Given my ventures into seperatist areas in Europe, I was left with this question. Does a national liberation movement need to ‘tick the left wing boxes’ so to say for ML’s to consider their support, or is support given regardless of political stances?
One movement in particular that caused this question to arise is the Flemish independence movement which is almost entirely filled with right wing nationalists. I do not support their movement. But why? If they wanted to be independent, should I be against that based on their politics? Is that a valid thing to do?
The same thing can be asked with regards to the Basque movement. Should I support them because of their wish to independence regardless of their more left leaning ideologies? Or should the politics be entirely irrelevant in this?
What do you think?
There is a long history of the Catalan bourgeoisie whipping up nationalist sentiment whenever they feel threatened, which in turn allows ‘Spanish’ nationalism to get whipped up in response. It’s very much a symbiotic relationship, and this was made very clear the last time it all blew up: the indignados movement was huge at the time, and it was beginning to look something like a revolutionary moment across the whole of Spain. The repression of this movement was fiercest in Barcelona, and popular sentiment was very much against the government. President Artur Más had to flee by helicopter at one point because the Generalitat was surrounded by an angry mob. But, a little bit of nationalist posturing, a few starry-eyed promises of independence, and suddenly all that anger was redirected in support of the exact same mfs who’d been screwing the Catalonian population for decades. Not only that, but the left across Spain was torn apart by the ensuing reactionary back and forth, leaving us on the verge of a national Vox government at the current moment. Sorry for the long post, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop being angry about this lol.