Catalan activists raise their hands at Barcelona's Catalonia Square after a silent march to protest police violence during the secession referendum at October 1st. PAimages/Matthias Oesterle/Zuma Press. All rights reserved.When I see a picture of a middle-aged woman, dressed in her ordinary clothes and standing outside one of the prohibited polling stations somewhere in Catalonia, with blood trickling down her forehead, my immediate response is a feeling of dismay. In one of Europe’s youngest, but most animated democracies, how has it come to this?
For centuries, political thinkers from Niccolò Machiavelli to Carl Schmitt have understood conflict as an inherent part of politics. Today’s political headlines from around the world would no doubt lend support to their claims. But with popular political expression unlocked through the democratisation of our societies, more than ever we need to carefully navigate this polarising effect of politics. Democracy offers the grey space between ‘us-them’ nature of politics, but it requires more than simply calling a referendum.
Europe, the self-proclaimed vanguard of democracy, is increasingly coming face to face with the complexities and contradictions of democracy. It is easy to cite free and fair elections; the rule of law; social and political rights; the separation of power, or broader principles of transparency and social justice as necessary components, but their application, within a particular historical and social context, can look very different from one society to another. Hence why we see some democracies content to maintain a monarch as the constitutional head of state, where republicans would baulk. Or why many societies have evolved to elect representatives to manage their communities’ political matters, as opposed to the constant engagement of citizens with the day-to-day running of the country.
