Comment No, there's no "Spain's crackdown on Catalonia" (Score 3, Informative) 363
...and no, there is no censorship involved.
Catalonia is not a colony.
Catalonia has been always part of Spain, and a very important part. This was already so when the province of Hispania was created under the Roman Empire, imposing a layer of latin culture and roman institutions on top of the existing Iberian tribes. After the downfall of Empire, the visigoths ruled all of the Peninsula as a single kingdom for more than two centuries. The small christian kingdoms and principalities that from 711 to 1492 fighted the muslims were at times also fighting each other, but the general trend was that of strengthening alliances and uniting forces under the same religion, not unlike other places in Medieval Europe.
Catalan counties were already integrated in a larger unit (the Kingdom of Aragon) in which different languages (such as castilian and catalan) already coexisted for two centuries before the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs. They no doubt kept their identity, but the same could be said of every other region. Asserting that those small medieval kingdoms survived into today's regions with zero intermingling, thus conforming clearly separate and distinct societies, is simply untenable.
In the heyday of the Spanish Empire and till the 19th century, catalans (and basques, BTW) were not just part of the thing, but a *leading* part of it. You can find lots of catalan surnames in Hispanic American countries, many of them in well-to-do families (check out the names of some well known distilleries such as Bacardi, Brugal, Barceló, if you don't mind my alcoholic references).
With the historical digression, I just wanted to point to the fact that there have been no borders inside Spain for many centuries. This is not some country with huge differences in racial/ethnic aspects, or torn out by religious strife. The interrelationships are deep and extended in time. At this point it's difficult to define exactly who is catalan or not. Is it just being born in today's arbitrarily defined administrative region what makes you catalan? Are you catalan if your parents were not? Are you catalan if you don't speak catalan? Are you catalan if you do speak catalan but don't live in Catalonia? The top 10 most frequent family names are the same in Cat and in the rest of Sp. Catalan is the first language of 36% of people living in Cat while Spanish is the first language for 46%. Catalan exports to Germany, to put an example, are less than half of those to its neighboring autonomous region of Aragon. Who gets to vote in a referendum?
The fact is that since 1978 Sp has been a highly decentralized country, much more similar to federal Germany than to centralist France. Cat, being one of 17 autonomous regions, has had for almost 40 years plenty of effective "independence": both an autonomous government and parliament, capable of passing their own laws within a large margin, as long as they don't undermine the general interests of Sp as a whole, which doesn't seem so unreasonable to me.
If you ask me, this autonomy has been used to put the emphasis on the difference. Autonomous administration has reached all aspects of civil life, to a point that the presence of national institutions are scarcely felt, and the words "país", "nació" are used all the time to refer to Cat and not to Sp. There's a huge part of the population whose first language is Spanish, yet it is not possible to study primary nor secondary school in Spanish (due to the official policy of "linguistic immersion"). Regional governments have spent a lot of money and effort in building their image, uniformizing and boosting the usage of catalan language, confering dignity to their institutions, projecting an international image, etc. etc. The regional PM is paid almost twice as much as Rajoy - not bad for an "oppressed nation"!
At the same time, complaints about things that don't go well are targeted to a ghostly oppresive presence, the "State", the "Central Government". The idea of Spain is associated with political corruption (no matter how much the local cases disprove the myth, as if true catalans were somehow less tainted by human imperfection), with extreme right wing (no matter that Socialists and Communists were centralists and anti-nationalists during the Spanish Republic, for example), with Franco's regime (as if only the catalans and no one else in Sp endured the dictatorship!) or with militarism and authoritarianism in general (please, just check surnames in the Spanish military history, or realise that the largest host of volunteers for Franco's side in the Civil War was the very catalan Tercio de Montserrat). The word "España" is never heard in the regional media (which by the way eats up almost twice as much money as the largest private media corporation in Sp), it is systematically substituted by "the State".
These and similar practices are a constant alienating force. Apply for 40 years and enjoy the result. Otherwise, how come catalans feel much more oppressed now than under Franco in the 70s?
