The Catalan referendum of October 1 comes with much confusion and division among workers’ organizations. Those against the referendum state “We are against Nationalism,” “it is a step backward in the XXI Century.” But they only use “nationalism” to talk about the Catalonians, the Basques, or the Galicians, and the ignore the greatest nationalism, the Spanish one.
By Ángel Luis Parras.
They ignore that, if there is Catalan, Basque, or Galician nationalism, it is because there is a greater nationalism which does not acknowledge itself as such, but it is the most arrogant and barbarous one, the one that imposes its rules and oppresses: Spanish nationalism.
There are those who acknowledge the national oppression and defend the right to self-determination… as long as peoples do not put it into practice. If they do, the questioning begins. It is just like those who defend the right to divorce only on “mutual agreement.” But the right to self-determination is precisely the right of the peoples to separate by their own will.
In this monarchic regime, inherited from Franquism, and always led by nationalist-bourgeois Spanish parties, supported by the Troika, to demand a “previous agreement of both parties” is to deny in practice the right to decide. This reasoning leads to join Rajoy and the State against a people that wants to exercise its democratic right.
They also claim the “illegality” of the Referendum. But, to any Democrat, this fact should only serve to question the legislation, which denies a basic democratic right (“they call it democracy but it’s not”). This is the same reasoning that demands from Juana Rivas to “respect the law;” that does not question the legal “basic services” of the 90%, like Eulen’s, and that proposes that the pickets “should be limited to inform.” In fact, these are argumentations of the people “of the order,” the PSOE, and now also Podemos, Izquierda Unida…
From the list of excuses, we cannot forget about the rejection of the Referendum in name of the “unity of the working class.” And it is not by chance that this flag is raised by the old bureaucrats of CCOO and UGT. It was just like this in the Referendum of November 9 (2014), and it is like this once again, with the call of López Bulla (among others), the historic leader of CCOO and the PSUC, and Rañé, former leader of UGT and PSC and former Councillor of Treball.
Their argumentation seems to be “of class:” workers cannot walk behind the bourgeois government of Puigdemont. Like if walking behind Rajoy was to be walking behind “the proletarian government of the PP.” The problem is, thanks to López Bulla, Rañé, etc., the working class ends up being tied to a monarchic Constitution and regime that perpetrates the oppression to the peoples and divides workers. Now, they want to put the working class in the caboose of the Spanish oligarchy.
Happily, there are other organizations, like the Union Co.Bas, who confronts “the demands of the labor world” from a class-independence stand:
“Our Union was always in favor of the defense of rights and democratic freedoms. Thus, we defend the right of the peoples to free self-determination, and we reject any type of forced unity, imposed against its own will. The unity we want is the free unity of free peoples, and that only exists when it is the peoples that decide it. (…) Hence, we support Catalunya’s right to decide, as well as the Referendum of October 1.”
“We need unity to defend the democratic rights of all. Without such unity of the working class, we will not have bread, work, roof… nor right to self-determination.”
“We call our members and all workers to defend, in the name of democratic rights and the unity of the working class, the right of Catalonians to decide, to carry out their Referendum. We call to repudiate and demonstrate against any repressive, dictatorial attempt by the PP government against the Catalan people.”
