Picture a nation which once owned or controlled nearly a tenth of the world’s land mass; a country whose cultural influence continues to span the globe, and whose mother tongue remains one of the most widely spoken internationally.
Now, advance several centuries and to a time long after that once great empire was relinquished.
Picture that same nation strangled by bureaucracy, embroiled in accusations of corruption, and battling to hang on to a rebel province within its own borders barely three-quarters the size of Denmark.
Welcome to Spain in the year 2018.
Of course, Spain’s substantial downsizing during the last several hundred years is completely in line with that of other formerly great empires.
However, many of the problems the country currently faces can be traced not to reduced control of distant shores, but to homegrown apathy, neglect and a mentality in which all too many citizens are prepared to turn a blind eye.
Others can be linked to destructive and oppressive events during the last century, and, in particular, to one individual whose divisive and sinister presence continues to loom over the country like a dark black phantom; Francisco Franco.
Wars by their very nature are destructive, and once the decision has been taken to engage, then casualties are inevitable. However, there are many aspects of the Spanish Civil War (17th July, 1936, to 1st April, 1939), which make that particular conflict all the more tragic.
Unlike international wars where nations fight other nations, or opposing ideologies take up arms against each other, often forging alliances along the way, the Spanish conflict between Republican forces and Franco’s own Nationalist armies split entire families, with brothers fighting brothers, neighbours killing neighbours, and former friends facing each other down the barrel of a gun.
By the time the war had ended and Franco’s dictatorship assumed complete control of the country, an estimated 610,000 people had lost their lives.
During the conflict, there were reports of atrocities committed by both sides. One particularly evil episode even saw Franco enlist the support of his fascist allies in Germany (Hitler’s Nazis) and Italy, inviting them to bomb his fellow countrymen in northern Spain, regardless of civilian casualties.
Instances such as those, aligned with extreme centralised nationalism, in which Franco imposed a ban on many aspects of regional culture, including languages such as Catalan and Euskara (Basque Country), created further tension, and much of the hatred felt towards the dictator and his oppressive regime during those times has been passed down through the generations, leading to regions such as Catalonia and the Basque Country cultivating and promoting their own regional identities with vigour once again since democracy was re-established in 1978.
A large part of Catalonia’s recent push towards independence can to linked to such deep-rooted feelings, and many people outside of Spain have traditionally been sympathetic to their cause based on anti-fascist sentiment.
However, for all the pain and hatred understandably generated in the now autonomous region during the Franco years, it has to be pointed out that Spain has been a democracy now for 40 years.
Nobody is expecting the population to forget the death and destruction caused during both the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s reign, just as we should always remember the atrocities and sacrifices made by so many during the two world wars of the 20th century and so many other significant conflicts.
However, we are now in the year 2018, not the 1930s or even 70s, and using past divisions to cultivate a fervent anti-Spanish feeling in a bid to secure independence in the modern era appears to be nothing more than a blatant attempt by certain self-serving and power-hungry Catalan politicians to stamp their own authority on the region, regardless of the wider socio-economic implications.
By anyone’s reckoning, apart from that of die-hard right-wingers from the ruling Partido Popular (PP), the Spanish Government’s handling of the Catalan crisis has been diabolical too.
For a start, serious questions have to be asked as to why senior party members including the current Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, and his defence minister and party secretary general, María Dolores Cospedal, who have been implicated in and/or accused of being involved in the Bárcenas affair scandal, in which the party’s former treasurer Luis Bárcenas claims to have set up a “slush fund” to divert illegal party donations to senior officials, have even been allowed to continue in their positions and call the shots until they have at least been called to account and forced to face the accusations in public.
Of course, if it is found that they are innocent of any wrongdoing, then they would then be free to clear their names and re-establish themselves politically. Instead, however, they are currently in their posts continuing regardless, which is contrary to what would happen in most major European countries, where the pressure from the public and media would be such that they would be forced to resign and then begin any legal self-defence process.
The fact they haven’t so far raises serious doubts about not only the truth, but of the transparency and state of Spanish politics in general, as well as raises major concerns about the power that politicians in the country have over both the state system and media.