A bit more briefly on other questions:
Self-determination, in the contexts defined by the international right (colonialism, foreign domination, etc.), does not apply here. I would moreover argue that self-determination in general is not even a real concept. If a certain subject (individual, group, nation, whatever) has its right for self-determination granted, it means it is already determined *beforehand*, otherwise who is being granted a right? In other words, that a subject can decide to be independent or not implies its being independent to decide it. Thus self-determination is just flat-out independence.
As for the role of the Spanish government: I'll never say that Rajoy and his administration are much of my liking, but right now they can't do anything else than what they are doing. Keep in mind that they don't even have the power to grant self-determination rights nor to allow such a referendum nor to decide that the fundamental chapters of the Constitution are not to be applied. These matters can only be dealt with by modifying the Constitution, which is a complex *legislative* (not executive!) process. Whoever decides to just go beyond the law should be prosecuted. Democracy and freedom doesn't mean "law doesn't apply to me". And I repeat, the government doesn't have that kind of power, it has no other option than to do this and can't do anything other than this. Otherwise, they would be breaking the law themselves. And why should I or anyone else abide by the law then?
As for the censorship accusations: the websites being shut are being used to commit a felony (ie. supplanting the legitimate electoral system). To lobby for nationalism is not a crime, and it is not prosecuted nor censored. Just google around.
I haven't lived in Spain for the last 10 years, but I'm from Valencia. In my family tree, just in the past two generations I have catalan, aragonese, asturian and castilian surnames. The first words I uttered in this world (as hopefully my last ones) were in Valencian (which is basically the same as Catalan), but I also consider Spanish my own language. I have catalan friends, I have had catalan girlfriends, I might have married one of them. Being a Spanish citizen who tries his fortune abroad you won't find me saying that Spain is the best-run country. But also as a Spanish citizen, all Spain is my nation, and all of it is of my concern. This process is about to make me an stranger in my own country. And I have to be asked about it. The feelings of the separatists cannot be prioritized over my rights.
Catalonia is not a colony.
Catalonia has been always part of Spain, and a very important part. This was already so when the province of Hispania was created under the Roman Empire, imposing a layer of latin culture and roman institutions on top of the existing Iberian tribes. After the downfall of Empire, the visigoths ruled all of the Peninsula as a single kingdom for more than two centuries. The small christian kingdoms and principalities that from 711 to 1492 fighted the muslims were at times also fighting each other, but the general trend was that of strengthening alliances and uniting forces under the same religion, not unlike other places in Medieval Europe.
Catalan counties were already integrated in a larger unit (the Kingdom of Aragon) in which different languages (such as castilian and catalan) already coexisted for two centuries before the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs. They no doubt kept their identity, but the same could be said of every other region. Asserting that those small medieval kingdoms survived into today's regions with zero intermingling, thus conforming clearly separate and distinct societies, is simply untenable.
In the heyday of the Spanish Empire and till the 19th century, catalans (and basques, BTW) were not just part of the thing, but a *leading* part of it. You can find lots of catalan surnames in Hispanic American countries, many of them in well-to-do families (check out the names of some well known distilleries such as Bacardi, Brugal, Barceló, if you don't mind my alcoholic references).
With the historical digression, I just wanted to point to the fact that there have been no borders inside Spain for many centuries. This is not some country with huge differences in racial/ethnic aspects, or torn out by religious strife. The interrelationships are deep and extended in time. At this point it's difficult to define exactly who is catalan or not. Is it just being born in today's arbitrarily defined administrative region what makes you catalan? Are you catalan if your parents were not? Are you catalan if you don't speak catalan? Are you catalan if you do speak catalan but don't live in Catalonia? The top 10 most frequent family names are the same in Cat and in the rest of Sp. Catalan is the first language of 36% of people living in Cat while Spanish is the first language for 46%. Catalan exports to Germany, to put an example, are less than half of those to its neighboring autonomous region of Aragon. Who gets to vote in a referendum?
