Some things I don't really understand reading in German media
Suddenly the electoral system becomes a legitimacy problem. While it has never been a problem for any of the previous decisions of the Catalunyan regional government suddenly a "only 48% of people voted for the government" results in the decisions being illegitimate? This is also a property of many governments (Greece and the US president being obvious examples but also the German Bundestag can have a majority government without the majority of votes). Is this just the media trying to find something they can blame on "the other side"?
How can you ever possibly excuse violence against people peacefully and non-violently doing whatever they're doing. Sure this referendum was considered illegal (and it may be legitimate to ignore the result, or legal prosecution of the initiators) but how can that ever possibly be an excuse for half a population peacefully doing whatever they are about to do? How can you possibly claim that "both sides are to blame" for the violence? "Die Zeit" seems to be the only one with an somewhat convincing argument ("Deciding to press on despite the obviously happening violence") while "Welt", "Spiegel" and "Süddeutsche" all trying to blame the regional government for the violence with as much of an argument as asking people to do something illegal in a totally peaceful way. Possibly an argument for legal consequences, sure -- but for violence?
Too bad I didn't keep the links / articles from Sunday night.