We have just seen how Scotland underwent a referendum to find out if its population wanted their country to be independent or continue to be part of the United Kingdom. With a very tight result, the decision of the Scots has already been published, adding that of so many foreign inhabitants that it reaches 87% of the census.
In the United States there was a similar case with Puerto Rico in 1995, allowing a referendum where it was shown that Puerto Ricans did not want to continue with the old status of "free associated state", respecting the US this decision and assuming the one chosen by Puerto Rico from the three proposals then. But there is more, in 2012 it was Quebec who freely voted for the independence of Canada, as other countries have done throughout recent history. The other way is to declare independence unilaterally, as was the case of Slovenia, which did so on June 25, 1991. Two days earlier, the twelve member states of the European Community and the United States had publicly said that they would never recognize Slovenian independence and that they gave full support to Yugoslav unity. But in the end Slovenia is an independent country attached to the EU since 2004.
Borders have not stopped changing throughout the history of mankind, the problems come when violent impositions occur, which unleash more violence. When there are democratic deficiencies, when referendums for independence are prohibited, the problems of the freedoms of countries with aspirations for emancipation are delayed, as is happening with the former Spanish Sahara, with all the associated suffering that violent and colonialist attitudes imply.
When one acts democratically, when diplomacy and sanity prevail, the history of mankind is not stained with blood and sorrows, what one does not have is not spent, the futures of anyone are not seized and progress continues its course going back, almost always for the better: at least without violence.
Spain suffers a serious democratic deficiency. There is hardly anything left for the ecclesiastical power to manifest itself, attached to the political power as in the past, so that it is effective that in that state there is only one legal nationalism, which is called "national-Catholicism" just like during the Franco regime, since the kingdom of the Bourbons confuses equality with centralization and understands by unity the veto to the self-determination of the Peoples. If we add to this the Spanish concept of the social, we must admit that one cannot be more violent.
Pedro González Cánovas, Member of ANC
