Is The Spanish Government Pushing People In Catalonia To The Pro-Independece Movement?

James Glenday, ABC News Online: Catalonia: Will the Spanish Government's tactics drive people to the pro-independence movement?

Among the hundreds of thousands of protesters who have been flocking to the streets of Barcelona, there are many who claim to have recently converted to the cause of Catalan independence.

"Each step the Spanish Government is doing it turns more people to independence," says Elena Jimenez from Omnium Cultura, one of Catalonia's big pro-independence cultural organisations.

"That's why we don't really understand the Spanish Government's tactics.

"It's almost like they don't understand us here at all."

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The Spanish government should have taken the Canadian example on how to handle an independence movement .... I should know because I now live here. The french province of Quebec has had two referendums on independence. The first one was in 1980 with a very clear-cut question .... the No side won by 59.5%. The second referendum was in 1995 on an ambiguous question led by an energized leadership pushing for independence .... the No side won by only 50.5%. The fall-out from that close call reverberated throughout Canada for at least a decade, and the net result has been two things .... (from Wikipedia) the federal government, after unilaterally recognizing Quebec as a distinct society and amending the federal constitutional veto procedure, referred the issue to the Supreme Court of Canada, which stated that the unilateral secession contemplated in the referendum was illegal. And the second requirement is that in any future referendum .... all sides must agree on a clear-cut question. But this was not enough to kill the separatist movement in Quebec, what has killed it .... and former Canadian Prime Minister Harper has not been given the proper credit for this .... is that the former PM ruled in a very unique way that tempered and neutered the rational for the independence movement. And what was that style .... is style of ruling was to have the central government dictate policy directions and objectives, but he permitted the provinces on how to implement these policies while giving them the monies and resources to do it. The current Prime Minister .... Justin Trudeau .... is now doing the opposite. He is dictating policies, and he is also telling the provinces that they must implement it his way. Not surprising .... in the past year separatist sentiments in Quebec are now rising.

For the Spanish government .... they have clearly embarked on using a policy of using a sledgehammer to crush Catalonian independence. There is no room for compromise, accommodation, or even discussion. And for the Catalonian leadership .... jail if they refuse .... One Can Now Make The Claim That Spain Keeps Political Prisoners (October 17, 2017). I have asked my political friends in Quebec and in the Canadian federal government on what would have happened if the Canadian government employed the same tactics and policies that the Spanish government is now doing in Catalonia. Without exception .... all of my friends in Quebec and Canada (federalist and separatist) are saying that Quebec would be independent today.