Some folks don't appreciate it when they've got it good. The case in point on this occasion is little but traditionally troublesome Catalonia, which is in Spain but not always part of it.
This wouldn't be the first time restive Catalans have managed to embroil the rest of the European continent in their contagious quarrels. Back in the 1930s, when they contracted secessionist fever, the Catalans managed to set off a preview of the next world war on Spain's chronically contested soil. Believers in the Spanish republic's democratic freedoms were pitted against the country's Communists, fascists and all other comers. The outcome was much in doubt for years. And it got harder and harder to tell the good guys, if any, from the bad.
Now an independent Catalonia's erstwhile president, Carles Puigdemont, has been taken into custody after crossing the international border on his way back to Brussels from Helsinki, where he traveled in hopes of rallying support. The only immediate result of his intercepted journey was widespread rioting that left scores of both civilians and police hurt, though the mutual injuries were said to be only slight. Let's be thankful for that much, anyway.
All of these developments have been muffled by enough lawspeak and euphemisms to make what the heck is going on in Spain/Catalonia anything but clear. Our favorite example has to be the fuzzy word from a German state prosecutor named Ralph Doepper who told a television station that Herr Puigdemont has been "provisionally detained. He has not been arrested." But it must feel much the same when that cell door clangs shut behind you.
By now a judge who sits on Spain's highest court has reactivated a warrant for Carles Puigdemont's arrest. His apprehension was aided and abetted by various international police forces. Meanwhile in this fast-moving drama, four warrants have also been issued for other leading secessionists who've tried to leave what's left of the country. And who knows how long this tragicomedy will continue? Not befuddled readers trying to keep up with late-breaking events and non-events.
This is the way republics fall these wild and crazy days--not with a bang but a confused whimper. To quote Ines Arrimadas, leader of the Citizens Party that holds the most seats in Catalonia's parliament, the street fighting was typical of "a society broken in two" by this mania for secession. She pointed the finger at Sr. Puigdemont. Catalonia's currently leading secessionist, she says, "knew that fracturing Catalan society into two parts, spending public money on illegal activities, provoking a political and institutional crisis without precedent and confronting a 21st-century democracy of the European Union was going to have consequences." And sure enough it did. The faster this sad chapter in Spain's, Catalonia's, and Europe's history ends, the better for all concerned.
Albert Rivera of Spain's Citizen's Party is already proclaiming victory in this rough-and-tumble fight. "The flight of the coup-monger Puigdemont is over," he tweeted. "Justice is doing its work." Voices of reason are slowly making themselves heard. Calls are mounting for a united democratic front made up of all the contending factions to stand fast against what one observer called "the thirst for revenge of the powers of the state."
By all means let us have peace. It would be a nice change from the kind of revenge-seeking that only prolongs a noble people's suffering.
Editorial on 03/30/2018