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MiddleOne posted:Because power-relations and historical context matter. I'm not going to berate Catalonian nationalism for the same reason I'm not going to berate say the kurds, Taiwan, Scotland, Ireland, Ukraine, South Korea, Palestine, Cyprus, Kazakhstan or Poland for their nationalism. Or are you going to claim that there have been no real attempts to suppress or even destroy Catalonian culture within living memory? catalonia is not comparable to any of those cases. it's a bunch of rich bougie fucks who would be shot in a proper socialist revolution anyways
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Oct 28, 2017 15:52
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MiddleOne posted:Because power-relations and historical context matter. I'm not going to berate Catalonian nationalism for the same reason I'm not going to berate say the kurds, Taiwan, Scotland, Ireland, Ukraine, South Korea, Japan, Palestine, Cyprus, Kazakhstan or Poland for their nationalism. Or are you going to claim that there have been no real attempts to suppress or even destroy Catalonian culture within living memory? By that logic, you couldn't have berated any of the nationalisms in the former Yugoslavia either. At some point you have to stop drawing on the resentments of the past and look at the present. The current incarnation of Catalan nationalism though has grown in the context of a country that is freeer, more democratic, and more prosperous than it has ever been at almost any point in in its whole history, where human rights are protected by the constitution and by treaty memberships, where the Catalan culture and language are not under threat but are to the contrary strongly on the rise, helped along by deliberate policy of the government of the autonomous community of Catalonia, which has been able to do this because of the large degree of decentralisation in present-day Spain. Sure, Catalonia may be getting a deal under the current government that's not quite as good as before, but unless any of the Spanish and Catalan posters here want to correct me on this, I just don't see a real attempt to 'suppress Catalan culture' there. Rajoy's government is lovely, corrupt, and has some authoritarian tendencies, but that's something every Spaniard suffers under. So the 'cure' of Catalan nationalism is much worse than the disease. Also, and I suppose I have to keep repeating this, there simply is no majority support in Catalonia for secession. So let's stop arguing under the pretense that the nationalists speak for all of Catalonia. Phlegmish posted:Cracking down to safeguard the inviolable unity of Spain is also a form of nationalism. Was that why the police was sent in? I thought it was to execute a court order in the defense of the rule of law. In either case, we're begging the question. Anyway, the Nationalists under Franco wouldn't have bothered with that. They would just have had everybody shot. Which is probably why we should act under the assumption that Rajoy may be a different kind of politician than Franco, even if they're both Galician so we cannot be a 100% sure. Pluskut Tukker fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Oct 28, 2017 |
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Oct 28, 2017 15:52
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Pluskut Tukker posted:By that logic, you couldn't have berated any of the nationalisms in the former Yugoslavia either. At some point you have to stop drawing on the resentments of the past and look at the present. Better yet, let's stop arguing under the pretense the catalonian people are more opressed than anyone else in Spain, period.
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Oct 28, 2017 16:10
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Pluskut Tukker posted:By that logic, you couldn't have berated any of the nationalisms in the former Yugoslavia either. At some point you have to stop drawing on the resentments of the past and look at the present. Perceptions change. Under your logic over half of the nation-states on the globe currently would not exist. Yugoslavia was just as made-up as the nation-states that formed from it's shattering. If your best argument against the forming of a nation-state is "you just made that up" then you've missed the train entirely. It's all made up. Perception is everything. That's why it doesn't matter that Catalonia is objectively in a better position than 50 years ago. Whatever trust that existed between Barcelona and Madrid has been eroded by PP and their response this last month to the push by the nationalists and their coalition for independence has only further muddled the water. Cameron was a loving idiot of a political leader but at least he didn't have his head so far up his own rear end that he couldn't see how to actually combat the SNP. "Hey guys we at Westminister do care but we respect your will, we will be better if you decide to stay" is how I would sum up that referendum campaign and it worked because it addressed the underlying problem of perception. Scots might still overwhelmingly dislike the Tories but enough were convinced that the UK as a national project is still worth being part of and that they were legitimately better of staying.