Let’s never forget that politicians are elected by the people to serve the people; they are servants of the masses, and any one of them who believes that being a politician makes them powerful, puts them above the law, and makes them unanswerable to the very people who have elected them has no right to hold such a post. They deserve to be exposed, receive the full condemnation of the public, and be removed from office at the earliest opportunity.
With all that in mind, and in my opinion, the Catalan crisis has emerged as a battle between opposing yet ultimately self-serving political factions, with the public in both the region and nation in general mere pawns in the whole affair.
It’s also important to understand that it isn’t a straightforward battle between nationalism and socialism, as many people outside the country falsely believe. I’ve seen some utterly ridiculous slogans and banners from abroad likening the Catalan crisis to events in Cuba and other similar conflicts.
Let’s make this perfectly clear, the current situation in Catalonia is a conflict between two groups of nationalists (one Catalan and the other Spanish), so comparisons between the struggles of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara and the pro-independence movement in Catalonia are about as reliable and accurate as a Donald Trump speech.
On the one side you have the pro-independence Catalan politicians, who have been trying to reduce and even eradicate Spanish identity in the region, encouraging and in some cases even forcing people to use the Catalan language (with Spain’s official language, Castillian Spanish / Castellano, generally frowned upon when used by many Spaniards visiting from outside the region) and generally promoting an anti-Spanish stance at every opportunity.
Whilst on the other, Rajoy and his entourage have been trying to play hardball; taking dramatic steps and spouting confrontational rhetoric, arresting pro-independence politicians, and sending reinforcements from the Spanish national police and Guardia Civil into the region, whose well-publicised and, on occasions, heavy-handed approach to dealing with protesters received international condemnation.
Rajoy’s hardline method has actually had the reverse effect in that it has alienated many neutral or pro-Spanish residents in the region and swayed them into changing their allegiance to pro-independence. It has also created a strong anti-Catalan feeling in many other parts of Spain.
At the same time, pro-independence politicians, including former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, the man who was leading Catalonia’s push to become an independent nation before doing a runner to Belgium when some of his closest allies were taken into custody, appear to be determined to lead their region into the abyss in a selfish quest to assert their own power.
Catalonia has traditionally been the richest region in Spain (although it also has the greatest debt with the Spanish Government), but since the most recent crisis began, major banks and businesses (more than 2,700 to be precise), including Caixabank, Sabadell, and Cellnex have moved their head offices out of the region due to the uncertainty surrounding its future.
It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to work out what the economic consequences will be if that exodus continues, not to mention the number of jobs that will be lost in the region.
Furthermore, the quest to become an independent nation is a futile one as Catalonia, with its recent ever-decreasing economic power, would almost certainly find itself out in the wilderness and unsustainable if it were to break free from Spain.
The Catalan government owes €77bn (£68bn) at the last count, or 35.4% of Catalonia’s GDP. Of that, €52bn is owed to the Spanish government.
In 2012, the Spanish government set up a special fund to provide cash to the regions, who were unable to borrow money on the international markets after the financial crisis. Catalonia has been by far the biggest beneficiary of this scheme, taking €67bn since it began.
Not only would Catalonia lose access to that scheme, but it would raise the question of how much debt Catalonia would be willing to repay after independence.
BBC NEWS (Dec 2017)
Predominantly, and due to the fact that all member states of the European Union (EU) need to approve the acceptance of a new nation in the community, Catalonia’s own bid to join would be rejected immediately. Clearly, Spain would never agree to such a move, and other nations, including France, have also said they would vote against Catalonian membership.
Unless the intention is to try to twist Spain’s arm into providing the region with even more economic support (Catalonia always quotes how much it pays into the Spanish system, but don’t forget the huge debt it has with the national government that I mentioned earlier), you have to ask what the true motives are of the politicians behind the whole independence issue.
Both the Spanish Government, for its handling of the situation, and the Catalan nationalist politicians are to blame for the current mess, and any form of reconciliation, if at all possible, will be a long, painful and difficult process.
However, amongst all the political posturing and resulting negative effects on the wider population in relation to events surrounding Catalonia, there is an even wider issue that needs addressing:
With so much of the pro-independence feeling being stirred up based on events which happened during the early and mid part of the last century, when will Spain finally lay its civil war / Franco ghosts to rest, unite as a nation and live in the present?
Website: http://www.pauldbull.com/
