Beware Catalonia, Conservatives: This Ain't No Brexit

A Far-Left Pro-Islamist Euro-State is Not in Your Interest

“Most of my friends were graduating that year. Hasan off to work with his family in London, Regina on her way to Andalusia to study Spanish Gypsies.”--Zorro the Zero in 'Dreams from Bill Ayers' Father'

Brexit was an effort to make Great Britain more English, less Euro-Socialist and therefore less Islamist. This is an effort by some Catalonians--and only some--to make Catalonia less Spanish, more Socialist and more pro-Islamist. You can smell the Soros from here.

It is something akin to Keith Ellison Democrats unilaterally declaring a binding referendum on Minnesota's secession to become The People's Republic of Farrakhanistan. And Keith will count the votes. That's called "Civil War".

And scoff if you will, but California just declared itself a Sanctuary State, free from federal law (and your voice in Congress) on citizenship and foreign policy. And not just with Mexico, but with failed Mid-East terrorist states as well.

Catalonia is a Spanish State bordering on Mediterranean France. It has its own language and an independence movement going back a century, although the people are very divided on the issue.

The Economist: "Spain’s democratic constitution of 1978, which was approved by more than 90% of Catalan voters, gave wide autonomy to the regions but affirmed “the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation”. Only the Spanish parliament can change the constitution. Mr Puigdemont’s referendum is therefore illegal..."

BBC:"Parties loyal to Spain who won about 40% in the 2015 Catalan election boycotted it, so the No vote was likely to be tiny and hugely unrepresentative. Opinion polls are hard to come by but the clearest indication before the referendum came in July, when a public survey commissioned by the Catalan government suggested 41% were in favour and 49% were opposed to independence."

Brookings (yeah, Brookings): "The referendum campaign [does] serious damage to the relationship between Spain’s central government and its Catalan citizens. Catalonia’s referendum is highly irregular. The same can be said for Spain’s response to it. The situation reflects broader trends that are undermining democratic states and hampering their ability to channel and absorb contention.

It is common for secessionists to hold referendums on independence. When the central state negotiates the legality of a vote in advance, a referendum can lead to changes to territory, as would have been the case in Scotland in 2014 and was the case in the 2015 Brexit vote.

Purely symbolic referendums are a persistent feature of a series of frozen conflicts, from Transneistria in Moldova to Abkhazia in Georgia to Somaliland in Somalia. Referendums on independence held by territories with de facto but not de jure sovereignty are aspirational and do little to change the status quo. Similarly, non-binding, unofficial votes can be held in territories with secessionist aspirations. Catalonia conducted an unofficial referendum on independence in 2014.

Other votes on sovereign status, such as in Puerto Rico this spring, are advisory. The results do not take effect but are taken into consideration in policy process or negotiation. Again, those votes do not, in and of themselves, alter facts on the ground. The best-case scenario for advisory votes is to move policy negotiations forward in specific ways. This was the goal of the Iraqi Kurds’ non-binding referendum on independence held last week.

Holding a referendum and using its results as a pretense to declare independence without the support of the central state is rare and dangerous. These votes are akin to the unilateral referendums that disassembled former Yugoslavia. The vote itself poses winner-take-all, existential questions. Regardless of next steps, this can increase polarization in divided societies, and that push toward extremes is on display in Spain.".......

Gatestone:

"The Barcelona attack could have been prevented had municipal officials complied with an order to install bollards, vertical poles designed to prevent car ramming attacks, on the Rambla, the city's main tourist thoroughfare.

On December 20, 2016, one day after a Tunisian jihadist drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring 56, Spanish National Police issued a circular ordering all central, regional and municipal police departments in Spain to "implement physical security measures to protect public spaces" to prevent jihadist attacks "in places with high numbers of people." The circular advised:

"Municipalities should protect these public spaces by temporarily installing large planters or bollards at access points to hinder or prevent the entry of vehicles."

The measures were never implemented in Barcelona because the leaders of the Catalan independence movement did not want to be seen as taking orders from the central government in Madrid.
After receiving the directive, Catalan autonomous police, known as the Mossos d'Esquadra, accused the central government of "alarmism" and insisted that it would not order municipalities in Catalonia to implement this "indiscriminate measure." The Mossos also claimed to have the jihadist threat under control, that local police were trained to "detect symptoms or radicalization," and that there were "no concrete threats."

