I think that it's important that before I start this post I give a bit of background about myself (something that I've quite avoided over these years posting). I have (and this has been so for many years) a deep respect for the right of people's to self determination, to decide whether they want to be part of another country or be a country on its own (whether this means breaking away or joining). In the past we could say that I was a left wing Asturian nationalist that for years tried to harmonize left-wing and internationalism with the idea of nationalism. I've always said that nationalism does not have to involve that your nation is better, that your nation is closed to newcomers or that new borders are to be erected... but though this is possible, it's not easy... For years I defended that both worlds (left-wing and nationalism) were compatible, though I think in that case it would be better to talk about sovereign movements and/or anticolonialist movements. The moment the flag of your nation starts to be omnnipresent in acts and propaganda is when an alarm should be triggered, cause you're moving in the wrong direction, the next step ends up being that your nation is better, and after that horror comes...
Overtime my perception of myself and what surrounds me has quite evolved. I still have a special feeling for the land where I was born and where I've lived most of my life, I still consider it different from the rest of Spain, its different natural set up has given place to a different history and culture, but the concept of nation has turned quite blurred to me. In part it's cause I no longer want to be part of a particular nation, in part it's cause it scares me. It's more and more difficoult to me to reconcile the idea of nation with open borders and multiculturalism, understanding this as a real mix of cultures taking the good parts of each one, not as a less evolved culture invading and destroying a more advanced one. I'm not thinking only about fundamentalist Islam, but also about homophobic, racist, prone to violence (in particular towards women) human groups. I'm less and less interested in "defending the cultural legacy of my ancestors, bla, bla, bla..." and more and more interested in defending the right of people to prosper in and contribute to whatever society they choose, rather than the one where they were lucky or unlucky to be born. In the end our biology is moving in that direction. Our far ancestors were dark skin nomads, then they settled and their skin changed to adapt to that specific place conditions, and now we're all nomads again, searching the place to be happy for a few days, a few years or a life time. As people mix skin color moves to different scales of shades of grey, as an act of natural wisdom as an "umbral" skin color is no longer the wisest evolutionary choice for a creature that moves around the world and which descendants can end up in whatever corner of this planet.
Well, as usual I'm moving this write up to a different dimension of the initially intended, so, to the point. Some weeks ago Catalonia conducted a sort of referendum about breaking away from the rest of Spain. I have to admit that I have a total lack of interest for Catalonia's "fight for freedom". It's a territory I don't relate to, neither for geography, history or culture. If it were the Basques who were doing this poll I would be absolutely supportive. I have this empathy for that land. On one side their natural frame is almost like Asturies (you don't see any sort of natural border when you go from one place to another), their culture, economy, history, is more related to ours, so it's easy to have a certain feeling for that place. On the other side, I've always perceived Basque left wing nationalism as more internationalist and inclusive (but maybe it's just what I want to believe and not what reality is). I have a deep disdain for the main Catalonian "left-wing" (sort of...) nationalism, i.e, ERC. I perceive them as 'we are better than you' types... and I obviously don't like that. "We deserve to be a nation cause we've been much more than you, poor Asturians, all over history..." well, that kind of bullshit sure does not help to get other people's support (and also that constant focus on economy makes the whole thing seem more like a "capitalist" rather than left nationalism).
That said, I quite don't care about whether they break away or not, up to them, it's not my business. However, this whole thing of the referendum appears like a bad joke to me. Probably Catalonian economy is in better shape than Spanish one, but for European standards it's quite broken. The conservative Catalonian government has been undertaking all sort of cuts to the welfare state, starting by the health system, and are using this abrupt switch to the pro-independence mode (they are nationalists in a particular economic level, so as long as being a federal part of Spain was positive for them, there was no real interest in independence, but now they need something to keep the population busy with and prevent them from questioning their very damaging policies). Then the referendum itself has been pretty stupid. They were comparing it with the Scottish referendum, well, Scots had two years to mull over what to do with their future. The UK government had agreed on it, so the vote was for real, if you vote "yes" you break away (of course there was a huge level of economic blackmailing from London, so it's unrealistic to say that Scots could freely decide about their future, but well, that would give for a whole post). Furthermore, breaking away would have much stronger consequences in the Spain-Catalonia case that in the UK-Scotland case, so it's an even more sensitive issue that would need of a really serious reflection for Catalonians (only Catalonians, of course, the idea that the rest of Spain should vote whether to allow them to go independent is so crazy and stupid that could only come from the mind of stupid Spanish nationalist pseudo-democratic politicians). In the Scottis case most British people were talking about a "divorce" and were asking to Scots "please stay with us". In the Catalonian case there's much more hate involved. A part of Spanish people has developed over the years a certain antipathy for Catalonia, and a break away would not be considered as a divorce, but more as almost a war declaration. Even worse, a good part of the Catalonian population (there was massive immigration from other parts of Spain in the 60's, and while some of the kids of this generation are now pro-independence, others are still deeply linked to Spain), would also oppose, and we would end up with a broken/split society like Latvia or Estonia... and that's for sure not a good prospect.
So, after such a long and boring post, time to add something funny/interesting. In my second visit to Carcasonne, while going from the Train Station to La Cité I came across a Pub with a rather crazy mix of identities. It had on display both a Spanish and a Catalonian independentist flag. This would not be particularly odd if the Spanish flag were a Republican one and the Catalonian a left wing one, but this was not the case. The Spanish flag was one of those disgusting ones with a bull on it (as you can imagine a flag showing proud of the tradition of torturing and murdering an animal mainly appeals to conservative Spaniards) and the Catalonian flag was the one used by conservative independentists, so both kinds of dudes do not mix unless they want to have a fight...
A few days later I ran across a very, very funny piece of let's say "sticker art" in one car here in Toulouse. Conservative Spaniards have a tendency to use a bull as a symbol or their country (if the best symbol you can find for your country is one that many of us associate with torture and slaughter, that says quite a lot about the idea of nation that you defend), and Catalonians use a donkey, as some Asturians use an Asturcon (the Asturian pony) and some Galicians a cow. So you will see many Spanish or Catalonian cars with a sticker of a bull or a donkey. This car had a cool mix where a donkey was fucking a bull :-D
Putting aside any considerations as to whether this sexual act was of mutual agreement, the thing was pretty, pretty funny.
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