Tag Archives: Independence

Earlier today.

The moment Catalonia declared independence from Spain.

Further to this.

The Guardian reports:

Spain’s senate has granted the country’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, unprecedented powers to impose direct rule on Catalonia minutes after the region’s parliament voted to establish an independent republic on Friday afternoon.

Rajoy, who has vowed to stop the region becoming independent, is now expected to call a cabinet meeting to begin assuming control of the region and sacking its president, Carles Puigdemont.

On Friday afternoon, Catalan MPs voted for independence by a margin of 70 votes to 10. Two ballot papers were blank.

The result was greeted with jubilation by pro-independence MPs, who applauded and began singing the Catalan anthem, Els Segadors.

Spain imposes direct rule after Catalonia votes to declare independence (The Guardian)

Related: Beyond Catalonia: pro-independence movements in Europe (The Guardian)

RUTH

Ruth Dudley Edwards

Ahead of the referendum on Scotland’s independence.

Dublin-born writer Ruth Dudley Edwards writes:

“These days Scots, however, would do well to learn from the example of the island immediately to their west.
There, the people of the Republic of Ireland have mostly ignored the rest of the Celtic fringe, being obsessed instead with nurturing old grievances towards England (aka the Saxon, perfidious Albion, the old enemy and so on). Anti-Englishness was our identity: the evil country’s role was to take the blame for all our wrongs and accept our immigrants uncomplainingly. Ireland was thus a mean little country that I gladly quit in the Sixties – insular, sectarian and with a political class that allowed itself to be bossed about by a rigid and intolerant Roman Catholic hierarchy and drove out most of its writers and creative minds along with the jobless.
Such narrow-mindedness is a grim warning of what might await an independent Scotland.
In Ireland’s case, the narrowing stemmed from a revolution in 1916 that began the process of taking Ireland out of the United Kingdom, cutting off contact with the British Empire, silencing anyone who retained unionist sympathies and airbrushing out of history the 200,000 or so Irishmen who fought in the First World War. If they chose to stay, Protestants kept their heads down and said nothing about “Rome Rule”.

…For much of the 20th century, in its constitution Ireland claimed ownership of the entire island, ballads were sung about our divided nation and there was hero-worship of various members of the IRA who tried to bring about Irish unity by crossing the border and attacking police. This kind of aggressive, divisive republicanism should serve as another warning to Scotland. There will be a push to undermine institutions with unionist associations, and to foment a kind of class war. If the Scots Nationalists win next Thursday, how long will it be before they morph into republicans and call for a referendum on ditching the monarchy?

Scotland should heed a harsh lesson from across the Irish Sea (Ruth Dudley Edwards, Daily Telegraph)

Ruth Dudley Edwards

5234586160_f67ab1785c_z

Speaking in the House of Commons today, British Prime Minister David Cameron had this to say about the ongoing Israeli military offensive on Gaza:

“I have been clear throughout this crisis that Israel has the right to defend itself. Those criticising Israel’s response must ask themselves how they would expect their own government to react if hundreds of rockets were raining down on British cities today.

I spoke to Prime Minister Netanyahu again about this crisis last night. I repeated our recognition of Israel’s right to take proportionate action to defend itself, and our condemnation of Hamas’ refusal to end their rocket attacks, despite all international efforts to broker a ceasefire.

It is vital that Hamas recognises the need to enter serious negotiations to end this crisis. In particular, we urge Hamas to engage with the ceasefire proposals put forward by the Egyptian government.”

On Friday in Edinburgh the Scottish Minister for External Affairs Humza Yousaf said:

“I have today written to the Home Secretary and told her that Scotland would be willing to accept Palestinian refugees and urged the UK to also play a part in easing the refugee crisis in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

It is essential that the UN should be allowed to independently investigate all civilian deaths to determine whether there has been any violation of international law.

Our offer of medical assistance to help the humanitarian situation still stands and we are currently in dialogue with the appropriate Governments and agencies to assess whether Scotland can give specialist medical help to civilians caught up in the conflict should should this prove possible.

The Scottish Government also believes that the continuation of the blockade in Gaza is exacerbating the suffering experienced by the people there and tantamount to collective punishment. For that reason I recently wrote to the UK Government to exert further pressure on the Israeli Government to bring that blockade to an end.”

Scotland prepared to accept Palestinian refugees (Scotland.gov.uk)

Prime Minister’s statement on Ukraine and Gaza (Gov.uk)

Pic: Flickr

It comes around so quickly.

Having proclaimed her Independence at the first Meeting of Dail Eireann, in the Mansion House, Dublin, on January 21, 1919, this address was then sent out to the “free nations” of the World.

‘Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people: and whereas for seven-hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate and has repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation… Now therefore we, the elected representatives of the ancient Irish people in National Parliament, Assembled, do, in the name of the Irish Nation, ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic…”

Lol.

Document Via Mealy’s

Civil liberties were almost non existent, citizens were not equal with women becoming second class while the poor were plunged further in destitution. The history of early Irish Independence is often passed over with a less than critical eye that glorifies state building at any cost. However behind this abstract veneer lies the story of a dark authoritarian regime based on repression, discrimination and censorship. This was enforced by deeply authoritarian attitudes underscored by severe catholic morality which stifled culture and allowed no political debate or opposition of any kind. By 1937 the “The Irish Free State” had created a society that had betrayed the ideals of what many had set out [to] achieve two decades earlier.

 

Torture, Murder and Exclusion: Ireland’s first 10 years of Independence (The Irish History Podcast)