Today in the 9/11 the Catalans celebrate our National Day, the Diada. We actually celebrate to remember a day of defeat: the fall of the city of Barcelona in 1714 to military forces after a siege of almost 14 months. The attackers were the army of Philip V of Spain. We don’t want to forget our history.
Catalonia is a small nation in the Iberian Peninsula, with 7M inhabitants and 32000 square km, which borders France, Spain and the small Andorra. It is officially part of Spain, but a lot of us Catalans have never felt Spanish at all. Our cultures are really ways apart. Our language is also different, even if most of us speak and write Spanish as well as the best Spaniard.
We have many unique traditions in every field that define this country as different, and nowadays we gladly don’t share some of the Spanish traditions, like the televised torture of bulls. We instead eat tomato bread (Pa amb Tomàquet), which is awesome; we also build human castles (Castellers) and dance “Sardanes”. Even our humor sense is way different than the Spanish, ours being most similar to the English.
The most watched sport in Spain is football and it’s not even close. But since I was born it feels the official sport is verbally attacking the Catalans. We are called to be cheap, as in not wanting to spend a coin unless it’s really necessary. Maybe it’s true and that is why Catalonia is a rather wealthy nation. Or it could be it’s because we have a hard working mentality and really long work schedules. But of course that is the smallest insult we have heard over the years and have grown to don’t care. The latest fashion between the Spanish politicians is to compare the Catalan Independence move and its’ politician figures to Nazism. This may sound like crazy to some but in this country it happens literally every week.
Last year we went on a massive pacific demonstration to remember the world that it is our right to decide what we want to be, and if we want to be part of Spain or not. 1.5 Million People took the streets of Barcelona to remind that fact. Because we live in a Democracy and it literally means the government by the people, and “all power and responsibility of that power ultimately reside with that people”. We can’t care what a dusty out-of-time book says about that. Even less when it was a pact with a dictatorship that acted a Coup d’état and killed hundreds of thousands just for thinking different. Because if we don’t feel it in our hearts, no matter what number of books say it, they won’t make it any truer.
Today we celebrate it with the Catalan Way. It is a 400 km long human chain of people in support of Catalonia’s Independence. They joined hands at 17:14 to make a line from side to side of the country, among others acts in support in most towns and cities. The logistics required are quite absurd when one tries to think about it. Every single car bus available in the country has been mobilized. The media are talking about 500k people showed up for it (last number is 1.6M). The organizers probably can’t deal with that, or at least not in a perfectly coordinated way. Of course, if it actually was a true closed line is not what matters in the end, it is sending the message.
The Catalans usually have an open minded wish to travel and learn other cultures and languages, you can find us everywhere. A good cause for that is how we are raised as natural bilinguals, and sadly hated by a part of our own countrymen.
Here is a nice small video showing the support for the Catalan Way in many cities of the world:
For more info on the topic just search for the Catalan Way on Wiki, the Catalan National Assembly site (in English), the Tube or the “Via Catalana cap a la Independència” official webpage.
Thanks for the interesting blog, nice to hear your perspective! Happy National Day Just a quick question: the Baleares speak a Catalan dialect as well, right? But they do not feel as a part of the Catalonian province? If Catalonia were to secede, would they want to join?
The Baleares people don't feel part of the province because they aren't. There's the concept of Països Catalans (Catalan Countries) which does include them together with Catalonia and Valencia, since they are the three main places that speak catalan. But it's kind of outdated since Valencia and Balears feel they are also a separate entity and some of them even think their languages are different and unique. In Valencia there's actually more spanish speakers... And in Mallorca maybe more germans
Every island has their own dialect (Ibiza, Mallorca, Menorca and the awesome Formentera) which sound totally the same to me. But if they try hard, someone from Catalonia might not understand parts of their sentences. Mainly because of the accent and a few different letters. Same applies to the Valencian dialect, and something similar happens to every language in the world afaik (as in having rather different accents or dialects).
All in all, the answer is that they would not want to join.
Edit: The other places were they speak catalan are the country of Andorra, a part of the southern France and the city of Alguer, in the Italian island of Sardegna.
Oh yeah I forgot to add the "k" I wanted to write after the 32(k) square km, I guess I missed it because of the km Ty for the heads up.
On September 12 2013 07:22 TanGeng wrote: Is catalan independence a real thing??? How likely is it to happen?
It is a real thing nowadays yep. History shows that in these "big matters" most people think it's unlikely to happen and don't see it coming, until one day it just happens :D
Btw the last numbers the media has given on attendance was around 1.6M people. Not a big surprise considering last year's.
I'd say catalan independence is a very real thing. One of the last polls made by a newspaper showed that 52% of the population is in favour of independence, so even taking into account that these kinds of polls are always manipulated, there is nontheless a significantly large amount of people in favour of the secession from Spain. There are plans for a referendum in about a year (end of 2014), but it is still not clear if it is going to happen, due to internal political conflicts.
I'd like to add to the OP that even though there is a large social component to the independence claims, there is also a very important economic reason, given that Spain is still very deep into a crisis (27% unemployment and rising, and enormous debts by both the state and the private banks) and that Catalonia is one of the top economic regions of Spain. Right now the region is being drained of economic resources in order to try and help the less developed regions of Spain, and this is seen by many catalans as nothing short of pillaging from the government of Spain, and they argue that with financial independe we could resolve the crisis much faster in Catalonia.
