For example, they choosed school principals among independentist so now over 85% of them are Catalan language teachers that tend to be independentist. This way kids could be directed to be independentist too.
The same happened with the local media, TV3, newspapers like La Vanguardia. If you were not independent public funds were not given to you. Those private media without the public funding could not live on their own.
Since 20 years ago they control education too, and kids are forced to speak Catalan as the main language, studing a very biased History full of lies like that Catalunuya was a reign in the past. They also put big sanctions on shops labeling things on Spanish until nobody dare.
They brought nearly a million muslim people to Catalunya to work so they do not speak Spanish, like people from Spain or South America does. This makes it the higher terrorist risk area in all Spain, including Ceuta and Melilla.
The problem was not independentist forces doing this, but the central gobertment that let this happen.
Now with half the population(controlling Catalunya) against the other (supported by the Govertment) there is a significant risk of civil war there.
When "democracy" returned, some of the competences they had before the war were returned to the government.
After 6 years of demonstrations of 2-3 million (out of 7million) asking to hold a referendum and receiving NO to any request, it was announced and proposed one year ago in order to agree it with Spanish government, but they would not even discuss it. In the end the unilateral way is the only way to hold this referendum.
Why shouldn't it be allowed to ask people's preferences? Isn't it democracy? People who doesn't want independence can say NO. Laws should serve people's desires, not forbid participation and opinion.
In the dictatorship Catalan was forbidden, but now Catalan in Catalonia is the only language used in schools (the teachers are told to only speak in that language even to the parents, search for "immersió lingüística"), the official buildings, hospital papers, and so on. Is this what you would call repression or not-democracy?
Now, in Spain other languages (I am using the word languages again) are official, and they are the language the teachers use at schools. Do you know what they call other languages in France or Italy? dialects! They are not official, of course, nor used as official languages in schools or public buildings.
So Spain is even more democratic than Italy and France in that issue, but people are complaining in Catalonia because of the adoctrination, and millions of euros spent by the Catalan government. Don't fool yourself. A referendum in a moment of maximum propaganda by the Catalan government is really democracy?
The conservative Catalan government, as the conservative Spanish government, have a lot of cases of corruption, and since all this irrationality nobody is talking about that. Last week Spain freed two Catalan politicians from the current governing party from going to jail because of the Pretoria case, but almost nobody mentioned that. Do you really thing this chaos is not premeditated?
Isn't this the point of autonomy? You decide what languages to teach/use in your institutions. We can discuss whether this is a good idea or not. Or whether what you say is true in reality or not. But it's the Catalans' decision, that's what autonomy is for.
> So Spain is even more democratic than Italy and France in that issue, but people are complaining in Catalonia because of the adoctrination, and millions of euros spent by the Catalan government.
Comparisons are meaningless in this situations. Maybe Spain is more "democratic" (if you say so) than France(which is not hard to beat honestly, considering the status of non-French languages in France). But one could also say that Spain is less democratic than Switzerland wrt languages, and that would be equally meaningless.
The question is whether the autonomy Catalonia receives is enough for the Catalans. That's for the Catalans to decide.
> Do you really thing this chaos is not premeditated?
Are you saying that all the Catalan citizens collaborating and organizing together have been manipulated by the elites for all these years? When did the manipulation start exactly? Would you mind sharing sources that support this?
We should remember this is a false myth. Catalan was never banned. There were many works in literature and music using Catalan as language during Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975).
For instance, you can check the full list of works that won the Lletra d'Or awards, to the best year work written in Catalan. It started in 1956. Josep Pla, one of the most importan Catalan writters won that award in 1957.
https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premi_Lletra_d%27Or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josep_Pla
And here you can watch Joan Manuel Serrat, singing in Catalan on TVE (the Public Spanish national television). That was in 1968.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6da-yrtBIY
What Franco did was to ban Catalan language from public institutions.
Like schools. An entire generation missed out on learning Catalan at school like my own mother. Call it whatever you want but that to me feels like forbidding a language.
Doesn't that happen all the time in polls and in local, regional, and general elections?
They brought nearly a million muslim people to Catalunya to work
Only ~520k Muslims live in Catalunya. Meanwhile, Andalucia has more than 300k and Madrid over 280k, so it's not like there's such a big difference. http://observatorio.hispanomuslim.es/estademograf.pdf
Lived in Catalonia all my life, never had a teacher tell me any of the biases you are stating.
I ought to think you are the one who was directed to think like that?
Every government has its media, they control education in a way or another, etc.
However, things get bad when your central government is perceived as acting against yourself in every single move they do.
