Files, detentions, Police, and Civil Guard convoys…. Such is the response of the PP government and the State to the Catalonian decision of carrying out the referendum. Before events like this, we reaffirm our full rejection of the government’s action and our call to all workers and students: Let’s take to the streets! We cannot remain quiet!By Corriente Roja.
Those of us who, by defending Bread, Work, Roof, and Equality, have faced fines, detentions, persecution, gag-rule, etc… we cannot look aside arguing that “this Catalonia issue is complicated, tiring,” because that would be to tolerate an outrage, and because the same “sticks” hitting Catalonia today will turn against all workers and the people.
The list of Spanish-Nationalist argumentations by the Institutions and the media seems to be limitlessly ruled by the criteria of “anything goes” and “do not let the truth ruin a good news for you”.
“The referendum is illegal,” they say. So what? It was illegal to fight for the 8-hour shift when the law established endless shifts. It was illegal to fight against child labor. It was illegal to fight for freedoms during Franquismo. It was illegal to fight against the compulsory military service and to be declared insubordinate was paid with jail. It was also illegal to fight for the right to abortion and the female suffrage. There is no achievement in the working class’ history, and even human history, that did not start with an “illegal” fight that disobeyed the ruling order.
If a people do not have the right to decide, what is wrong is not the referendum but the law that avoids it. It is the law, and not the referendum, that is illegitimate.
It is also heard that “dialogue is necessary to get to an agreement, not to take unilateral measures.” This argumentation would be very reasonable if we had a “reasonable” government or State. But what “reasonability” can we expect of those who rule for the bankers, speculators, and thieves?
They do not have “reasonably democratic” sense; they had years to change the Constitution so the referendum could be carried out [legally] and they did not. When there was an attempt to modify the Constitution (the famous art. 135) for the bankers’ debt to be paid by all of us, they needed no more than 15 days to do it.
There cannot be a “reasonable agreement” when the government and the State deny the essential premise that is the right to decide.
What the PP, the PSOE, and CS say is that not now nor ever will the people have the right to decide, because this is “the Spanish homeland, only and indivisible”. And then they call the others nationalists!
We need the unity of all workers and students to fight for work, dignified wages, housing; for a public, quality health and education; to defend the public retirements that they are stealing from us, and to defend democratic rights against any type of oppression. But such unity is impossible if we become, actively or passively, supporters of the government, the bosses, the State and its Spanish nationalism, against the Catalonian people.
“But it is Puigdemont that cuts the workers’ rights in Catalonia, the party of Pujol, Artus Mas, and the corruption,” they state. It is true! So what? To punish the Catalonian bourgeoisie we have to impede the vote of all Catalonians?
To defend the right to decide is the best way to help the Catalonian workers to, sooner or later, settle scores with those who aspire to be the executors of the cuts in the European Union and of the Troika in Catalonia. It is the same score-settling that we have pending with Rajoy and his band.
To adhere to the arguments that aim to avoid the referendum to take place is to throw stones up to our own roof. What are the workers, united, doing, by standing behind those who imposed a labor reform to us, and steal our wages, rights, and social security? What are we doing supporting, even if by omission, those who implement the gag-rule every time we protest? We should not disqualify the “nationalists” who ask for a referendum in order to defend the biggest nationalism of all, the Spanish Nationalism.
The Catalonian youth and people are taking the streets these days. The unions that make part of the Dignity Marches and the Bloque Combativo de Clase are calling for a General Strike in Catalonia.
We call you to diffuse, in your workplace, study place, or neighborhood, the call to mobilize, and we invite you to get out onto the streets together!