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Oct 28, 2017 16:18
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Geriatric Pirate posted:All of my posts on the topic have been making fun of you guys for being hysterical internet leftists who see a picture of that lady and assume the Spanish government has sent tanks in to shoot at civilians. You make fun of people all the time for overreacting to news hysteria about migrant crimes or something and then you go do the exact same thing when it's a cause that you actually support. When people like Ardennes comparing this to Hungary 1956 and Tesseraction posting " There is very much parallel to 1956 if they "send in the tanks" as some posters wanted. If that will happen or not, remains to be seen. However, that isn't the important point but the acceptable degree of political violence that is allowed. If you want to say in all cases "tanks shouldn't be sent in what is a political dispute" then that is a principled stand, the issue is picking or choosing when to support/denounce it depending on your geopolitical leanings. icantfindaname posted:catalonia is not comparable to any of those cases. it's a bunch of rich bougie fucks who would be shot in a proper socialist revolution anyways You know that a bunch of left-wing parties support independence right and that even if Catalonia on average is wealthier than other regions, it is still only the 4th wealthiest behind Basque country and Madrid, the seat of the Spanish state. I guess the Basque really don't deserve independence then and should shut up right? Personally, I think the call for independence was a risky move, but the whole narrative of "they're just bougie fucks" and/or "crush them with tanks" is just terrible and disappointing. As for whether the majority of Catalonia support independence or not, we literally can't know because the Spanish government will never legally hold a referendum. Polling has always been rather close, and it really depends on if a legal referendum can ever be held. Otherwise, it is "who knows." Ardennes fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Oct 28, 2017 |
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Oct 28, 2017 16:27
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Catalan civilians" from the comfort of their basements thousands of kilometers away from Catalonia it's just silly. Then there are the posters who are crying about the EU not doing enough to help these oppressed people or something.
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Phlegmish posted:I think Madrid will come and get them, and reaction will be muted. My impression of Catalan separatists is that they are very enthusiastic and impassioned, but it also seems to be a largely white-collar middle-class movement consisting of people who don't know how to fight, don't know how to riot, and who have too much to lose. The crux of the matter is that Madrid is much more willing to use violence than the Catalans are. The difficult part for the central government will be determining exactly the right amount of violence to use. Fair assessment, I agree with most of it. Pluskut Tukker posted:The current incarnation of Catalan nationalism though has grown in the context of a country that is freeer, more democratic, and more prosperous than it has ever been at almost any point in in its whole history, where human rights are protected by the constitution and by treaty memberships, where the Catalan culture and language are not under threat but are to the contrary strongly on the rise, helped along by deliberate policy of the government of the autonomous community of Catalonia, which has been able to do this because of the large degree of decentralisation in present-day Spain. Sure, Catalonia may be getting a deal under the current government that's not quite as good as before, but unless any of the Spanish and Catalan posters here want to correct me on this, I just don't see a real attempt to 'suppress Catalan culture' there. Despite what some nationalist and independentist say, the policies for the protection of the catalan language have succeeded in helping catalan achieve equal status and as be used as much as spanish, and not only in the administration but in the streets too. I dare to say that of all the other co-oficial languages in Spain, none is as popular and widespread as catalan, not the basque, and certainly not galician (I don't have hard data on this, though). But that's not enough, it's never enough for certain people, some still claim it's persecuted, and repressed and it still needs more. What this really means is what they want is for Catalan to be the only official language and the only dominant culture. The same things can also be said for certain people in other parts of Spain. It's the old cycle of pettiness, victimism, bigotry and hatred repeating yet again, and I'm so loving tired of all this crap. Angry Lobster fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Oct 28, 2017 |
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Oct 28, 2017 16:36
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Pluskut Tukker posted:Was that why the police was sent in? Yes.
