The World Turned Upside Down

Jussi Halla-aho, the chairman of the Finns Party, has an op-ed in The Financial Times about Catalonian* independence entitled “Most independent states today were born ‘illegally’”. The piece is behind a subscription firewall, so I’ll just quote the final paragraph:

One must bear in mind that most of the independent states of today were born in an “illegal” manner, against the laws of the entity from which they separated. This applies to my own country, to the US, Algeria, Mozambique and many others. Is their independence therefore illegal? Can it really be that you need to fight a brutal war to make your independence “legal” and acceptable? Empirically, unfortunately, that seems to be the principle.

He’s quite right: that is the general principle. A country is independent if and only if it can defend its borders successfully against those who would prevent its independence.

There is no other metric for it. If your nation can expend enough blood and treasure to defend itself, it is independent. Anything else is simply some grade of “autonomy”.

That’s the metric we used in 1781 in Yorktown, after five years of bitter, costly warfare**.

On the occasion of his surrender, the band played “The World Turned Upside Down” for General Cornwallis. I wonder what “The World Turned Upside Down” would be in Castilian?

Notes:

*   My remarks about Catalonian independence do not in any way imply approval of its politics. Like Flanders, Catalonia sends more tax revenue to the central government than it receives in return. However, unlike Flanders, it is a communism-loving “migrants welcome” sort of place and holds the EU in high esteem.

If Catalonia becomes fully independent, the Spanish rump state will be both poorer and more conservative.

**   The newly independent United States could not have achieved that independence without the colonies’ alliance with France. However, the French could not project enough military power to enfeoff the new nation, so we were able to achieve true independence, as opposed to becoming a French colony.
 

28 thoughts on “The World Turned Upside Down

  1. At this time an independent Catalonia would instantly become a superhighway for Nafris into Europe.

    Catalonia itself would be neck and neck with Sweden in the race to fall to Islam.

    Madrid should roll the tanks, hard and fast.

  2. The ruling oligarchs of a dozen or more countries in Europe and North America are blindly and busily transforming their elective oligarchies into future Lebanon/ISIS style jihadi battlegrounds, set to fully explode within about a generation or two.

    So now, instead of trying to grapple with this growing disaster, the ruling oligarchs of Catalonia, with a great deal of popular support, have decided that it would be a great idea to introduce a distraction based on good old fashioned European parochialism.

    Well, why not. A bit of pointless farce and slapstick prior to the main event is de rigueur in any well constructed tragedy.

  3. At least one highly experienced international lawyer has given the opinion that Cataluña would not leave EU if it seperated from Spain. Not only in legal terms, think of it in practice – Spain coming down hard on the region and EU saying “Cataluña you’re not in EU “….doesn’t work.

    What the picture actually is is a country and its regions within a superstate, and one of those regions looking for recognition as independent. Look up the wiki on Andorra to find an example result.

    So the question is what result EU and other ptb actually want here… forget all that they say as that changes with circumstance. Do they want a Spain with an invigorated sense of nationalism, setting some kind of synchronized example of state control within the superstate? Do they want to weaken Spain instead?

    Maybe they prepare for either. Modern warfare is hybrid, it is political, economic, media driven, financial, social etc. … remembering Cataluña cannot fight Spain physically and win. Maybe it does not have to under the modern scenario, maybe it only needs enough international intervention – not the military kind but financial, or political – to find recognition. Spain is at the financial mercy of EU, though majority nationalist its population is still very divided politically. Rajoy’s government is minority, Ciudadanos or PSOE are able to completely stall it, bring on elections.

    What I am saying is that the wider gameplan, if there is one, is also fraught in many ways as the confrontation is so deeply contested by all sides….only EU has the privilege of abstaining or only saying “the right thing” . Cataluña itself is able to damage Spanish tourism, or Spain’s economy by strike, enough to tip it or be seen as reason to tip it.

    So nothing is obvious, and this may continue for years more.

    Be attentive of how this unfolds as it will set a precedent, may show people’s hands, and be very wary…no one is fully in control.

    • Yes, this is very similar to situation with Scotland — as it was before Brexit, of course; now everything is different. Scotland wants to stay in the EU, and England wants out.

