To all my international friends

To all my international friends,

I know that some international media has been depicting Spain as a country which is repressing the Catalan people; and this is why today I want to write directly to you so that you know the opinion of a Spanish citizen who has been observing what is happening in Catalonia for the last few years, and not only for the last weeks.

First of all, not all Catalans are in favor of independence. In fact, in the last election for the regional Catalan Parliament, 48% of the Catalan people voted for the separatist parties and 52% voted for the parties who defend that Catalonia belongs to Spain. Therefore one should not confuse the term “Catalan” with the term “nationalist”. They are not the same.

“All right”, you might be thinking. “But isn’t 48% a sufficiently high percentage for the people of Catalonia to be able to vote in a referendum? Why was the referendum held last week not legal then?”. Well, the thing is that Spain has its foundations on the Spanish Constitution, which establishes in its art. 2 that Spain is indivisible, following its art. 1 which says that national sovereignty belongs to the Spanish people. This means that the Constitution does not allow for a regional Government to decide unilaterally that they want to vote on whether or not to break the unity of Spain. And our democratic Constitution is not just a piece of paper. It is the supreme norm, which was voted by all Spanish people in 1978. It is the foundation of our democracy, and if anyone, be it a person, a private organization or a regional Government breaks its rules, they are threatening the pillars which prevent our country to be ruled by chaos. And yes, the Constitution can be reformed through the instruments enshrined in it, but it cannot be taken for an irrelevant norm which is sometimes valid and sometimes not.

Now, leaving aside legal aspects, I want to tell you that the Catalan people have never been oppressed during our 40 years of democracy. On the contrary, because of their cultural particularities, Catalonia has had a special treatment by the Spanish State. In my opinion, a way too special treatment, because the Spanish Government has given so much power to the regional Government that it has let the nationalist parties take control of the education and cultural institutions, which is why nationalist thinking has permeated in the minds of almost half of the Catalan people, especially young ones. The Spanish Government disappeared from the Catalan soil many years ago. And this is why, for instance, bilingualism has not been respected in Catalan schools, and the Catalan language has acquired much more importance in the region than Spanish. Among other examples, the Government allowed the Regional Government to build a “national Catalan theatre” and a “national Catalan museum”, and through the years, little by little, the idea that Catalonia is a nation apart from the Spanish one was created by the Catalan institutions.

Finally I would like to tell you that I am against Catalan nationalism the same way that I am against any other kind of nationalism, be it Trumpism, Le Front National, Alternative Für Deutschland, Brexit, or even Spanish nationalism (that is, the idea that the Spanish culture and language is superior to the culture and language of the minorities who live in Spain). In recent years we have seen how nationalism has deepened the fractures in many countries, dividing people between the “good ones” and the “bad ones”, and, in the Catalan case, between those who are “true Catalans” and support independence and those who are not. Nationalism only creates hate for the one who thinks differently, and it Catalonia, it is creating a toxic atmosphere not only for the society, but also for the economy, since big businesses are starting to leave Catalonia. It is shaking our country, teetering a democracy which so many people fought for after the Franco dictatorship, and distracting politicians from what should be its main purpose, which is to reduce the huge unemployement we have, fight poverty, protect the environment, build infraestructures and so many other much more important things.

We are stronger in a united Spain, within a united Europe that works in an ever-more interdependant world!