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Oct 28, 2017 16:36
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MiddleOne posted:Two wrongs does not make one right. Agreed. My point is that the only justification for independence that isn't completely absurd (including "we'll be a freer, more democratic country") is "we're better than the Spanish". And, honestly? gently caress those people. Phlegmish posted:Cracking down to safeguard the inviolable unity of Spain is also a form of nationalism. In fact, you may remember their side was literally called the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. Puigdemont has spent 2 years declaring that he wanted to secede and comparing the central government to Franco, while lording over one of the most autonomous regions in Europe. 98% of the kids and all university students (EDIT: Ok, the ones in the University of Barcelona, I haven't checked anyone else, I assume it's the same) learn in Catalan and the local television is almost bigger than every other local TV combined (and the second one in Spain, beyond channels that broadcast in all of Spain) in number of employees and deficit. Spain is doing a piss poor job of being Nationalist country and cracking down on diversity and local culture.
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Oct 28, 2017 16:45
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A Buttery Pastry posted:GC is a principled authoritarian. Had he grown up under Stalin, he'd still be bemoaning Khrushchev's betrayal. If just laws have to be enacted by force, the state has the duty to enact them by whatever force is necessary. Given that the referendum actually went through, it is obvious to me that the state did not do enough to enforce its laws. What laws a state has is a different question but I don't see the Spanish constitution as overly authoritarian in this context.
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Oct 28, 2017 16:46
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MiddleOne posted:Perceptions change. Under your logic over half of the nation-states on the globe currently would not exist. Yugoslavia was just as made-up as the nation-states that formed from it's shattering. If your best argument against the forming of a nation-state is "you just made that up" then you've missed the train entirely. It's all made up. Perception is everything. I'm not arguing against forming a nation-state. I'm arguing against breaking a state up, because nothing good tends to happen when that occurs. You can look at Austria-Hungary, the British Raj, Yugoslavia, or even the Soviet Union; economic depression, ethnic violence, and war happens almost every time. I fail to see why someone's perceptions should be good enough reason to go running that risk again, when doing so is to no-one's obvious benefit, except the group of petty little politicians who are more likely to be reelected and less likely to be prosecuted for their corruption in a state that they themselves run. Phlegmish posted:Yes. I'll need a more involved argument before I'm prepared to accept that assessment.
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Oct 28, 2017 16:48
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A Buttery Pastry posted:GC is a principled authoritarian. Had he grown up under Stalin, he'd still be bemoaning Khrushchev's betrayal. As do we all  MiddleOne posted:Because power-relations and historical context matter. I'm not going to berate Catalonian nationalism for the same reason I'm not going to berate say the kurds, Taiwan, Scotland, Ireland, Ukraine, South Korea, Palestine, Cyprus, Kazakhstan or Poland for their nationalism. Or are you going to claim that there have been no real attempts to suppress or even destroy Catalonian culture within living memory? I don't even know what the gently caress  Catalans aren't exactly in danger of being ethnically cleansed or having their whole  carpet bombed, unlike the Kurdish regions, Taiwan, Ukraine, South Korea, or Palestine.Ireland, half of Cyprus, Kazakhstan and Poland are already independent and reached their current state at a point when they were being actually oppressed/occupied. Scotland is probably the closest to Catalonia out of all of these, and if anyone told me that Scotland needs to secede to preserve Scottishness and keep out the Sassenach oppressor I'd laugh at their face and tell them to go back to the 18th century, much like I'd laugh at a real life Bavarian separatist party voter.