I agree with you about the risk of this confrontation getting worse. That's why I think a referendum should be made so people can express themselves. People's Party is against, of course. They feel pretty comfortable talking about nothing but Catalonia.
I'm not sure what do you mean but Catalonia was in fact a reign in the past (please correct me if I am wrong):
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crònica_de_Ramon_Muntaner
You shouldn't make such bold statements, less without providing any sort of evidence.
I never felt the need to downvote in HN until I read this.
Catalonia would have trouble becoming genuinely independent without approval from Spain. Even if they declared independence, and didn't face military action, they'd only have the status of other unrecognized states like Somaliland or to some extent Taiwan.
And that's before we start thinking about agriculture. Of course, in that scenario, water becomes interesting.
Also now for the referendum, the central government sent four thousand police officers in cruise ships to the port of Barcelona to prevent voting. Does not seem particularly grown up to me neither ...
Then I think about the secession desire of some in California. (I'm on the west coast of US). Personally I don't care. It doesn't really make historical sense, but whatever. Of course the talk is of the whole west coast seceding, and I live in Oregon. I don't want to secede, so that I have a problem with.
I suspect the main issue is money, but the secondary issue would be fear of a slippery slope of secession.
I'm from the US and my wife is from Barcelona. Her family all speaks Catalan between each other but they are perfectly happy speaking Spanish with me (as are all of their family's friends and associates).
Between my wife and her friends, they speak probably a 50/50 mix of Catalan/Spanish.
I have never heard or seen anyone in all of Catalunya be discouraging or negative in relation to speaking Spanish.
When I was first in Spain, the calls for independence were few and far between compared to now, but the situation hasn't improved so they continue to grow.
But the basis of those calls, from what I've seen, is primarily rooted in real, economic/political issues. They aren't calling for independence because they have a different language, but because Spain is not providing them with the fair share of resources they need to succeed and grow as a region.
[1] https://www.google.com/amp/www.lavanguardia.com/politica/201...
[2] https://www.google.com/amp/www.elconfidencialautonomico.com/...
However I just see for the first time your [1], and as a totally pro-independentist person that I am, I totally condemnd that. Thats blatant catalan fuckup, that is unacceptable and that is not what my independentist rationale claim for.
1. It's false that the education in Catalonia is entirely in catalan. I've had tons of classes in spanish.
2. It's false that the use of spanish in public is discouraged. If you go to Barcelona I'd say that you're going to hear 50/50 spanish and catalan in public.
3. It's not clear if the percentage of people who defend an independent country are above or below 50%. It'd be great to verify it with a real referendum allowed by the spanish government ;)
It's OK to express an opinion, but please, don't propagate these kind of lies. They do no good to anybody.
Despite the efforts of the Catalan government, it will be much closer to 100% Catalan in the environments where they can dictate what language may be used. Do you hear 50/50 Spanish and Catalan in the media controlled by the Catalan government, for example? They push the usage of Catalan over Spanish as hard as they can, going beyond what is legally possible in some cases (see http://blogs.ua.es/sevila1/2016/05/30/nulidad-de-parte-del-p...).
I've been to Barcelona for a few days around five years ago, keeping mostly to the touristic areas. Had to skip it last year on an Interrail trip due to lack of time, sadly.
- That was two years ago
- Even then, that was a parlamentary election, not a referendum.
This <50% metric has been widely cited by the media, but it is flawed IMO.
I think it is reasonable to demand a proper referendum, whether you want independence or not.
Would help to know (for non Catalans, specially) what you hint at. My parents talk in Spanish everywhere and to anyone they want to with no problems. Have done so for all her life for my mother and more than 40 years for my father.
I assume you mean that public offices and positions require knowing and using Catalan?
For classes, IIRC it’s not mandatory (or wasn’t 15 years ago), just common. My chemistry teacher spoke only Spanish, and it was fine.
In my building in Barcelona there are 10 flats. 2 flats have occupants who speak Catalan as the mother tongue, 4 flats with occupants who speak Spanish as their mother tongue and 2 flats with foreign languages.
The language divide isn't always an indicator of their views, in the building there are Spanish speakers who want to vote yes, Catalan speakers that will vote no and a general consensus that everyone would just like the legal option to vote regardless of yes/no leanings.
And that it's really the only relevant point in this issue. All the other arguments are just distractions.
When 82% (1) of the population want to vote, the two options are, voting or an undemocratic imposition by people that doesn't live in the area.
In the context of a democratic Europe, sooner or later there is going to be a vote, ergo, whatever the result, better sooner than later.
(1) - https://twitter.com/jpfbadcock/status/911702508749443074
"The first casualty when war comes is truth".
