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Anticapitalistes support the Referendum Law

Statement by Anticapitalistes Catalonia

Wednesday 20 September 2017, by Anticapitalistes

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Today, 20 September, the Spanish state federal government stepped up its attack on the right of the people of Catalonia to hold a referendum on national independence. [1]

The Fourth Internationalists in Catalonia stand firmly in defence of this fundamental democratic right of the people of Catalonia. This statement was issued earlier, at the moment when the Catlinian government passed the law. We will publish more as we can. [2]

Parliament today [6 September] will probably approve the law calling the referendum on 1 October. Anticapitalistes support the approval of the Referendum Law because it is a step towards the holding of a disobedient referendum to enforce the right to self-determination.

The popular mandate to exercise self-determination has been expressed in the institutions and on the streets on countless occasions in recent years. A popular mandate that the Spanish State and the forces of the 1978 regime intend to obstruct by judicial means. It is both legitimate and necessary to disobey a legal framework that denies political rights. Civil and institutional disobedience is a legitimate and indispensable tool for the conquest of social, political, economic and cultural rights as is shown by the history of popular, feminist and working class struggles.

However, the opacity in which the Generalitat Government has processed this law, like the rest of the preparations for 1 October, weakens the referendum itself and the posibility for a popular response against repressive measures. Confining the exercise of the right to self-determination to polling booths is to undermine the strength of the movement itself.

Self-organization and the full political participation of the popular classes are central tools for going beyond the legal framework and, therefore, must be prioritized over failed strategies for avoiding confrontation with the state. However, we must say in criticism that the opportunity to extend the census and political rights to residents without Spanish nationality, and thus deepen democracy, has been lost.

Faced with the more than expected express suspension of the Referendum Law by the Constitutional Court, Anticapitalistes call for mobilizations in defence of 1 October and in favour of disobeying this suspension and all future measures of the Spanish State to prevent it from being cast. The referendum can only be won on the streets.

6 September 2017

Original here.

P.S.

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Footnotes

[2Anticapitalistas (Spanish state) posted this on Facebook at about 10.30 am on 20 September : The PP Government is detaining members of the Generalitat continuing its authoritarian and repressive drift, which means, in practice, an undeclared but real State of Emergency in Catalonia. A restriction of freedoms that, in fact, is spreading to the rest of the State and that will deepen if we remain impassive. The answer must now be clear and without any hesitation: we must call for a vote on 1-O (1st October, date of the Catalonian referendum) and thus to disobey the 1978 (post-Franco) regime that is showing its true colours these days. A regime that is closing off the possibility of its own self-reform and is impeding the right to decide. On 1-O, it is necessary to vote and disobey to broaden a breach that will make it possible to open the necessary constituent processes.