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Oct 28, 2017 16:52
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Everyone in Spain should just learn English like people in northern Europe do and then they'll finally have a common tongue.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:00
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From a toy store in Barcelona 
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Oct 28, 2017 17:12
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Pluskut Tukker posted:I'm not arguing against forming a nation-state. I'm arguing against breaking a state up The two are the same, one can't happen without the other. Also, about those cases: British Raj: Intentionally sabotaged at its inception through the geographical dividing of Pakistan and India Yugoslavia: Arbitrary remnant of an empire (VVVVVV), failed to build a common identity Austrian-Hungarian Empire: An empire which could not claim legitimacy over its peoples after the rise of nationalism Soviet Union: An empire which had been violently suppressing local cultures for decades to build its national myth Like come on. These break-ups were as spectacular as they were because of decades of underlying tensions. You're conflating cause and effect if these are your examples for why breaking states up is a bad idea. Do you think the US should still be under UK rule? Should Russia still govern Germany? Is Tibet wrong in wanting to be sovereign again? Is Ukraine wrong in resisting Russian attempts to annex its territory? Should the Kurds in Syria swear fealty to Assad? Is Erdogan right in wanting to reform the Ottoman Empire? Things are not that simple. Nation-states and empires can be dysfunctional for a long time and this dis-functionality can have ramifications for centuries (case and point: the entire Middle-east) but that does not mean that breaking them up was necessarily unjustified or even a bad idea. There are still people alive in Catalonia who lived through Franco's regime. blowfish posted:Scotland is probably the closest to Catalonia out of all of these, and if anyone told me that Scotland needs to secede to preserve Scottishness and keep out the Sassenach oppressor I'd laugh at their face and tell them to go back to the 18th century, much like I'd laugh at a real life Bavarian separatist party voter. Again reality does not matter, perception does. Culture, economics, history and 'we dont like you' are all as valid arguments as any other. Nation-states are just constructs and if people don't accept them as real then you have a fundamental problem with your nation-state. If the current conflict between Catalonian nationalists and the Spanish government is not solved peacefully then we will eventually have to start making comparisons to Northern Ireland instead of Scotland because that is where this is heading if either side doesn't capitulate. Scotland was resolved amicably because the grievances were mostly petty by the end of the day and the UK compromised. We have the exact opposite happening in Catalonia today.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:15
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Btw, the Scottish issue still isn't closed by a long-shot, either way, it didn't spiral out of control because the British allowed them to hold a referendum and Madrid did not.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:22
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MiddleOne posted:The two are the same, one can't happen without the other. The flipside is that reasons for separatism short of actual verifiable oppression are all equally valid or invalid, and are completely arbitrary. Now if your leadership is also completely loving stupid and fails to manage regional problems forever, then congratulations on fostering tensions to the point where separatism becomes valid, but at that point it could just as well be oppression of people living in administrative district #5 with no preexisting separate national identity by treating its administration as a dumping ground for idiots in need of a sinecure posting.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:31
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Ardennes posted:Btw, the Scottish issue still isn't closed by a long-shot, either way, it didn't spiral out of control because the British allowed them to hold a referendum and Madrid did not. Yeah and I'm sure that we will see the issue resurge if another UK government makes Scottish citizens feel out of the loop again.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:31
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Even if you accepted the premise that nationalism is bad regardless of the circumstances, which is an incredibly simplistic point of view, the reason the PP is cracking down on the separatists isn't because they are principally opposed to nationalism. You don't have people in Madrid taking to the streets, waving Spanish flags, singing Cara al sol because they abhor nationalism. It is because they are Spanish nationalists. And that's a perfectly legitimate sentiment. If I were a non-Catalan Spaniard, I would probably be worried at the prospect of my country breaking up as well. But for an outsider to view this in terms of nationalists versus enlightened cosmopolitans who are just 'upholding the rule of law' is beyond naive. This is Spanish nationalism squaring off against Catalan nationalism, and one of these has a much more troubling track record than the other.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:32
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The solution like with Britain is to elect a proper socialist government that will coopt the loyalty of the left-leaning nationalists
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Oct 28, 2017 17:32
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Phlegmish posted:Even if you accepted the premise that nationalism is bad regardless of the circumstances, which is an incredibly simplistic point of view, the reason the PP is cracking down on the separatists isn't because they are principally opposed to nationalism. You don't have people in Madrid taking to the streets, waving Spanish flags, singing Cara al sol because they abhor nationalism. It is because they are Spanish nationalists. And that's a perfectly legitimate sentiment. If I were a non-Catalan Spaniard, I would probably be worried at the prospect of my country breaking up as well. No I fully agree everyone involved are assholes, but I don't want to set the precedent that separatism is ok in 21st century developed countries so unless they're much worse in other ways I'm less hostile to the assholes who don't want to fragment the country.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:35
