es un hombre coherente. Es un hombre anárquico. Es un hombre destruido. Es, generalmente, un hombre poco hecho, un hombre que vive en un estado de ignorancia y de miseria cultural, mental y espiritual." Summarizing the quote, Pujol claimed that Anadalusians are incoherent, anarchic, uncultured, and mentally and spiritually inferior.
Another example by Heribert Barrera, another Republican leader of Ezquerra Republicana, who wrote "hay una distribución genética en la población catalana que es diferente a la de la población subsahariana." Briefly the quote expresses a sense of Catalonian race supremacy over sub-Saharan population.
Last but not least important, Oriol Junqueras, another notorious and more recent "Republican leader" of Ezquerra Republicana, said in 2008: "Hay tres Estados--¡sólo tres!--, donde ha sido imposible agrupar a toda la población en un único grupo genético. En Italia; en Alemania, siguiendo la vieja frontera lingüística entre el alemán marítimo y el continental; y en el Estado español, entre españoles y catalanes.... en concreto, los catalanes tienen más proximidad genética con los franceses que con los españoles; más con los italianos que con los portugueses, y un poco con los suizos. Mientras que los españoles presentan más proximidad con los portugueses que con los catalanes y muy poca con los franceses." In this long quote, Junqueras expresses his opinion about the radical genetic race differentiation between "Spaniards" and Catalonians. He also compare their differences and racist similarities of each one with other populations.
I wonder, does Jordi Molins not consider these statements xenophobic or racist? Or will he try to twist them into a different interpretation or context? Of course, the quotes should be considered in context, but in any case they are clearly despicable and racist opinions. I believe they imply the race supremacy feeling base of regionalism and nationalism.
Below is a long list of similar articles and quotes for interested readers. They are unfortunately in Spanish:
http://www.libertaddigital.com/espana/politica/2015-07-26/oriol-junqueras-los-catalanes-tienen-mas-proximidad-genetica-con-los-franceses-que-con-los-espanoles-1276553647/
https://www.economiadigital.es/politica-y-sociedad/junqueras-cree-en-las-diferencias-geneticas-entre-espanoles-y-catalanes_174470_102.html
https://www.dolcacatalunya.com/2015/07/las-ideas-racistas-de-oriol-junqueras/
http://www.libertaddigital.com/espana/politica/2015-07-26/oriol-junqueras-los-catalanes-tienen-mas-proximidad-genetica-con-los-franceses-que-con-los-espanoles-1276553647/
http://www.libertaddigital.com/espana/2017-12-29/jose-rosinol-de-scc-el-21d-ha-vuelto-a-demostrar-que-una-mayoria-social-de-catalanes-esta-en-contra-de-la-ruptura-1276611395/
http://www.larazon.es/local/cataluna/la-oposicion-deplora-la-xenofobia-del-nuevo-director-de-los-mossos-PA15624579
http://www.lavanguardia.com/local/barcelona/20171003/431772838401/acosan-la-sede-de-cs-en-barcelona-y-sus-diputados-tienen-que-salir-escoltados.html
http://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20171019/432191434863/albiol-denuncia-insultos-en-sant-cugat-de-valles-es-lo-que-me-esperaria-en-la-republica-catalana.html
http://www.larazon.es/opinion/columnistas/xenofobia-PK10837901
http://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20170907/431105360288/rosa-maria-miras-violacion-grupal-ines-arrimadas-disculpa.html
https://elpais.com/cultura/2011/03/28/actualidad/1301263205_850215.html
http://www.abc.es/espana/catalunya/abci-abajo-muro-201712150230_noticia.html
http://www.lavanguardia.com/economia/20171229/433938262486/hotel-fin-de-ano-barcelona-turismo.html
JE comments: José Ignacio, my apologies for the delays in posting. Long series of links, like photos, can slow down the editing process.
I don't see xenophobia finger-pointing as terribly constructive. As José Ignacio points out above, nationalism itself cannot exist without an "other." Perhaps we can better call it "exceptionalism." I do sense that the Catalonian Republicans are very careful to avoid being branded as racist or xenophobic, as it allows them to draw a clear line between themselves and skin-head and/or neo-Francoist radical opposition to their movement. It's a productive tactic in the court of world opinion.
Who can tell us more about Junqueras, who strikes me as the pit bull of the Republicans?
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