The jihadists prepared for the Barcelona attack at a chalet in the beachfront town of Alcanar, situated 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Barcelona. A year ago, the terror cell "occupied" the property, which was foreclosed and had been vacant. Squatters are protected by Spanish law, so it is common for youth in Catalonia to take over vacant properties. This may explain why neighbors did not contact the police.

Far more difficult to explain is why no one reported suspicious activity at the chalet. During the course of several months, the jihadists collected more than 100 large gas canisters, which investigators believe were to be used as car bombs. An explosion on August 16, the night before the Barcelona attack, leveled the property. Investigators later found traces of the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP), also known as the "Mother of Satan," a substance widely used by members of the Islamic State in Europe.

Police found the remains of at least two people in the rubble of the Alcanar chalet. The head of the Mossos d'Esquadra, Josep Lluís Trapero, confirmed that one of the bodies was that of Abdelbaki Es-Satti, a Muslim cleric who is suspected of organizing the terror cell and radicalizing its members.

Es-Satti, a Moroccan national who lived in the Catalan town of Ripoll, served in a local mosque. He was a convicted drug trafficker who had spent four years at a prison in Valencia, where he is believed to have met Rachid Aglif, known as "The Rabbit," one of the main plotters of the 2004 Madrid bomb attacks that killed 192 people and wounded 2,000. Police are now looking into whether Es-Satti was involved in the ISIS attacks on the Brussels airport and metro in 2016.

Ali Yassine, the director of the mosque in Ripoll, said that he had reported Es-Satti to local police more than a year ago as part of a security protocol to monitor Muslim preachers. Authorities did not place him on a watch list, however, even though he had been convicted of trafficking drugs and violating Spanish immigration laws.

Catalonia not only has the highest Muslim population in Spain, it is also one of the most Islamized regions of the country. Catalonia has 7.5 million inhabitants, including an estimated 510,000 Muslims, who account for around 7% of the total Catalan population. In some Catalan towns, however, the Muslim population is above 40% of the overall population.

In his book "Jihadism: The Radical Islamic Threat to Catalonia," Catalan terrorism analyst Jofre Montoto estimates that at least 10% of the Muslims in Catalonia are "radicals" who are hardcore believers in the "doctrine of jihadism."

A five-page diplomatic cable, dated October 2, 2007, described the link between mass immigration to Catalonia and the rise of radical Islam in the region:

"Heavy immigration — both legal and illegal — from North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria) and Southeast Asia (Pakistan and Bangladesh) has made Catalonia a magnet for terrorist recruiters. ... The Spanish National Police estimates that there may be upwards of 60,000 Pakistanis living in Barcelona and the surrounding area; the vast majority are male, unmarried or unaccompanied, and without legal documentation. There are even more such immigrants from North Africa. ... They live on the edges of Spanish society, they do not speak the language, they are often unemployed, and they have very few places to practice their religion with dignity. ... Individually, these circumstances would provide fertile ground for terrorist recruitment; taken together, the threat is clear....
"There is little doubt that the autonomous region of Catalonia has become a prime base of operations for terrorist activity. Spanish authorities tell us they fear the threat from these atomized immigrant communities prone to radicalism, but they have very little intelligence on or ability to penetrate these groups."

Many of Catalonia's problems with radical Islam are self-inflicted. In an effort to promote Catalan nationalism and the Catalan language, Catalonian pro-independence parties have deliberately promoted immigration from Arabic-speaking Muslim countries for more than three decades, in the belief that these immigrants (unlike those from Latin America) would learn the Catalan language rather than speak Spanish.

Although some Catalans are having second thoughts about the wisdom of promoting Muslim mass immigration as a strategy to achieve Catalan independence, at least 10,000 Catalans with links to the separatist movement have actually converted to Islam in recent years.

It is believed that two out of every ten Catalan radicals who belong to the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), a far-left political party, are converts to Islam. The ERC, which now governs Catalonia, has vehemently refused to sign a cooperation agreement with the central government in Madrid to fight jihadist terrorism.".......

And in 2014, Muslims were promised a mega-mosque, third largest in the world, funded by Qatar if they would support independence.

Vote No, Conservatives. Hell no.