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A lot of people ITT concerning themselves with respect of authority without considering whether that authority is legitimate
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Oct 28, 2017 17:35
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MiddleOne posted:The two are the same, one can't happen without the other.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:36
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blowfish posted:No I fully agree everyone involved are assholes, but I don't want to set the precedent that separatism is ok in 21st century developed countries
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Oct 28, 2017 17:38
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blowfish posted:No I fully agree everyone involved are assholes, but I don't want to set the precedent that separatism is ok in 21st century developed countries so unless they're much worse in other ways I'm less hostile to the assholes who don't want to fragment the country. I see no reason why you would, a priori, be opposed to the orderly secession of a particular well-defined region of a country if that is what a majority of its population wishes.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:41
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Why? A better precedent would be "Central governments that do not give a gently caress about minority regions are not OK". By pooling the resources of a larger population we can build greater public works. I don't want to live in a Europe of hundreds of city states each of which is hard pressed to fund a modern water treatment plant off its tiny tax base.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:42
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I'd rather live in a Europe with a united budget so we can casually toss a few billion at particle accelerators and rockets and the arts without bankrupting ourselves or cutting essential services.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:46
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If the 21st-century liberal state is worth saving then it should depend on the will of the electorate one way or another. If Madrid (like London) had held a referendum and the independence movement lost, it would be something else entirely. However, this is a situation where there is no legal way to escape and that is only allowing the situation to spiral out of control. Spain isn't Iraq and should be held to a higher standard. As far as "Catalonia has no right to complain because they aren't oppressed enough" is a cop out when the issue should be for the electorate of a region have a voice in their own affairs. I think the obvious solution would be compromise, but neither side is interested in that at this point and so we will see where this thing goes. Also, lets also say that Barcelona and Madrid not only have had centuries of bad blood, but the Eurocrisis and its response is obviously fuelling much of the disagreement that is going on top of everything else (as it did in Scotland). Btw, you could argue that Europe is suffocating in part because power is too centralized as it is. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Oct 28, 2017 |
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Oct 28, 2017 17:49
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blowfish posted:By pooling the resources of a larger population we can build greater public works. I don't want to live in a Europe of hundreds of city states each of which is hard pressed to fund a modern water treatment plant off its tiny tax base. Right, but why does that need the dinosaur states of the immediate post world war ii era? Catalonia's got about as many people as Bulgaria, more people than Denmark, and they both function fines as levels of population split within the EU...
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Oct 28, 2017 17:51
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fishmech posted:Right, but why does that need the dinosaur states of the immediate post world war ii era? Catalonia's got about as many people as Bulgaria, more people than Denmark, and they both function fines as levels of population split within the EU... It's all arbitrary is the answer, and people forget that.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:54
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fishmech posted:Right, but why does that need the dinosaur states of the immediate post world war ii era? Catalonia's got about as many people as Bulgaria, more people than Denmark, and they both function fines as levels of population split within the EU... I want more large-scale unions. If your proposed solution is "Spain becomes an administrative unit of the United States of Europe" then I don't give a gently caress if Catalonia becomes a different administrative unit thereof, but I don't think that's the idea behind separatism.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:57
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blowfish posted:By pooling the resources of a larger population we can build greater public works. I don't want to live in a Europe of hundreds of city states each of which is hard pressed to fund a modern water treatment plant off its tiny tax base.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:59
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blowfish posted:I want more large-scale unions. If your proposed solution is "Spain becomes an administrative unit of the United States of Europe" then I don't give a gently caress if Catalonia becomes a different administrative unit thereof, but I don't think that's the idea behind separatism. That is exactly the idea behind a Europe of the Regions. Admittedly a bit trickier in Catalonia's case since Spain would probably continue to block their entry into the EU until the end of time.
