Spain: a matter of pride

We are living exciting days in Catalonia since the demonstration that was taken in Barcelona the last September 11th, in which 1.5 million people flooded into the center of the Catalan city to claim the independence of Catalonia from Spain. After just a couple of weeks since the demonstration, and after the Spanish government has rejected any improvement of the Catalan fiscal policies, the president of Catalonia, Mr. Artur Mas, has called elections. The goal of CIU (the party Mr. Mas belongs to), and of other parties of the Catalan parliament is to celebrate a referendum for the independence of Catalonia, in a similar way Scotland will do in the UK. This has extremelly annoyed the Spanish government, which has insisted that such referendum is illegal. Furthermore, during these days the Spanish parties and media have counterattacked the independentist movement "in the Spanish way", this is, by threatening. Statements such as "Catalonia would crash if it were independent" or "Catalonia cannot live without Spain" have been present on TV and newspapers. These statements are nonsense because nobody has really worked hard on studying the process of independence. Furthermore, threats go beyond the weak arguments and people like Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a member of the ultra-right-wing party "Partido Popular" (PP) - and also a member of the European Parliament-, has said that Catalonia should be military intervened if a referendum were to be celebrated. So why does Spain threaten and forbid Catalonia deciding its future? Why does Spain prevent Catalonia of being independent if Catalonia is supposed to be so mediocre? What is the REAL reason Spain cannot naturally accept a referendum as UK accepts for Scotland? (notice that UK doesn't mind whether Scotland succeeds or fails as an independent nation).

If one knows some of the history of Spain, one will notice that since the 19th century, the Spanish Empire has continuously been losing territories, being Cuba the last one so far.  Many Spaniards feel that Spain is a glorious country and they are proud of it. However they are using the wrong tense: they should use the past tense, not the present tense. Today Spain is a mediocre country. Period. However, the pride of many Spaniards makes them to be sticked in the past, when people rights didn't exist and when conflicts were easily solved by the force, by declaring wars and by setting dictatorships. Times have changed and today Spain belongs to NATO and to the EU, and it is supposed to be a democratic and pacific country that rejects wars and avoids conflicts. So, the only force Spain can use is threatening people with apocalyptic messages. Alicia Sánchez Camacho, leader of the delegation of PP in Catalonia, has recently said: "the independence of Catalonia will arise tensions and confrontations in the Catalan society". Notice that Sánchez Camacho is implicitly saying that Spaniards who live in Catalonia are violent and intolerant by nature! Why? Think about it: people living in Catalonia would be the same either it becomes independent or not, so if today there are no tensions nor confrontations is due to Catalans independentists to be tolerant. But, according to Sánchez Camacho, if Catalonia were independent, tensions and confrontations would arise, which means that Spaniards living in Catalonia are intolerant. Sánchez Camacho's words are simply nonsense: they are yet another demonstration of the helplessness of the Spanish politicians towards the growing will of Catalonia to become independent.

Finally, the next October 12th Spain celebrates its National Day (again, a revival of those past glorious times). PP and "Ciudadanos" (an anticatalan party) are in the background of a demonstration that is to be taken in Barcelona as a reply to the huge independentist movement. People from Spain and Spaniards that live in Catalonia will go to this demonstration, in which fascist groups will likely participate, as in many other times happened. We hope this demonstration will be as pacific as the independentist one, which gathered 1.5 million people and in which no noticeable incidents occurred.

Fascist demonstration in October 12th 2011
(source)