So, Rajoy's Spanish Government are now once
again in the process of placing a legal ban on the Catalan independence
Consulta, which is 10 days away. For a while the Spanish Government seemed to
be thinking that the revised Consulta proposal, softened to get round the
previous legal ban, would be sufficiently Mickey Mouse to count as a Catalan
own-goal. But no, they’re going to try and stop it again, which means *they*
now get to look pathetic and desperate while they fumble round for a legal
justification. Because above all, they know they must continue in their
inflexible thinking – it doesn't matter that to do so actually hardens the
pro-independence feeling a tad more, because they intend to keep a cap on it
forever.
Thus, let us suppose that within a couple of
days’ time, they will successfully specify another legal means, highly tenuous
but uncontestable in the short time remaining, to stop the Consulta. That
however will not be the end of it, and here’s what I think will happen next:
the Catalan Government will once again have a trick up its sleeve, again
replacing the aspects deemed illegal with another method of democratic
expression, only this time their proposal will be so Mickey Mouse, so very
Mickey Mouse, that President Artur Mas will in fact stand up and solemnly tell
Catalans who want to register their support for independence to forget about
voting with ballot papers and boxes (which by that point will have been declared illegal and
anti-democratic) and instead to take part in a novel form of democratic
participation on 9th November that will involve putting on a pair of Mickey
Mouse ears, to be provided in the millions by the generous sponsor, and which
will then be counted and duly divided by two, since there are two ears for each person, to get the actual number of
Catalans who support independence.
Of course, this proposal will create such a
media sensation - the definitive “Mickey Mouse idea” - that the
eyes (and ears) of the world will suddenly be on Catalunya, and not in a good way. And the rest of the
Catalan pro-independence parties will feel an overwhelming sense of ridicule
and betrayal and the whole Catalan campaign will simply disintegrate into
arguments and chaos and shame. Meanwhile, the hard-liners in Madrid will be
rolling on the floor laughing at what has happened, especially because, as
usual, the most painful and humiliating part will have been inflicted by the
Catalans on themselves.
After a day or so, they will stop laughing and
switch on the TV to find that all the Catalan pro-independence parties, from
the young alternative socialists to the
wealthy conservative capitalists, and all those in between, have swallowed their pride, picked themselves
up and put on their Mickey Mouse ears and are organising Mickey Mouse rallies and
getting ready for the great Mickey Mouse vote, while performing Mickey Mouse versions of the traditional sardana dance and forming colossal human towers with a Mickey Mouse figure on top of them. The pundits will be saying, there are going to be 4
million Mickey Mouse ears in the streets and squares of Catalunya on November
9th, which after being duly divided by two will mean two million Catalans giving a Mickey
Mouse message about their wish for independence – enough to prevail in any
election, or referendum, or non-binding consultation, held here in the
so-called democratic era.
So the Spanish cabinet will meet and Prime
Minister Rajoy will carefully place a pair of Mickey Mouse ears at the centre
of the table and say very seriously, we all know these things are illegal and
undemocratic. We just have to figure out why.
