GLOBALISATION THROUGH LEFT REGIONALISM

In early summer, the Prime Minister of the Spanish Region of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, announced the decision to hold a referendum on separation from Spain on October 1, 2017.

Earlier, on February 18, a march was held Catalonia's central city of Barselona under the slogans that criticiezed the policy of the central government of Spain on refugees. According to the police, at least 160 thousand people attended the event. The demonstrators were demanding the Spanish government to increase its efforts to accept refugees from war-torn countries (in particular, Syria) under the slogan "Enough excuses! Take them immediately!" and "Enough deaths, open the borders!"  In light of today's tragic event in Barselona, the rally attenders' demands are gaining even more destructive forms. 

"There is a consensus in Catalonia on the requirement for the government to comply with its obligations," said Ruben Wagensberg, one of the rally initiators. At the same time, Spain has only accepted about 1100 'forced migrants' from the target of 17,000, planned in September 2015. For comparison, in 2015 Germany accepted 890,000 asylum seekers, 280  thousand people - in 2016.

The February's rally in Barcelona was held, in particularly, because of great support of the city mayor Ada Colau Ballano, a well-known left activist who has won her current post thanks to frankly populist social activities. At the post of Mayor, she repeatedly confronted Madrid, having been supporting the Catalan separatists and promoting the campaign for "de-Spanisation" of Barcelona. Also on the initiative of Adi Kolau, teh so-called "counter of shame" has been established at one of the city's largest beaches. Its artistic goal is to show the number of refugees who drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea on their way to Europe. 

Considering the political processes in Catalonia, we have a clear example of how left-wing regionalists and lobbyists of globalization processes in Europe -  one of which is mass migration - are related to each other.  Anti-national, left-oriented political forces always try to act against a state interests and sovereignty, in particular, through the creation of a regional opposition. For example, Scottland - a region with long-standing separatist aspirations - was the main opponent of the Brexit initiative. Those states who can resist to be swallowed up at once will be more or less rigidly divide into smaller parts. And local separatist movements are coming in handy for such purposes.

Scottish, Catalan or Donbass leftists are just the most obvious predictors of a regionalist counterattack of globalists. Of course, the regionalist phenomenon is represented by a number of truly anti-globalist forces (there are several nationalist parties in Catalonia and Scotland). However, in any case, the danger of the transformation of local identities and "rebellious" regions into the foothold of aggressive left-liberal globalism should not be underestimated.

source AzovPress