A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
Well, people can justify it this way.. but right now, basically is modern political imaginary and simbolism to get votes. Otehr regions of spain have a psudo-independent state atauts (Navarra), others are strucutred as a federation-confedereation with Spain (Basque Country),and still is Catalonia the more famous in right-wing spanish environment since ETA is diminished because Catalonia alwyas wants independence and get spaniards money.
Some people think that it is because the catalan families (our oligrarchy) has a desire to influence in the Madrid down-town high echelons and in the Spanish structure...and this is something whch leads to a big ideologic fight with other power groups.
Others people talk about the fact that Catalonia is the only place where a different language than spanish is used... that makes some easy symbolism if you are a spanish nationalistic party.
And the state of the spanish right-wing is awful (disgraceful, theys top at nothing) , the Consituttional Curt is in shambles, and the catalan oligarchy is stupid-dumb-stupid.
Is a negative view of Catalans among other Spanish people only a very recent phenomenon due to right-wing demagogy (and dumb Catalan oligarchs), or does it reach further back?
having said that, you normally try what once worked in some way or form. So franco activist were against Madrid and catalonia, pre-franco times there was some animosity too but it was about anarchism-socialism-liberalism-authoritanism more than anything else..
It is a clear example of Levi_Strauss ideas, take a basic myth and make simple logical steps to adapt it.
So the basic mythology has history, the present virulent form is new.
Sociologically, Madrid's arrogant view as the unquestionable center of power is made up by large numbers of poverty-stricken rural migrants that have worked hard (in appalling conditions during the dictatorship) to reach a comfortable financial position in democracy, without equally improving their educational level. These two-three generations are easy prey for the PP pathology that repeats 'Catalunya has it easy with 'our' money and that's why you can't have more ... services'.
Catalunya is prosperous and has an image of being entrepenurial, persistent, productive and innovative, but not submissive. What's not to envy and reject?
Add to that the Catalan nasal speech and entonation that can be spotted immediately, plus their demand for equal political-economic treatment and you have the perfect 'other' in a knee-jerk brain. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
Meanwhile in catalonia.. well just the opposite.
it's surely a flaw in a constitution when the body intended to pronounce on issues of interpretation of the constitution can be politically gamed in the way you describe.
In any case, here are the rules set out in the Constitution:
Requiring a supermajority makes sense in a court designed to rule on constitutionality issues - after all, you don't want a bare majority of the Parliament, likely supported by less than 40% of the popular vote, to stack the court. But this means a blocking minority is 141 seats out of the Congress' 350, which the PP exceeded in 2004 and again in 2008. In the Senate, given the demographics and the non-proportional character of the Senate, the PP has a chronic plurality, even when they are in opposition. Currently they have 126 out of 264 seats in the Senate (where a blocking minority for appointments would be 106 - the PSOE has 105).
With the current degree of political polarization and the PP believing since 2004 that the PSOE government is illegitimate, there is really no hope to break this gridlock unless the PP is beaten back at the polls to where they don't have a blocking minority, or the PP wins a general election.
In the meantime, I'm sure another group of 4 Constitutional Court magistrates will be up for nomination soon... En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
There is an increasing weariness over having to stand the angry look of those who continue to perceive the Catalan identity (its institutions, economic structure, language and cultural tradition) as a fault which prevents Spain from attaining a dreamed and impossible uniformity.
Catalans pay their taxes
(without historical privileges);
In Spain fueros (I believe this may come from the Latin foedus) was the old name for a Royal Charter, given to newly incorporated towns, or to entire regions. The only surviving fuero is the one for Navarra, which is why the Autonomous Community of Navarra is actually called 'Foral Community of Navarra' and Navarra's 'historical rights' are mentioned in the appendix (transitory provisions) of the Spanish Constitution. As an aside, the only other notable use of fuero is in the Fuero de los Españoles, a sort of Charter of Fundamental Rights enacted by Franco in 1945 - here fuero as Charter is like the Carta in Carta Magna.
Anyway, the Basque Country used to have a fuero but it had been abolished. However, the Basque Autonomy Statute is inspired in the old fuero. As a result of this the Basque Statute has a different fiscal arrangement to all the other Autonomous Communities. This is what the editorial complains about when they say "Catalans pay their taxes without 'foral' privileges".
they contribute with their effort to the transfer of income to the poorest parts of Spain;
they face economic internationalization without the many benefits of hosting the State capital;
they speak a language with more demographic weight than many official languages of the EU
a language which, instead of being loved, is so often subject to obsessive scrutiny by the official Spanish nationalism
In this connection, the Spain's Director General for Film, former MEP Ignasi Guardans, who is a Catalan wpeaker and used to be a member of the Nationalist party CiU, recently said that "people will rather see a film in Farsi than in Catalan" (well, he did say 'in Iranian' but we'll forgive him that). And I have to say I have seen films in both Farsi and in Catalan (with subtitles) and that once, given the choice between watching a Catalan film in the original version or dubbed to Spanish by the actors themselves, I chose the Catalan original, I would have to agree with Guardans - a film in Catalan will be seen by fewer people in Spain than a film in Farsi. He argues it is more important for encouraging the Catalan film industry to get films produced in Catalonia than to worry about whether American films are dubbed to Catalan (which is what Catalan politicians care about - and this is the kind of opinion that led to him being sidelined by CiU as an MEP candidate),
and they uphold the laws, of course, without giving up their peaceful and proven ability to withstand with civility.