It is a very interesting situation, given that no one knows what would happen with the relationship of a newly formed state and the European Union, since there are no written rules about that. Also it is interesting given the recent history of fascism in Spain, and the concepts of an "Indivisible Spain" and of the duty of the military to protect such "Unity" that stemmed from it, concepts which are currently part of the Spanish Constitution. This could very realistically mean a military conflict of some sort should Catalonia seriously pursue independence. We will see what happens.
Also OP, the population of Catalonia is currently at more than 7M, not 4M as stated.
I've been to Barcelona, Catalunya is a super nice place.
I'm very surprised at catalonian nationalism though... I mean, Spain took it in 1714, that's 300 years ago. Seems like it would be integrated by now. Hell, my province in Sweden, Skåne, was taken from Denmark in 1658, and people haven't whined about that since... well, around those times. Obviously there's a big difference between a province which wasn't sovereign in the first place and a country like catalonia, but it still surprises me that this kind of nationalism can survive for so long, especially since there wasn't really such a thing as nationalism in 1714, nationalism emerged around 1750 in England.
EDIT: Read up on it a bit on wikipedia and as I expected, the whole "catalan independence" thing is actually quite modern, there weren't really any serious separatists until the early 20th century.
Well there's also the fact that Spain is terribly managed as a country, filled in debt and corruption. Also empty airports and hundreds of km of high speed railroads that weren't needed. Probably much different than Sweden. Been there last summer and your country is pretty sweet :D
And yeah the financial crisis has helped the move for sure. When things go well a lof ot people didn't care about it. I myself was skeptical about it for a while.
Can't believe I actually posted the 4M population thing lol. Relying on Wiki for the numbers is such a bad idea.
Since the Spain's economic crisis seems to further this move, what is the independence movements point of view on transition cost?
It is very doubtful Spain could in her current state survive losing 20% of her economy. Which would mean a collapse of Spain, and a subsequent collapse of the entire Euro rescue fund system. What would follow the bailout funds is entirely open (will Greece, Italy, Ireland follow Spain into default?), but it would absolutely put the whole of Europe back into deep recession, with incalculable political risks on the way.
I guess the question is, is it worth it? Economically, Catalonia would definitely be worse of, along with the rest of Europe.
This is interesting because Canada has a similar issues of separatist movements with Quebec, and England with Scotland. Can't comment about the latter but I know that Quebec is more dependent on Canada than Catalonia is on Spain. I had some exchange students from Barcelona years ago... wonder what their thoughts on this are.
Will the referendum next year have any (planned) consequences? The Scottish are actually voting for or against independence, but judging by the info on Wikipedia, it seems Catalonia has had several referendums these last few years and declared being sovereign already, without much effect... Then again, I don't really the situation so I might be wrong and that's why I ask
@zatic: Truth is, nobody knows. But what I know is that no workforce nor debt would be erased by the creation of a new state, so I doubt that would trigger an economic collapse of the eurozone. There are talks of giving to the newly formed state a proportional part of the current Spanish debt for instance, so that would ease the burden on the rest of Spain.
@iMAniaC: There have been several 'mock' referendums in some towns in the countriside, organized by civil entities and not by political parties. But due to their non-binding nature, only the really enthusiastic independentist people bothered to go and vote, so that the results were almost always >90% in favour. The 2014 referendum is still being proposed, so no one knows if it would be legally binding or not, or what would its consequences be. The fact is that the central government already pushed a law a few years back forbidding any Spanish region to even organize a referendum, and that the current constitution clearly states that Spain is 'unbreakable' and 'indivisible', a secession would be anti-constitutional from the central government point of view. From the catalan government point of view, if you are going to break up with a state then its governing bodies and its laws and constitution do not rule over you anymore, so all those legal arguments simply do not matter. A different story is what would the Spanish army do in such a scenario, since one of their duties is to oversee the "unity" of Spain, and given that there is no 'catalan army' of any sort to match them.
Myself personally think it is a really interesting development, but we are not going to have a referendum any time soon anyway. Our politicians lack the balls to put their lives on the line for this (since the first duty of the spanish military body, should Catalonia declare itself independent, is to go and arrest the head of the catalan government), so they will chicken out one way or another.
The 2014 referendum is supposed to be non-binding. The party that controls the catalan government (CiU) wants to be sure about the numbers that support the move before actually going for it, most likely. I totally agree with Ender in their lack of balls tho... We will see.
The spanish government has not given any official word about the demonstration, only spoke about the Catalan Way to say there were less people than the numbers the media gave. Such ineptitude.
Thanks for an excellent answer, Ender985! I read it the same day you posted, but didn't have time to answer just then and forgot it afterwards. Luckily, I'm subscribed to this thread, so I got reminded when it was bumped
I have a really hard time seeing the Spanish army arrest the head of a newly formed Catalan government, though. I could easily see the Spanish government refusing to accept the declaration of independece and/or threatening to veto Catalonia's application to EU forever, but I have a hard time seeing a military coup/invasion within Western Europe...
EPT
