The Historical Basis for Catalonian Independence

But the Basques are the Irish of Spain! (Because IRA-ETA, duh) :(

Otherwise, I'd agree.

Uhh?
I Disagree. IMHO the Northern Ireland issue is by far much more complex than the Basque issue.
The only similitude that can be found if that we have/had (right now I am not sure about which tense I should use) ETA. On the other hand although there were some paramilitary unionist groups like GAL or Batallon Vasco Español, they never had the presence that UDA had. In Basque Country there are no associations like Orange order or similar. Finally we do not have the religious (Catholic vs protestant) thing. We neither have a country which the nationalist want to join. We just want our own country(Here I speak as Basque nationalist not as a random citizen in the Basque country).


Last, each conflict/struggle/dispute/call-it-the-way-you-want in the wolrd, is different to others, searching for resemblances, in my opinion, is an error.
 
Now you tell me that 300 years for the most of which we have been exploited as the last colony of the Spanish Empire, in which for long periods of time our language has been forbidden and our institutions persecuted, those 300 years were not 300 years of oppression. Which we can easily extend another century, taking into account the Spanish Army's misdoings in Catalonia during the 17th Century.

I don't know if the the comparation of Catalonia with actual Spanish colonies is more egregious to Spain or its former colonies of Mexico, Panama and the likes. Catalonia benefitted INMENSELY from the trading policies and protectionism that the Spanish empire brought.

You seem to have already made up your mind, JoanK, so I doubt that anything that I can say could convince you otherwise, but from a historical POV, Catalonia has about the same reasons for independence that the French Normandy or the German Bavarian region. Almost every single modern European country (and many more in Asia and Africa) were born out of the union either by dynastic marriage or by force of previously smaller kingdoms. It is really little to no particularity on this regarding the case of Spain and its many regions.

The economic debate could be replicated ad aeternam into an ever shrinking scale: why should the more wealthy Barcelona support the poorer regions of Alt Empordà? Why should the wealthy Barcelona districts of Las Ramblas support the poorer ones like El Raval? Same goes with the whole cultural identity argument: should the Val d'Aran seek for independence from Catalonia since they talk another language and have a different culture from the rest of Catalonia? (which btw, many people there feel that they are being neglected in the pursuit of a "one nation, one language" type of Catalan nationalism). Should the multilingual Switzerland explode into independent states due to speaking religonal languages too?

The whole argument for Independence inside Spain is just an easy scapegoat of blaming "the others" for the shortcomings of your ruling elite and appeasement of your ego, verging on xenophobia at times and well, turning into actual xenophobia in the form of extreme right wing parties like the PxC. You are not a special snowflake just by being born in one particular region of the Earth. You are not better (or worse) by that, either. But manipulating the ago and foistering division and playing with identity politics is unfortunately inbreeded into the DNA of the Spanish politics, I fear.

That being said, I wholly support a referendum in Catalonia and the Vasque country: stay united, or stay out, but our current model of de-centralized state is inefficient and is leading us to hell (well, poverty) on a handbasket. So either get independence already, or stop poisoning the convinvence in our country so we can all live in peace.
 
There should be an independent Carthagena country :(

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Great. You see, I will tell you something. You are right, I am convinced and you know, I don't care about the arguments. I just happen to feel Catalan and that "convivence" is nearing levels of intolerability. I will not say we don't spit crap in Madrid's direction, but Madrid is throwing rotten corpses at us along with the crap and the vomit. I will not deny that being with Spain has had its benefits, but we are tired of being despised for speaking Catalan and being Catalan.

Spain has never existed as a nation. It has existed as a country with many nations within. Eventually, the Castillian nation is what has come to be somewhat identified to Spain, and it cannot conceive that someone can feel something else than Spanish. Very well then, let us go. I'm glad to see that you support that. It says a lot on your part. But I'm appalled at your resorting to pointing out at PxC. I have no doubt that it is despised by a vast majority of Catalans, nationalist or not, and your mere suggestion that it may be remotely relevant terrifies me.

Entering into a more particular subject, yes, you are a special snowflake for being born where you have been born. Every person is different and a special snowflake on its own right. But that's stuff for another discussion.

It's all about the feels. And we feel like we can't be in Spain as Catalans, therefore we want to live. We are called nazis, we are told we dilapidate our money when a large sum of it is extracted and the central government doesn't either invest or execute the works projected and promised, giving priority to the economically ruinous AVE elsewhere. Yes we can hold quite a few grudges, but these are just excuses to do what we want to do: leave.
 
It is fine, JoanK, I am kinda glad that you see this issue for what it is, a mostly emotional and politic type of argument, rather than historical and economic (albeit there's a bit of these too, but in a far lesser quantity). Problem is that one cannot argue with feelings, for they are bound to be irrational.

About PxC, I know that it is a (fortunately) minoritarian movement among Catalonia, but It is not surprising to see such a thing: if you believe that you are better by birthright, the next logical conclussion is that other people can be inferior by birth too, which is why racism and extreme nationalism tends to go hand by hand in all the world, not only in Catalonia.

I do feel Spanish, and I am from Madrid, yet I can assure you that I do not hate Catalonia, not one bit, nor does the vast majority of Spaniards. I consider myself to be a Spanish patriot, so what sense would make for me to hate Catalonia? If you love Spain, you shall love all its parts. Does one hate his arm or his leg? I view this conflict as a mostly artificial, made up political issue. "Politicians are people who create a problem to sell you their solution to it". Most of these grudges are either fabricated or just a case of skewed, selective looking, such as the whole neglecting infrastructure (focus into the whole AVE disaster, yet forgetting about the huge investment of the central goverment at Catalonia's sea port, for example). Relationships comes with good and bad things, and your goverments have been hell bent into only sell you the negative of the story.

Alas, I have nothing else to say other than I think that indenepence would hurt both Spain and Catalonia, but that we love you all, regardless (albeit your politicians can die in a fire for all I care, that is true).
 
Well, all poliicians could die in a fire and I doubt much worth would be lost. The people are not without fault, of course, being the ones who elected them. I'm particularly annoyed at the people of Spain, al of it, Catalonia included, for voting Rajoy, when it was obvious that he would not kep his promises. I don't doubt that maybe he would in other circumstances, but he simply had no choice, and it was obvious that he wouldn't have it. Not that Rubalcaba would have been any better, of course. This bipartite partitocacy is killing politics in my eyes and I don't doubt that many more people share my opinions.

Antipathy, thankfully, is not a really general sentiment, I know. But the media and the politicians claim for it so much and so repeatedly that such is the impression we are left with. And I don't doubt that the same happens inversely, with the highest probability, although I am not aware of it.
 
Federalism now!
 
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