The past Friday October 27th saw world news covering one common story: the Catalan declaration of independence from Spain. This doesn’t come as new, as this is yet an other chapter (not the culminating one yet) of a process ongoing for years already, nor as a surprise, as the news is especially relevant for many reasons, nost notably its controversy. However, despite the world’s nations so far total rejection to recognise or support such a declaration, daring it often illegal and illegitimate, I personally feel quite in favour of such a declaration, something not that many would say today.

This does not intend to be one of the classical pieces on “how we got here”, trying to explain to a foreigner the causes pushing for the events that led to Friday’s declaration, whose success is yet to be seen. There have been plenty of those explanatory versions, some trying harder than others to remain objective, as the matter is hugely controversial, and it may often be difficult to understand the struggles and challenges of the region, its people, and those of broader Spain. Instead, this is an opinion piece, a totally personal viewpoint and arguments on why I think the declaration is worth my support.

As I hope you know already, the events on Friday didn’t come out of the ether, but instead they were the consequence of a long series of broken negotiations, financial inbalances, and cultural and political marginalization, that was triggered in 2010, exploded in growth since 2012, and has its roots at least 40 years ago (certainly earlier). The undermining causes of the whole conflict are embedded on the more general problem of Spain’s political division, an endemic problem we’ll be discussing in a coming article, and the undermining question has been from the very beginning one of sovereignty versus law. The fact that the issue is divisive differently in different places is probably one of the reasons why the struggle erupted into what is now a non-violent popular revolt. By this I mean that the sovereignty question is not divisive within Catalonia, where an overwhelming 80% of the population want a referendum (or wanted, at least), but in the rest of Spain, where those against it are a majority. It’s support of independence that is controversial in Catalonia, mainly because those in favour aren’t a clear majority, and those against aren’t all the remaining; it’s very complicated.

This complex division is why the 2015 regional election that put the pro-independence coalition in power was so difficult to read. They gained a majority of the seats in parliament, but 47% of the vote, whilst the parties detracting independence clearly didn’t add up to all the remaining 53%, as the remaining left-wing party was (and still is) quite unclear about independence, backing a referendum, lacking an official position on the whole thing (leaving it down to its voters), and supporting an eventual independent nation in the case it was legitimately proclaimed (which this is not the case for them). In short, this ambiguity in the polls is why the whole problem is so hard to read.

Nevertheless, the fact that the pro-independence coalition won an election, and set sail towards a self-determination referendum with massive popular support, set a democratic mandate on those politicians. Controversy asside, they fulfilled their promise to organise a vote (which became more of a resistance of civilians versus police), to offer negotiations at all costs (which were never taken), and to finally declare independence, in what is a surprisingly rare case of politicians doing as they said they would, one in which they even do so risking their careers and future. Just for that obedience to a democratic mandate, though tragically an unclear one, I respect the decision taken, and the signature of such declaration. After all, doing otherwise would’ve been lying to their electorate, one that committed strongly to the cause in crackdown and repression, and that expected the same commitment from their leaders.

In that line of argument, what if they had done otherwise? What if those leaders decided not to declare independence or to organise the referendum at all? Do you think those people would just follow suit? A new set of leaders and candidates would’ve emerged to do exactly that, and they would appeal to exactly the same voters for the same reason. If, after the referendum, they had gone home and called for a snap election, the public would be livid at them, and again, new leaders would arise under the oath to declare independence, probably less eager to negotiation than the prior ones, especially after witnessing the brutality of the Government’s response towards the poll. Over 1000 injured during the confiscation of just 5% of the ballot boxes, the censorship of any kind of campaign for the referendum, and the imprinsonment of officials and organisers of non-violent protests and demonstrations, people are understandingly furious at the Spanish Government, and even if they don’t all back independence, they don’t see intervention as a “rescue” as much as an other form of prosecution, in a region where the conservative parties in power have never had significant support.

This popular insatisfaction (to say the least) with the Spanish Government was the gunpowder behind the explosion, and denial for a vote at all has been backed, not by the people as much as by the elites, and those have been the most agressive campaigners against it. The declaration of independence comes in opposition to the political oligarchy in Spain and to the economical elites, represented in the Stock Exchange, who made pressure by moving their headquarters out, for example. The independence movement has been, if anything, a movement that surged from the bottom up, not from the top down as some have tried to present, as previously moderate politicians were forced to take new more agressive positions or to step down by their electorate.

For that reason, the independence movement has been more of a popular revolt than a political breakup, a non-violent one (at least in the hands of the rebels), something I not only respect, but absolutely support. In an ever more unequal world, both socially and economically, in which long fought democratic rights are being often stamped on by governments and others in the name of economical profit or “law and order”, and seeing how our population is ever less reactive to those humilliations (such as the Wikileaks or the Panama Papers scandals, which saw no changes at all), a revolt to promote a change is incredibly healthy, one that even seeks peace in its means. Government corruption (Spain was awarded to be the most corrupt EU nation in a recent report) in the Spanish government and administration affecting all forms of it (bribery, clientelism, theft of public funds and resources, justice manipulation, etc.) was a significant part of popular discontempt that pushed for the overall movement, following the premise that in a new State new laws and new institutions could be established that could more effectively prevent the persistent corruption.

That falls into my third reason to support the declaration: the opportunity to create something new, something fresh. Spain in particular is a nation that inherited its institutions, political movements, and legislation from a dictatorship, and its legacy remains vividly; the consevartive party (now in power) was a rebranding of the former one party in the dictatorship, parties and foundations that backed the coup still exist today and receive public funding, right-wing parties always reject the possibility of investigating the dictatorship’s crimes or to bring up anything from the time (such as monuments, symbols, or commemorating victims), and many of the top officials and leaders today were already officials of the dictatorial administration, or their descendents and relatives. Just imagine Goebbels didn’t commit suicide and his children were in charge of Merkel’s party in Germany; preposterous, right?

A new nation to effectively cut off its ties with the former corrupt, marginalizing, and authoritarian roots of the prior. Who knows if it may work, but it is a great opportunity, one that’s being denied under the argument of “law and order”, precisely by those elites the rebels want to remove. Even if the declaration does not succeed, failing to establish a new nation, it has meant a blow for those in power, a knock at their doors that maybe their power is not so well cemented, even in a world where intolerable scandals such as the Wikileaks or the Panama Papers are swept under the rug by he public. In fact, it should be a reminder of that for everyone: instead of whining on how those elites exert their power and how “something should be done”, sometimes something can be done. Two million people mobilized every year in Catalonia for a cause they believe in, peacefully, and exemplarily, and they promoted radical political change, who knows if successfully. Maybe that should show how that is not only not impossible, but it can work. Catalonia knocks at our doors to say “we pushed for a change we believed in; you should do the same”.