      • Some of Scotland, Baron, some Scots want to leave the EU. Admittedly they’re outnumbered about 2 to 1 if I recall the figures correctly but so one-sided and puerile has been the debate, even that figure is surprising.

        The Brexit debate in Scotland has been painted as a Ukip and Tory agenda, which for too many short-sighted Scots, simply means the ‘English’.

        The SNP play upon the nebulous anti-English sentiment that permeates elements of Scottish culture (although most of us have moved on in the last few hundred years). They are adept at exploiting this for electoral advantage, so ingrained is the notion of the ‘auld enemy’ it need only be implied, never said directly, the spurious conflation of the EU with the ‘auld alliance’ (traditionally France) works on much the same principle (the EU itself has been conflated with Europe, when it is no more Europe than the Soviet Union was East Europe).

        Meanwhile the SNP are attempting to implement pro-mass immigration, pro-Islam, pro-multikulti agendas, but at the same time undermine Sottish identity…….and call it all ‘civic nationalism’. SNP politicians self-declare as Socialists, Internationalists, and republicans, post-modern ‘civic nationalist’ at a push- so not really nationalists at all then.

        As an example of the level of debate, Nicola Sturgeon recently published a full list of 111 powers vulnerable to she claimed, a Brexit “power grab”.
        http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15544320.Full_list_of_111_powers_vulnerable_to_Brexit__power_grab__published/

        Funnily enough, I don’t recall her complaining about the undemocratic EU’s power-grab in the first place and presumably, she’d be giving back these 111 powers to Brussels, if ever Scottish ‘independence’ is achieved. However I can’t think of anyone who called her on it, or challenged the SNP claim they can have an independent and sovereign nation-state in the EU.

        That they mostly get away with such whopping big lies is testament to the paucity of debate in Scotland about the EU, the duplicity of politicians, the laziness of the media and the gullibility of the voters.

        It’s all rather sad, at some point many Scots might realise what Islamisation and replacement migration, the SNP espouse if perhaps not in those terms, actually means in reality, but they will have no-one to voice their concerns, as their party has been hollowed out by progressives, Islamo-leftists, and Socialists.

  4. Britain looks to be headed this way, with a totally crashed Brexit: That ‘modern warfare’ by means of sheer bloody-minded political and economic dirty-tricks has certainly been opened against us! Once the European Court of Justice rules against even the expression of a whimper of dissent from EU domination – as it almost certainly will, it has been revealed – the only assertion of sovereignty left to the British will be the illegal step of rebellion.

    There’s no way that many millions of people in this country will ever submit to direct foreign interference – though there are unfortunately as many millions of traitors. The day we signed our birthright away under that mendacious sneak Heath was a dark day indeed. The consequences of that conspiracy are almost upon us. No-one has to do any rabble-rousing to agitate the people: Historically no writ can run in any land where substantial numbers of the people simply refuse to recognise it, and repudiate it. And millions here will never accept EU law, which they see – with good reason – as an alien and undemocratic imposition, subverting the authority of their own time-honoured democratic institutions.

    No-one can possibly assure any future officers of a foreign power that any patient forbearance and meek collaboration – or even ordinary civility – will greet them on the private doorsteps of Her Majesty’s realm; nor will such unrecognised officials be certain of receiving respect and deference on the streets of Her cities – and certainly there will be no peace for such interlopers amongst those rural fastnesses where Freemen have always been at large.

    This is not mischievous agitation; this is not idle prophecy; this is not exaggerated posturing: This is merely the calm observation of the troubled course our history is taking, as History is wont to do, whether we will it or no. It is an appalling but – except an unforeseeable miracle occurs at the eleventh hour – an inevitable constitutional disaster, and a present threat to all that we hold dear. But the movements of History are gathering force – also beyond these shores – and are as unstoppable as any of the great natural forces to which Mankind has always, tragically, been subject.

    This periodic contention for authority – ‘law’ – is the fate of humanity through all our ages. It is the ongoing, bitter struggle that must always be resumed after those brief intervals of peaceful respite, such as the one which in Britain – and probably the whole of Europe – seems now about to slip, raging, into the Abyss. It is a bloody Chalice that will not pass, but we must drink. I fear greatly – but that is of no moment.

    Ultimately, there is a harder law that rules, beyond the brittle laws of Man.

