
What's Going on in Catalonia? - kiliancs
http://interactius.ara.cat/9n/en
======
radiodario
I'm all for Catalonian independence, but I completely oppose the way scrolling
has been hijacked on that page.

here's how you scroll
[http://bost.ocks.org/mike/scroll/](http://bost.ocks.org/mike/scroll/)

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pfortuny
I am a born Catalonian although living away. Honestly, the page could do with
a bit less bias.

Also, the big difference with Scotland is the Constitution. All citizens are
subject to it and in it the existence of a single state is established quite
clearly. Not so for the Scots, rather the opposite. That is why their
referendum made sense.

Notice that in the same constitution is stipulated that there is no right to
carry out a referendum by anyone except the Spanish Government.

What will take place tomorrow is a travesty because only the people willing to
say yes are encouraged to go to the stations. The others have absolutely no
interest in taking part in a unilateral decision.

Yes, great photos and lots of people. And so what? There have been lots of
people meeting in Spain for many other reasons which are not shared by the
majority necessarily.

What is the way forward? I do not know but it is never a travesty of legality,
which is what shall happen tomorrow.

~~~
lottin
Your interpretation of the laws is irrelevant. Interpreting the law is a
prerogative of the courts of justice, not of ordinary citizens like you and
me.

And even if the referendum was ruled illegal (which so far it hasn't, it's
only been "suspended") some people believe that the right of secession is a
fundamental right of people regardless of whatever the constitution says.

~~~
pfortuny
"Las decisiones políticas de especial trascendencia podrán ser sometidas a
referéndum consultivo de todos los ciudadanos." Art. 92.

As I understand, "todos los ciudadanos" means "all the citizens."

However, my interpretation is obviously irrelevant but I have the same right
to an interpretation as anyone. What the court of justices have is POWER
(which is the ability to enforce rights and duties). Not the same thing.

And yes, some people believe that. And some do not. The problem with a
constitutional state is precisely that it is a difficult problem.

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hierro
As others have said, the article is full of bias an political propaganda. It
doesn't belong on HN and this user should be banned because all he submits is
pro-Catalonia propaganda. See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=kiliancs](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=kiliancs)

~~~
k-mcgrady
I don't know much about Catalonia so have no idea about the bias BUT you're
right that the users submissions are ALL related to the one political topic. I
don't know about banning them but maybe banning submissions from them? It's
essentially spam. Politics here usually has a tech angle and occasionally some
political articles with no tech angle are relevant just because they are
interesting but posting only political articles on a topic that will effect
very few people on HN is spam.

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spindritf
The whole scroll navigation is not very popular here but this is a really nice
website.

However, the conclusion it makes me draw is that Catalonia want to ditch Spain
almost entirely due to the economic downturn (see the graph of independence
popularity). And to be fair, the Spanish government did make it worse and more
painful, but is Catalonian electorate much different in terms of preferred
economic policy?

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qwtel
A good example of bad "design", that holds aesthetics above everything else.

To be fair, it looks really nice. But having scrolled through it twice and
being annoyed by the hijacked scrolling and autoplaying video with sound, I
still have no idea what this is about.

~~~
dkbrk
With firefox 33.0.1 on Linux, the scrolling was very jerky. That, and the
hijacked scrolling made me give up about halfway through.

Frankly, Wikipedia does a far better job.

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venomsnake
If Kosovo is a country, than Catalonia has rights to be one too. That is the
reason why that travesty is not recognized as a country from Spain.

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pyriku
The situation is not that simple as "Catalonians want to become an independent
state": they want to be independent with some conditions. For instance they
claim they should not take any part of repaying Spain's debt, but some of part
comes from them. Is like if a group of friends go out for dinner and someone
say "I'm not paying".

They want to keep be part of the EU, which is not that simple, open borders,
same currency, use Spain's army instead of building one, football clubs to
play on La Liga (this a very big deal for most Spaniards).

As someone from south Spain, I'm totally up for them to become independent if
that's what they feel like. However, they shouldn't expect Spain's help at
all.

