There is and there isn’t news. The Catalan parliament’s declaration --and Rajoy’s latest threat saying he will ensure it is inconsequential-- is news. But it is hardly a novelty. We have known that the independence process is ticking along for some time, so that is hardly news. Likewise, the Spanish government’s stubborn intransigence and its partisan use of the state’s apparatus is no news. It’s what there is.
The adjective that I have used the most to define the independence process is “irreversible”. Every time we have met a new hurdle, every time a clever pundit’s wishful thinking deemed that the independence bid was doomed, I made a point of saying so. And, oh dearie me, when they woke up the next morning, secession hadn’t gone away. I can think of no worse ridicule than those who have solemnly declared the process dead ten times and, instead of hiding away in shame, they keep on issuing the same forecast, in the off chance that they should get lucky.
Of course the parliament’s declaration will have an effect. Nobody can prevent two million politically active people and a majority in parliament from forging ahead decidedly.
The independence process is irreversible, but it doesn’t mean that it is predictable or easy; or that it will end the way its proponents hope. It is so complex and it must overcome such obstacles that every pitfall requires a new window to be opened impromptu in order to move onto the next stage. These are innovative windows, often unexpected, which aren’t the result of gratuitous creative excesses, but of Spain’s political, economic and media system, a system that prefers to talk itself into believing that nothing’s afoot to the point that it actually believes its own lies. An arrogant system that has two deaf posts for ears
