I’m having a bad time lately. Everything’s fine at home, at work, even at my wednesday’s football matches ( I even get to score!) The thing is… there’s some people who are trying to make a fuss of my little country. We catalans want to be ourselves. That could mean different things: Some would like to live on their own, out of spanish bonds and with Catalonia’s own State system. In other words: They want to be independent. Some others want to show that, even though they might feel Catalonia is a part of Spain, they want to make sure they are not left aside as a simple outer satellite of Madrid. They claim for recognition of their own identity within a multilingual and multicultural country like Spain. That takes money, and money is what catalans give to the state every year. But they want to see some more of it reinvested in their own territory, and they want to decide what they are going to give to the Spanish government in order to contribute to the future of Spain. These two options might be right or wrong, but they are legitimate.
Last september, the autonomous catalan government voted a new legislation to administrate the territory in terms of economy, society and all aspects of the country: a new “Estatut”. This law is being negotiated in Madrid now, and the spanish conservative party PP is trying to make a benefit out of that. Their aim is to defeat Zapatero’s socialist government. In order to achieve that goal, they claim that the negotiations for the catalan “Estatut” will lead to the disappearance of Spain as a national entity. Former Prime Minister José Maria Aznar says Spain will enter a process of “Balkanisation” that will lead to the destruction of Spain. Conservative radio stations and newspapers are giving out biased comments trying to make the rest of the country believe all catalans want to destroy Spain, that spanish is an endangered language within Catalonia (more than 98% of catalans speak it, in front of the scarce 70% of catalan bilingual speakers). This strategy of constant attack and confrontation will achieve nothing but the creation of a crack between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. Many spaniards will not fall for that, but a large number of people are beginning to believe that Catalonia is at the verge of a conflict where Spanish speakers will be taken to concentration camps.
Is the victory in the elections and the fight for the power worth the division of a country?
I know it isn’t, but I want to feel comfortable in the big home of Spain, not like an alien. If catalans are treated like enemies, they will probably decide to leave the big family alone.