These days, Catalans think, above all, of their dignity; this should be known.
Though I guess you answered it already:
European Tribune - Comments - Things coming to a head in Catalonia
a large proportion of the Spanish population is deeply and unseemingly anti-Catalan, which I find remarkable and ultimately incomprehensible.
Thanks for the inside scoop. Will await developments, eagerly and somewhat in trepidation...
Is there a difference to go along with that distinction? The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
People vote for "us", regardless of whether they actually agree on anything much ideologically.
To a large number of people in Spain, the PP is the only party standing up for "us" against those pesky "them" out there in Catalonia. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
They are voting nationalist, in the strict sense of nation:
Nation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A nation is a body of people who share a real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin.[1]
If I'm reading you correctly, the conservatives have two beefs with the Catalans: the Catalans are not Spanish (i.e. belonging to the Spanish "nation"), and the Catalans refuse to identify as Spanish. Nice Catch-22, that.
To the extent that a constitution embodies the shared governing principles of a nation, it would seem to me that you have a constitutional crisis that goes deeper than the political sleaze. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
The Catch-22 you mention manifests itself in that, as I mentioned in the diary, the PP can both claim that Catalonia is Spain (therefore, independence would not be entertained) and that Catalans are foreign (therefore, they can't be trusted).
"Spanish Nationalist Centralist" is my ideological description of this group. Most of them are in the PP but there is a substantial minority in the PSOE, too (the PSOE being majoritarily "Spanish Federalist"). The other ideological strands within the PP are "Economic Neoliberalism" and "National Catholicism".
Interestingly, the President of the Congreso, PSOE 'baron' José Bono is both a "Spanish Nationalist Centralist" and a "National Catholic", though economically he's relatively to the left and sociologically he belongs to the PSOE patronage network rather than the PP patronage network in his native region of Castilla-La Mancha (where he was regional President for many years). In ZP's first term he was Minister of Defence and in this term he's a leading voice within the PSOE opposing from a Catholic perspective the latest proposals for liberalizing reform of Abortion laws. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
This is all at a more fundamental level. The PP has even challenged the draft reformed Autonomy Statute for Andalusia and Castilla-La Mancha while spearheading the reform of the Valencia Autonoomy Statute (in Valencia they are in power).
If the Catalan Statute fails in the Constitutional Court, this will leave the Andalusian one as the one with the highest level of devolved power and therefore the "model" for the rest. Also, (El Pais in Spanish) the PSOE appears to be threatening with passing the Statute of Castilla-La Mancha in the national Parliament with the votes of the Catalan and Basque nationalists and the opposition of the PP. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
This smacks of a narrative of domination and subjugation vs. resistance which is not without its basis in historical events.
On September 11, Catalonia (Spain) commemorates the 1714 Siege of Barcelona defeat during the War of the Spanish Succession. As a punishment for their support to the claim of Habsburg Archduke Charles to the throne of Spain, institutions and rights of the territories of the Crown of Catalonia and Aragon were abolished by the victorious absolutist Bourbon monarchy in line with the political evolution occurring in other parts of Europe at the same time. In 1980, the restored Generalitat de Catalunya (autonomous Government of Catalonia), as its first public act proclaimed 11 September La Diada, the Catalan National holiday. Organizations and political parties traditionally lay floral offerings at the monuments of Rafael Casanova and General Moragues for their fight against the Bourbon army.
In 1980, the restored Generalitat de Catalunya (autonomous Government of Catalonia), as its first public act proclaimed 11 September La Diada, the Catalan National holiday.
Organizations and political parties traditionally lay floral offerings at the monuments of Rafael Casanova and General Moragues for their fight against the Bourbon army.
This whole episode does explain why the U.K. found it relatively easy to hold the Balearic Islands for so long, (aside from the British Fleet), and why Catalan nationalist sentiment was a card they could and did play in the 18th and early 19th centuries. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Aragon seems never really to have been properly integrated into Spain any more than Quebec has been well integrated into Anglophone Canada or Ireland was ever integrated into Great Britain. Treaties and superior force don't equal acceptance and assimilation.
Now, now, hold it right there with the historical parallels...
Would Catalonia really consider independence?
If they do, will they apply for EU membership? Would Spain block it?
Given the animosity, would there be risk for armed confrontation? A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