The fact is that since 1978 Sp has been a highly decentralized country, much more similar to federal Germany than to centralist France. Cat, being one of 17 autonomous regions, has had for almost 40 years plenty of effective "independence": both an autonomous government and parliament, capable of passing their own laws within a large margin, as long as they don't undermine the general interests of Sp as a whole, which doesn't seem so unreasonable to me.
If you ask me, this autonomy has been used to put the emphasis on the difference. Autonomous administration has reached all aspects of civil life, to a point that the presence of national institutions are scarcely felt, and the words "país", "nació" are used all the time to refer to Cat and not to Sp. There's a huge part of the population whose first language is Spanish, yet it is not possible to study primary nor secondary school in Spanish (due to the official policy of "linguistic immersion"). Regional governments have spent a lot of money and effort in building their image, uniformizing and boosting the usage of catalan language, confering dignity to their institutions, projecting an international image, etc. etc. The regional PM is paid almost twice as much as Rajoy - not bad for an "oppressed nation"!
At the same time, complaints about things that don't go well are targeted to a ghostly oppresive presence, the "State", the "Central Government". The idea of Spain is associated with political corruption (no matter how much the local cases disprove the myth, as if true catalans were somehow less tainted by human imperfection), with extreme right wing (no matter that Socialists and Communists were centralists and anti-nationalists during the Spanish Republic, for example), with Franco's regime (as if only the catalans and no one else in Sp endured the dictatorship!) or with militarism and authoritarianism in general (please, just check surnames in the Spanish military history, or realise that the largest host of volunteers for Franco's side in the Civil War was the very catalan Tercio de Montserrat). The word "España" is never heard in the regional media (which by the way eats up almost twice as much money as the largest private media corporation in Sp), it is systematically substituted by "the State".
These and similar practices are a constant alienating force. Apply for 40 years and enjoy the result. Otherwise, how come catalans feel much more oppressed now than under Franco in the 70s?
A bit more briefly on other questions:
Self-determination, in the contexts defined by the international right (colonialism, foreign domination, etc.), does not apply here. I would moreover argue that self-determination in general is not even a real concept. If a certain subject (individual, group, nation, whatever) has its right for self-determination granted, it means it is already determined *beforehand*, otherwise who is being granted a right? In other words, that a subject can decide to be independent or not implies its being independent to decide it. Thus self-determination is just flat-out independence.
As for the role of the Spanish government: I'll never say that Rajoy and his administration are much of my liking, but right now they can't do anything else than what they are doing. Keep in mind that they don't even have the power to grant self-determination rights nor to allow such a referendum nor to decide that the fundamental chapters of the Constitution are not to be applied. These matters can only be dealt with by modifying the Constitution, which is a complex *legislative* (not executive!) process. Whoever decides to just go beyond the law should be prosecuted. Democracy and freedom doesn't mean "law doesn't apply to me". And I repeat, the government doesn't have that kind of power, it has no other option than to do this and can't do anything other than this. Otherwise, they would be breaking the law themselves. And why should I or anyone else abide by the law then?
As for the censorship accusations: the websites being shut are being used to commit a felony (ie. supplanting the legitimate electoral system). To lobby for nationalism is not a crime, and it is not prosecuted nor censored. Just google around.
I haven't lived in Spain for the last 10 years, but I'm from Valencia. In my family tree, just in the past two generations I have catalan, aragonese, asturian and castilian surnames. The first words I uttered in this world (as hopefully my last ones) were in Valencian (which is basically the same as Catalan), but I also consider Spanish my own language. I have catalan friends, I have had catalan girlfriends, I might have married one of them. Being a Spanish citizen who tries his fortune abroad you won't find me saying that Spain is the best-run country. But also as a Spanish citizen, all Spain is my nation, and all of it is of my concern. This process is about to make me an stranger in my own country. And I have to be asked about it. The feelings of the separatists cannot be prioritized over my rights.