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Oct 28, 2017 18:02
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Honestly, I was once a fan of a "United States of Europe" or something similar a while ago, but to be honest I don't think it is a good idea looking at how the EU is turning out. It would be a complete trainwreck and probably should only be able to stay together through the regular use of force of arms on "rebellious administrative units." Also, there would be nothing to stop the march of the far-right, if anything a single political unit may make it even easier. There has been useful progress as far as Europe goes, but to be honest I think a super-national state is just fundamentally dangerous with our current economic system.
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Oct 28, 2017 18:05
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blowfish posted:I want more large-scale unions. If your proposed solution is "Spain becomes an administrative unit of the United States of Europe" then I don't give a gently caress if Catalonia becomes a different administrative unit thereof, but I don't think that's the idea behind separatism. Eroding nation-states power by deferring more autonomy to regions has actually been one of the implicit long-term soft-power goals of the EU almost since its inception. Less powerful national actors (UK, Spain, Germany, France and Italy being the key problem) means more power can be consolidated at the supranational level.
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Oct 28, 2017 18:05
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Phlegmish posted:I see no reason why you would, a priori, be opposed to the orderly secession of a particular well-defined region of a country if that is what a majority of its population wishes. You keep saying that and ignoring the fact that 53% of the Catalans voted against pro independence parties in elections where the pro-independence parties only policy was “we’ll declare independence if we win” And then proceeded to ignore the majority and try to declare independence in the most ridiculous way imaginable.
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Oct 28, 2017 18:15
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Fat Samurai posted:You keep saying that and ignoring the fact that 53% of the Catalans voted against pro independence parties in elections where the pro-independence parties only policy was “we’ll declare independence if we win” Btw, Podemos was pro-referendum and their independence stand was Basically "TBA," and the majority of the population voted for at least pro-referendum parties. Only 42% of the population voted for anti-independence/anti-referendum parties. The entire situation has spiraled out of control because a majority of the population wanted a chance to vote and everything spiraled out from there.
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Oct 28, 2017 18:22
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Phlegmish posted:That is exactly the idea behind a Europe of the Regions. MiddleOne posted:Eroding nation-states power by deferring more autonomy to regions has actually been one of the implicit long-term soft-power goals of the EU almost since its inception. Less powerful national actors (UK, Spain, Germany, France and Italy being the key problem) means more power can be consolidated at the supranational level. To be fair, these are good points which I should think about.
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Oct 28, 2017 18:22
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MiddleOne posted:The two are the same, one can't happen without the other. Your whole point here is predicated on the assumption that there is such a thing as a constant and singular national identity, which is expressed in its culture, and that what happened in the past is determinative of what happens in the future. So if a state is disfunctional, it will inevitably lead to a messy breakup. I don't believe that to be true necessarily. The whole idea of what a nation is and who belongs to it is continuously constructed and contested, and how disfunctional a state was in the past is much more a problem for the present to the extent that politicians decide to make it a problem. There actually were people who thought of themselves as Yugoslavs rather than as Serbs or Bosnians, and there was such an animal as homo sovieticus. People in India didn't make as much of the difference between Muslims and Hindus before the British operationalised those differences as a matter of divide-and-rule. And more relevantly, only around a quarter of the population of Catalonia considers themselves to be strictly only Catalan; the rest think of themselves as both Catalan and Spanish to various extents. So it's not that there are immutable differences and insuperable barriers to Catalonia's integration into Spain due to the crimes of the Franco regime. These supposed differences have been created and/or magnified in the past few decades as a deliberate political strategy, just like nationalism was used as a very successful political strategy in the late period of the Soviet Union and in Yugoslavia. And that strategy often leaves many dead in