This is the result of the language having been made illegal, then not illegal, then taught predominately by the school systems.
Is it possible the 55% who speak Spanish primarily fall along those demographic lines? Is it also possible that some portion of that 55% speaks both Spanish and Catalan?
Sincere question. I know very little of the situation.
I also have a friend who has been teaching English as a Foreign Language in BCN for at least a decade now, and he and his wife tell a similar story.
"In any case I would love to be able to express better myself in English" - you already have a fluent grasp of English. You spelt it's with an apostrophe which is spot on and come across as a native writer - for a given value of "native" 8) Good skills mate.
This is not the same thing. My mother tongue is not my (current) habitual tongue. I don't see where the report shows the habitual tongue spoken.
Llengua o llengües que la persona ha parlat primer a casa seva. Es considera que aquesta llengua ha estat transmesa familiarment i adquirida en el procés de socialització de l'individu.
This is not the habitual language. So, where is it?
http://www.idescat.cat/cat/idescat/publicacions/cataleg/pdfd...
"Initial language" (page 45):
Catalan: 31.6%, Spanish: 55%.
"Identification language" (page 48):
Catalan: 37.2%, Spanish: 46.5%
"Habitual language" (page 51):
Catalan: 35.6%, Spanish: 45.9%
Edit: in my first comment in this thread I spoke from memory. Also, the data from the 2013 poll (official data):
https://www.idescat.cat/cat/idescat/publicacions/cataleg/pdf...
"Initial language" (page 45):
Catalan: 31%, Spanish: 55.1%.
"Identification language" (page 46):
Catalan: 36.4%, Spanish: 47.5%.
"Habitual language" (page 49):
Catalan: 36.3%, Spanish: 50.7%.
EDIT: Seems like that's the old poll. There's a new one from 2013, in which both Catalan and Spanish grew as the habitual languages. It still doesn't reach 55%, though.
That is, while there are confederate flags, there isn't a active, ongoing independence movement in the US south.
I'm not sure what you mean by that but I would like to know.
Suppose that 100% of Texas wanted secession (it's just an example), what the federal government would do?
Keep a permanent occupation force like in Iraq or something like that?
It would be difficult keep talking about democracy with a straight face.
All you got to do is change the constitution.
Spain is divided into 17 communities. Each has their own cultural identity.
What I like about travelling around Spain (and I must do the Canaries and Balearics some day) is the microcosm of different regional flavours, e.g. Asturias and Galicia have bagpipes, the Basque country is a foodies delight, Andalucia has flamenco & Moorish palaces, the Canaries have a whistled language etc.
Now I get the Catalans feel "different" but when I see the graffiti around the place saying "X is NOT Spain", I wonder which Spanish identity they're referring to.
Fake Spain, such Andalusian or Castillian identified both as proper Spanish.
"Hablame en castellano, polaco".
Are any of them still serious about it now that Obama is out of office?
They're the fringiest of the fringe though.
Even in South Carolina where there was so much controversy around having it at the state house...the reason it went up in the first place was supposed to be temporary (4 years) for that purpose alone.
That it never came down when it was supposed to the real issue.
Besides, not voting is also democracy. Most of the Spanish people don't want to allow these kind of referendums in Spain. Therefore, Spain is doing what the majority wants (== democracy).
In the name of what, a group can decide over another on what is it allowed to do? Because of the frontiers made after conquering when using force?
Of course that a group can decide over another group which is a subset of the former. Otherwise, any city of any country, or any group of individuals, could decide to vote and set their own rules for whatever they want.
"Otherwise, any city of any country, or any group of individuals, could decide to vote and set their own rules for whatever they want." --> And do you think this is wrong? I think self-governance is the future. Not to go against anyone, but to decide more about everything. Not to put a paper in a ballot every 4 years.
Current Catalonia vs future Catalonia is the proper comparison. The one you made is just manipulative crap.
Should the people in Hungary have asked the Habsburg government or the population of the rest of the empire whether they can have their own country? Should the Slovenians, Czechs, Poles or anyone else?
Should the Irish have asked people in Britain to kindly let them have their own country?
>Besides, not voting is also democracy. Most of the Spanish people don't want to allow these kind of referendums in Spain. Therefore, Spain is doing what the majority wants (== democracy).
Self determination, ever heard of it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_d'Aran
Indeed, in the brand new Catalonian Independency Law, it's stated at the very beginning that Republic of Catalonia is (will be) a non-severable country; exactly like the Spanish Constitution article that doesn't allow Catalonian referendum... Just committing the same mistakes that they denounce?
I'm told this is just normal for the region, but if this is normal then independence is eventual.