Vincent Partal, the director and proprietor of “Vilaweb,” an influential Catalan online newspaper, has called for a tax strike against the Spanish government in the cause of Catalan nationalism.
The editorial in which he made this call, “Get angry. Organize. Don’t pay.” is written in Catalan, naturally, which I can only half-decipher with my shoddy Spanish and some help from Google Translate.
Here are some excerpts, or my best guesses anyway:
…we have two options: complain or do something.
Something? Like what? A tax strike. hundreds of thousands were in the streets demanding respect for Catalonia… [T]he vast majority of the population is aware of the choking of the economy of our society by the systematic plunder carried out by the Spanish government.
This profound mobilization of civil society that came to life in recent years is more than enough of a base to start an organization of indignation. From there, deliberate widespread civil disobedience.
If an individual, outraged by the arrogance of the Spanish state, refuses to pay taxes in June, surely in September or in January, he will be a defendant in the tax office or in the courts. It’s not worth it. But what if you were talking tens of thousands of people, businesses, and institutions — also institutions — that are refusing to pay, and are organized?
Now, this won’t take off spontaneously. But it is not difficult to get started and to move it along. Suppose an organization, Òmnium for example, or its referendum organizers, were to formally declare a sort of tax “Robinson list.” In such a case, those determined not to pay a personal, business, or institutional tax would only have to sign on, leaving the details to the organizers. When the deadline came, the organizers could simply certify whether there are enough volunteers to carry out the action or not. There aren’t enough? Well, nothing is done, we continue to lament. There are tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands? the number is considered sufficient? In such a case it would suffice to say: Let the deadline pass without paying the tax.
And everything will change.
