The article is biased from the word go. “Austerity-crazed central government” is just highly incorrect, when the local Catalan executed more austerity measures than the rest of the autonomic governments. Furthermore, Catalonia received more than €67.000 million from the central government (more than any other autonomy) to deal with its economic problems.
Catalan nationalism origins can the traced back to the late 19th century. It’s rooted in racism (the “Catalan race” would be Ario-Goth-Celtic as opposed to the rest the Spain’s Semitic and Bereber. Dr. Robert, mayor of Barcelona, used phrenology to justify it) and supremacist (“Catalans are exceptional beings because they are children of the land of truth such that the day will come when Catalans, for the sole fact of being so, will go around the world and we will have everything paid for”, Francesc Pujols, one of the key characters in Catalan nationalism). Even today, Joan Oliver, ex-director of no less than public autonomic TV channel TV3, says that “Spaniards are crooks by the sole fact of being Spaniards”).
More than 90% of Catalans massively voted the Spanish Constitution, which does not address self-determination. Just like the US (many Catalan independence claims are similar to Richard Lance McLaren’s Republic of Texas organization), Italy, Germany or France, where Constitutional Courts have ruled out independence referendums in the past. In fact, around the world only the Constitutions in “Saint Kitts and Nevis” and Ethiopia contemplate this. You may wonder why.
Catalonia is the 3rd richer autonomous territory in Spain, and sports one the the highest levels of independence in the world. As an example of the latter, in Catalonia I cannot school my children Spanish in state run schools in Spanish as the base language (despite being 50,7% being the common use language for Catalans as per the local government reports, as opposed to 36,3% for Catalan language).
This is not grass roots movement, but one led by politicians (objectively the most corrupt in Spain, based on judged cases) over 40 years of indoctrination at schools and subsidized media, which have turned post-truth (still, local government polls speak of only 41% of support for secession).
The desire for independence was traditionally residual (around 15%), and surged within a very short time (about 5 years, which point to it not being organic) fuelled by a significant economic crisis.
Post-truth includes Bexit-style “Spain is robbing us” and gross manipulation of history. As an example of the latter, Rafael Casanova, a defender of Barcelona in 1714 during the War of Succession (between two aspiring kings) was made into an independence hero, even if he wrote that he fought “for the freedom of all of Spain” and Catalan nationalism wasn’t even a concept then. Other fallacies include automatic EU membership for the new country.
They claim self-determination of all people’s is a basic right, yet the United Nations (read declaration 2625) limits this to colonies, military occupation or oppressed nations. What’s more, the independentist Catalan pre-Constitution, does not address self-determination either (do as I say, not as I do), even though they have their own internal independence movements (Vall d’Aran). Also, the province of Barcelona is far richer than the rest, so, by the same token, Barcelona would be a “robber” in a hypothetical Catalonia.
Overall, I do not think a movement with racist supremacist overtones and largely based on lies by the most objectively corrupt politicians in the country, has a lot to do with democracy.
Fixed! Sorry for the false positive!
