Spain is a country that has long traded on its status as a transitioning democracy, following the fall of Gen Franco back in 1975. Admittedly, this has been a long and arduous journey. Yet just three years after the death of the military dictator that ruled the country for some 40-odd years and Spain had a new Constitution. Its transition to democracy was then further consolidated with the Socialists sweeping to power in the 1982 general elections under the stewardship of Felipe Gonzalez — who during his time in office served both as President and Prime Minister. Fast-forward to 1986 and Gonzalez was wearing the premier’s hat as he oversaw the country’s admission into both the EEC (European Economic Community, as the EU was then known) and NATO. Yet, in truth, this transition to democracy was borne of broken promise and built upon bitter irony. For at one time, Spain was known as a country that had somewhat resisted western imperialism, at least by contemporary standards. In 1986 it, along with France, denied US access to its airspace in the latter’s war with the ‘Mad Dog of the Middle East’, in other words Gaddafi’s Libya. And linked to this was Gonzalez’s promise to the Spanish people that the country would not join NATO. But it did. He went on to pose the flabbergasting U-turn as steely pragmatism. It was a pact with the devil, a mandatory opportunity cost of formally joining the European trading bloc. And Madrid was in no position to barter, having only just recently transitioned to — yes, that’s right – democracy. Spain’s transition to democracy was borne of broken promise and built upon bitter irony. In 1986 Spain denied US access to its airspace in the war with Libya. And linked to this was Gonzalez’s promise that the country would not join NATO. But it did. This was, he said, a mandatory opportunity cost of formally joining the European trading bloc It may be said that when it came to colonial rule — it wasn’t just those who were directly subjugated who suffered. Meaning that the masses of the ‘civilised’ nations also paid a price, though often in less visibly brutal terms. For the profits of Empire always remain in the clutches of the elite. And so, too, does the right to self-determination. And when citizenries rise up and demand this fundamental justness – they find themselves on the receiving end of a state brutality not dissimilar to that wielded against those in the faraway lands of yesteryear. And this is what happened over the weekend when the people of Catalonia defied the Spanish government to hold a referendum on independence. Around 42 percent of those who could vote did so; in other words some 2 million people. Of a population of 5 million or so, this may seem a little like voter apathy but the truth is that the region is home to one million foreign residents who are denied the right to cast ballots. Yet be that as it may – an overwhelming 90 percent voted for secession. The Catalan government has said that this paves the way for a unilateral declaration of independence. Thereby throwing the Spanish government into political as well as constitutional crisis. Prime Minister Manual Rajoy believes he has bureaucratic democracy on his side, given that the Constitution has at its core the safeguarding of Spanish unity. Yet when confronted by the will of the people — is there ever any going back to the status quo that everyone knows only benefits centrist powerbrokers? Legal provisions aside, Madrid has shot itself in the foot, as well as baton beating the elderly and women. For images of state brutality leaving some 800 injured have been splashed across the world in almost real-time. And for once, the blame for this mass orchestrated violence cannot be pinned on refugees from the MENA region. Indeed, the Mayor of Barcelona has asked for PM Rajoy to resign. Yet it is important to remember that overt violence is not the only way of crushing a people’s moves towards self-determination. Both the Scottish and Brexit referendums may be termed brutal, albeit in a less physical sense. Regarding the former, Whitehall manoeuvred to throw down a bully-boy ultimatum less than a month before the vote, which included the threat of the Royal Bank of Scotland relocating to the mainland as well as being lumbered with an overwhelmingly larger share of debt servicing obligations. As for Brexit, the deliberate fudging of figures pertaining to British contributions to the EU that were said to be able to keep the NHS afloat if redirected — represents a gross breach of the social contract between state and citizenry. Thus democracy is more than following procedural norms. For at its heart it must uphold as sacred the right to self-determination of all peoples. And this in particular means that the western liberal paradigm must ultimately admit that its very system rests upon tolerating that which appears to its power centres as entirely intolerable. Or as Paul Mason, author of Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere, notes in a piece for The Guardian that when a people resist the economic order and social order in Europe — then state-backed scare tactics are part of the deal. Let us hope that the EU finds the self-serving courage that it did back in the 1990s when it suspended Austria over the latter’s electing a far-right party to government. By this we don’t mean that Spain should be suspended over the Catalan vote – but, rather, that Madrid should be taken to task over police brutality. Nothing less will do. The writer is the Deputy Managing Editor, Daily Times. She can be reached at mirandahusain@me.com and tweets @humeiwei Published in Daily Times, October 4th 2017.