At the root the the problem there is a nearly xenophobic “we are better than everybody else” attitude. Francesc Pujols, an essential philosopher for Catalonian independendists, believed catalonians were exceptional beings because “they are children of the land of truth” and wrote: “The day will come when catalans, for the sole fact of being so, will go around the world and we’ll have everything payed for”. On a recorded interview, Marta Ferrusola, the wife of the president of the local goverment for over 20 years, despised José Montilla, also president of the local Catalonia government after his husband, because we was born in Andalucia and had a Spanish language name.
Catalan independentism is not a grassroots movement. It was artificially created in the late 19th century by intelectuals. After the transition to democracy, Catalonia was given a degree of independence that Scotland could only dream for up until a few years ago. In fact, it is this independence that allowed politicians to artificially lay the grounds for independentism in order to really gain momentum (up until a few years ago, only a very small percentage of catalans supported independentism, in fact, in Catalonia the referendum for Spain’s constitution was voted yes by 90% of the voters in 1978). They used public funded schools to, at best, pretty much ignore Spain on their curriculum. They also used publicly funded official local television and radio stations that fueled the hatred towards Spain and the idea that Catalonia has been a sovereign nation traditionally oppressed by Spain. A proof of this was seen recently: ex-president Jordi Pujol confessed had he’d kept a million euros in a tax haven; the news was a huge bomb (“patriot” takes his money elsewhere), yet TV3, the main local channel, used only 2 minutes (out of 48) to cover this in a very low-key way. The musical Les Miserables in Barcelona was given more time than that on the same newscast. Similarly, local press is heavily subsidized and speaks his masters voice. Along the same lines, radio stations with a potentially anti-nationalistic approach were denied radio licenses.
Catalonia succeeded at making all national TV news programs in Spain use Catalonian names for Catalan cities (they would claim the contrary to be disrespectful), yet they themselves use catalan names for non-catalan cities (e.g. Saragossa for Zaragoza) on their media. In reality,
every language has traditionally translated names for mayor countries and cities around the world and neighboring regions so they are easier to pronounce for the locals. But, if we decided to use ALL native names (e.g. España for Spain), then it would have to go both ways (no more “Estados Unidos”) and we would ALL have to go along that. This just goes to show how self-centered Catalan politicians are.
The truth is the are hundreds of regions around the world with their own language and a lot more different to their neighbors. We could easily up the count of countries by a an order of magnitude. And some of those might have a true history of cultural or economic oppression, none of which has Catalonia. It’s one of the wealthiest regions in Spain, so obviously there has not been economic oppression, in fact for centuries an unfair monopoly was kept for Catalonia on the clothing business for centuries and Franco would fuel the local industry (for instance, SEAT, created by the government to produce cars, was chosen by Franco to be located in Barcelona. Similarly, the central government funded the Olympics, after which Barcelona became a much popular city internationally than it was. Catalonia’s current money problems come from mismanagement of the local government, including funding of independentism. They are broke, and Spain is saving their ass, and ironically funding independentism, by giving about half of the Fondo de Liquidez Autonómica to Catalonia.
As to culture, they pretty much have full independence. Even though half their population have Spanish as their native language, you cannot attend a publicly funded school in Spanish; it’s only taught as a foreign language. Final court rulings on the issue are simply and illegaly ignored by the local government. And they heavily subsidize anything in Catalan language over anything in Spanish (books, theatre …), even all of it is Catalan culture, when in fact, up until not that long ago, catalan bourgeoisie would only speak Spanish, considering Catalan a language of peasants.
Countries just do not have constitutions that allow for the country to disintegrate, democratic or otherwise. In spite of that, I guess it might be considered reasonable for Catalonia to be able to decide, but only the there is free press, unbiased educational system and maybe another generation has passed so that 2nd generation catalans do not feel that they have to support independentosm to fit in. Only when the feeling is real as opposed to implanted to feel real. Only when one can show a Spanish flag on one’s balcony and not fear for his/her life to become hell (http://goo.gl/TDoVQc).
Unfortunately a thousand lies told by public and subsidized media have become truths for a lot of people; the lies have sank in and now people do not need that much official fuel to go on impressive demonstrations. But Catalonia was never a sovereign country. It was not even a kingdom, unlike Castille, Valencia, Majorca, Asturias or Navarre. Catalonia was just a Principality, a part of the kingdom of Aragon, which way back consisted of current day Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Majorca, Sicily, Naples, Sardinia as well as parts of the South of France. The hero of the Siege of Barcelona in 1714 wrote that we was defending Spain, as it was part of a War of Succession between two dynasties, and catalonians fought on both sides. Yet independentism manipulate history and makes him a fighter for Catalonian independence, 150 years before the concept was even invented. Yes, they lost independence then, but so did other regions in Spain and Europe around that time and later on as larger nations were consolidating.
Also, the phrase “Spain is robbing us” was coined bases on totally biased numbers to show that Spain was taking a lot of tax money from Catalonia and returning much less. This is largely just manipulation, as they were not counting stuff like embassies, as if an independent country could just simply not have embassies. It is certainly true that Spain, like most countries, uses inter-regional solidarity to try and help poorer regions, but the imbalance is small. While this inter-region solidarity might benefit from some capping, we are only taking fine tuning here. An independent Catalonia would try to join the EU, yet the EU would require them to economically help poorer EU countries (assuming their economy managed to stay above Europe’s average) as well as give up some of its independence.
What’s more, there is evidence from the tax police that the Pujol family (Jordi Pujol was the president for over 20 years and is the father of modern independentism) have over 3000 million EUR in tax havens from corruption that is currently under court investigation. Several businessmen have finally come forward and told the story on how the president of Catalonia himself was openly requesting a share of any sizable business that wanted to establish in Catalonia.
Also, while they insist on taking their own decisions, they will not allow the Valley of Aran, an anti-catalan region within Catalonia, to even start considering not being part of Catalonia. I.e. what they demand from Spain they will not even want to talk about it.