its wake. In any case, as far as I can tell other than Czechoslovakia which broke up by mutual consent there simply hasn't been a case of an orderly and peaceful secession in the whole wide world anywhere, so I would welcome it if any of the proponents of Catalan secessionism in this thread here could give me an example. MiddleOne posted:Eroding nation-states power by deferring more autonomy to regions has actually been one of the implicit long-term soft-power goals of the EU almost since its inception. Less powerful national actors (UK, Spain, Germany, France and Italy being the key problem) means more power can be consolidated at the supranational level. The Europe of the Regions idea has never been anything but idle rhetoric and the member states have never lost control of the EU. This is one reason why all Commission presidents since Prodi have firmly rejected the idea that Catalonia could secede from Spain and stay part of the EU. The Commission may be the guardian of the treaties but the member states are their masters. Pluskut Tukker fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Oct 28, 2017 |
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Oct 28, 2017 23:11
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Ardennes posted:Btw, the Scottish issue still isn't closed by a long-shot, either way, it didn't spiral out of control because the British allowed them to hold a referendum and Madrid did not. Issue has been closed for the near future, though. The SNP lost almost half their seats in the last election and virtually every poll shows that any new referendum would not overturn the one held in 2014. Sturgeon's diminished standing after the snap election this year makes it extremely unlikely that another plebiscite will be called any time soon.
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Oct 28, 2017 23:45
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This debate about how 'morally right' separatism is really does boil down to the facts on the ground, as it were, of the people trying to split themselves off. Back in the start of the 1990s, the facts on the ground in Yugoslavia were that it had just gone through an absolute mess when it came to the economy and Serbia expected every other nation to foot its bills that Tito had accrued over decades of putting the whole country in massive debt that finally got called in. A lot of people bring up the 'ethnic tensions' of the past in the region as the fuel for the fire, and they wouldn't be wrong, but there's a good goddamn reason as to why my country (Slovenia) was the first to secede - because of that economic spark that set the fuel ablaze. Because otherwise the local bigshots would've been bled dry under the same bullshit pretensions of communist 'Brotherhood and Unity'. That's the chief reason, from the way I see it, as to why we seceded and most certainly not due to 'popular will' or our paper-thin culture, of which the only things truly unique and our own are our writing, poetry, some horses and wines, that it really is ridiculous how well that part got engineered and cheated into the 'decisive' referendum results back then by said bigshots, that to this day continue to manipulate our politics. And yet despite these personal feelings of mine on the subject of our 'national will', it was still done brilliantly and was, without a doubt, a better alternative to us remaining as a part of Yugoslavia. I don't know if Bosnia can say the same, due to how horrible things went there, while Croatia certainly also does, even though they paid a lot of the price too. How this translates to Catalonia? I think that only if you've lived in that region for the past decade or more do I feel you can have a truly informed opinion on whether or not this separatist movement is a good thing (regardless of it being done very poorly in terms of preparation, from what I can see). And even if you do live in that region, very few can bring themselves to look past nationalist bullshit to objectively consider the alternative as a resident of that region - is Catalonia staying under Spain truly going to be a worse thing in the long run for them, rather that they split off? In terms of Scotland, from talking to some folks, it honestly does sound like a good thing (though obviously it sounds like it'll take awhile now) - its residents very much so seem to want to remain in the EU, UK is being an absolute retard about that right now and straight up lied to them during their last referendum, so it is not inconceivable that they could work something out if the alternative to that is England bleeding them dry economically to fix their own lovely problems that Scots had nothing to do with (same as with my country in the 90s). I can't tell, though, whether Catalonia faces that same kind of situation or not. If it does, then I'd be pro-separatist to be sure (though in an actually competent way and not quite what's going on right now), but I honestly can't tell. Like I said, no one can unless they've lived there and base their decision on what a Catalonian had to actually face in their day to day life.
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Oct 28, 2017 23:49
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