The site is obviously catalan, but the bigger picture is way more complex than
that.

~~~
Oletros
> they want to be independent with some conditions. For instance they claim
> they should not take any part of repaying Spain's debt, but some of part
> comes from them.

Source?

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dotdotdot
So what's to stop this from happening everywhere in Europe where more affluent
regions want to become independent from less well off ones? I don't think
that's the way forward, we should be more united not less. Each region can
keep their language, culture and traditions.

~~~
lottin
Only the poor regions should be allowed to become independent?

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Nux
Jesus, what's with the scrolling? I hope their politicians are better than
their web designers.

~~~
The_alienist
Actually, their government is the one paying for that website with public
money, more than 350k euros per year according to this
[http://legislacion.derecho.com/resolucio-
pre-0109-2013-17-en...](http://legislacion.derecho.com/resolucio-
pre-0109-2013-17-enero-2013-departament-de-la-presidencia-4738229)

Now, that definitely give me more motion sickness than the scrolling...

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ahachete
For all of you that are not in Spain and want a quick understanding of the
situation: it's OK if (some) catalans want to be independent. The fact is that
the _constitution_ says that this matter belongs to _all_ Spanish. So if
Catalonia wants to vote that, it has to be _all_ spaniards to vote in favor or
against that. It's against the law that only a part of it decides, withdrawing
that right from the rest of the country. It's really that simple.

~~~
Oletros
> The fact is that the constitution says that this matter belongs to all
> Spanish

No, Spanish constitution say that Spain is indissoluble.

> It's really that simple.

No, it is not that simple

------
Htsthbjig
What happens in Catalonia:

Catalonia is a region of Spain wealthier that the rest of Spain.

In the middle ages they would buy raw materials to the rest of Spain, like
wool, manufacture fabrics with high added value and sell it in the
Mediterranean.

When Castilla colonized America, the Catalunian industry were one of the main
beneficiaries. As they had access to a big market and again they bought raw
materials.

When American colonies got independent, Catalunya was the region with highest
repatriated capital.

Catalunia was very Spanish patriotic beneficiaries at the time as the number
of Volunteers for Cuba's and north of Africa's war testify.

Losing the colonies was a disaster for Spain in general and Catalunya in
particular. Lots of social turmoils happened as the Catalunya burguesia
accumulated most of the wealth from the industry.

Catalunya became famous for the number of anarchists and communist it
generated.

In the 1930s the gobertment of Cataluyna declared independence, mainly
supported by the burguesia that thought it was going to control the
independent state and the wealth themselves.

But soon they realized the workers took the control, seizing the goods of the
burgueses, and declaring a dictatorship of the proletariat.

The burgueses panicked and gave all the support to dictator Franco that won
the civil war.

Franco controlled Spain for 40 years, banned the use of Catalan language but
heavy industrialized Catalunya putting there the manufacturing plants of Seat
car manufacturer and other industries, making it the wealthiest region of
Spain by far.

When democracy came, Suarez created a voting system that benefited minorities
(including nationalists) over the majority.

This means that any majority needs the minority to govern the State.

Any president of Spain but the last one, from the left and from the right has
required the nationalist support in order to rule.

So the nationalist asked for more power, in particular the power over
education, the power over half of the taxes collection. Central gobertment
gave in.

When nationalist controlled the education, they forced everyone to study in
Catalan(inmersión lingustica), and created their own History, the Aragon's
kings became the Catalan's kings, Valencia and Balearic islands and even
Naples became the catalan's states.

The nationalist party also controls private media there with over 70% of their
income coming from local government ads and public libraries subscriptions.

After 30 years of this most of the people there believe that they are being
stolen by the state.

They will refer to data like "over 50% of PIB of Spain is generated by
Catalunya" so they believe they are much better off getting independent.

What they omit on their analysis is that if they get independent they will be
also losing their main market, and that a significant amount of this PIB
number comes from companies that operate all around Spain and pay taxes just
in Catalunya, that will flee the country if it get the independence.

The "right to choose" is misleading when not a single word has been spoken
about the conditions of independence that they could get. The nationalists
leaders want a blank check and burn the bridges,so they could later fill it
with whatever they want.

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r0dia
Please stop using Hacker News for delivering your propaganda. This is all BS,
there is neither right, nor matter to be decided.