  5. Catalonia has been preparing this circus for a long time.
    They hired a lobbyist group of Britain to buy commentators at foreign press. journalists and professors were targets in different countries.

    That is why so many fake news and photos have been aired even in conservative media.

    Of course if Catalonia wanted a Spainexit, they should have commit to legal forms -they exist in Spain, as in the USA.

    Radicals have been controlling a more moderate and nacionalista party, because members of these late are being persecuted for fraud, swindling and embezzlement.
    Independence would ‘wash’ the crimes -so the rush.

    Catalonia was never a country, but if they want to start it now -good for them.
    There is another problem -Spain is a monarchy. And tradition is something that cultural marxismo hates.

    Do you know that to present themselves as non Spanish, Catalonian Greneralitat (State Gov. in USA), forbad bullfights and now is selling the Bull Ring to Qatar Emirate to make a mosque out of it.

      • The people who live in Catalunya ( there are 3 types : the ones who have lived there for several generations, the ones who arrived during the 50´s and 60´s and lastly, the children of these late arrivals who have been brainwashed by the Catalan education system ) are not stupid enough to allow whoever is in charge to convert the bullring into a mosque.

        One thing is having the name of an arab state printed all over the shirts of your “national” football team, another is having them take over an emblematic building.

  6. If Catalonia blinks first then Spain would likely impose a severe and stealthy punishment to ensure it never happens again. It’s too late to back out now. The EU is making an example of Britain with stalled Brexit negotiations. They’ll do far more if Catalonia declares independence.

    • It’s too late to back out now. The EU is making an example of Britain with stalled Brexit negotiations.

      Good point and a worthy comparison.

      • Not really.

        The UK is a member that wants to leave.

        Catalonia would want to join the EU.

        France and Spain, amongst othes, would create the most problems with Corsica, Britanny and the Basque country at the back of their minds.

  7. They already have blinked, and now have only up to October 18th to declare their definite intentions.

    The EU has far more to lose if it were to have a bad relationship with the UK that it does if it were to upset Catalunya. They export more to the rest of Spain than to the entire EU.

    The only real damage they could do would be to cut the road and rail links between Spain and France, and therefore the rest of Europe.

    If they tried that, the Spanish army would invade in less than 48 hours and “solve” the problem.

    • Widespread resistance in Catalonia goes back generations. I don’t know the original causes, but I do remember that one of the forms it has taken is train bombs. They will continue to be a problem…like a bad marriage with an ill-willed partner ready to do violence to the other.

      • I understand that Catalonia was violently annexed by Spain in 1714. They have had 300 years of a seething pot on the stove.

        • Catalonia was part of Aragon in the Middle Ages. Its relationship with Castile has been long and acrimonious.

        • They have only themselves to blame as they voted very enthusiastically for the 1978 Constitution, more so than any other Spanish region.

          Since then they have been given even more autonomous power such as education (brainwashing), healthcare, independent police force (paid for by the central government) and the use of their own language in all of the above.

          Cake and eat it ?.

      • Are you referring to the ones that exploded in Madrid in 2004 ?.

        If so, that was judged to be an Islamic terrorist attack and not a Basque ETA attack, as the Spanish Prime Minister had first suggested.

          • You will note that I said “judged” as the investigations and final judgement were, as the Spanish say, a “chapuza”.

            Having said that, no one claimed that Catalan independents were involved and the Basque ETA involvement was very tenuous and dubious.

            What is clear is that the attack took place 3 days before a general election when Prime Minister Aznar´s successor, Rajoy, was very much predestined to win.

            Aznar had been an enthusiastic follower of Bush and Blair´s intentions to invade Iraq, whilst his opponent, Zapatero, who due to the attack won the election (that is another story), was totally against it, stating that he would withdraw any troops that had already been sent.

            Several islamists were rounded up, some of whom are still in jail, whilst others, when surrounded in an apartment by police, blew themselves up and are now presumbably enjoying the pleasures of having 72 virgins, or ex virgins, at their disposal.

            Better than a Spanish jail I suppose.

          • Thanks for the context regarding the political implications…always there are political implications.

            I’ll bet there are few things worse than a Spanish jail. Maybe an Iranian jail?

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