Catalonia – Brian's Spain Domain

LET’S OPEN A BOTTLE (6): Cava, Spain’s sparkling wine

The holiday season is the peak moment of the year for sparkling wine as people toast with popular sparkling wines like champagne, prosecco and, naturally, Spain’s very own “cava”. Produced mostly in the region of Catalonia, not far from Barcelona, it is also made in other parts of Spain, and the range is amazing. In this episode, we’re going to learn a little about sparkling wine in general, and then key in on the fantastic world of cava. Enjoy!

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LET’S OPEN A BOTTLE (6): Cava, Spain’s sparkling wine

Brian's Spain Domain

LET'S OPEN A BOTTLE (6): Cava, Spain's sparkling wine

00:00 / 00:16:04

SPANISH HISTORY 101, EP. 19: The 11th Century and the Madness Goes On

Brian's Spain Domain

SPANISH HISTORY 101, EP. 19: The 11th Century and the Madness Goes On

00:00 / 00:14:58

It’s the 11th Century and the situation in the Iberian Peninsula is as chaotic and uncertain as ever. Power struggles, civil wars, fratricide, invasions; it seems as if nothing is under control. Not for anyone. But it makes for some pretty exciting, albeit, confusing history. Listen and learn more. Enjoy!

SPANISH HISTORY 101, EP. 19: The 11th Century and the Madness Goes On

The Catalan Chronicles: Exodus, movement of the Euro

During the first week of October, things could not have looked bleaker for the pro-union parties. The Spanish government was licking its wounds from its disasterous performance on October 1st and learning that plugging a group of generally peaceful proponents of a democratic vote with rubber balls is not the way to garner sympathy from the general public; there were general strikes in protest that were crippling Catalonia; the foreign press and social networks were lighting up the internet with support for the victims of “Spanish oppression”; even King Felipe VI of Spain’s attempt to put things in their place had failed miserably. The king is a good man, I guess, and he tries to help the monarchy return to the respectability it has lost over the previous few years as a result of some unseemly behavior by members of the royal family, but he doesn’t seem to carry much weight in the matter, if you ask me. Three decades before, his father came to rescue when he ordered the fascist coup d’etat to back down, pretty much cementing his place of honor in contemporary Spanish history. His son tried to pull something similar and almost got laughed out of town. The problem this time was that the pro-independence Catalans are self-proclaimed republicans, that is, they are anti-monarchical, and pretty much could not care less about what the king has to say. It was a hopeless cause from the beginning. It was a hopeless result as a result.

But, alas, not everything was going the independentists’ way. Poderoso caballero es don dinero, so goes the saying in Spanish as coined by the Spanish writer Francisco de Quevedo. It translates rather literally as “Mr. Money is a powerful gentleman”, except the Spanish version rhymes and just flows better. The English version which most succinctly sum up the poetic verse might be “money talks”.

You see, while a sizeable percentage of the Catalan population was getting all orgasmic about creating a new state, some of the region’s most important financial and business institutions had an entirely different course of action in mind: leaving. Literally picking up and relocating to other parts of Spain…just in case. They weren’t closing offices and laying off workers, or anything like that. They just moved their headquarters elsewhere to ensure they would remain in Spain. It started with Catalonia’s two largest banks, Caixabank and Sabadell, and the major utilities like the water company and natural gas, construction and many, many others. After a week, hundreds had packed up and settled on the other side of the hypothetical border.

The reason, in many cases, is not really so much a question of rejecting political reality as it is one of taking refuge from very real economic disaster, as becoming an independent country would mean being kicked out of the European Union and, as a result, the euro. Secessionists tried to play down the importance of outflow, arguing that moving the headquarters didn’t mean anything, but that’s a total crock. They were scared shitless, and for so pretty good reasons. 1. Fiscally speaking, moving your headquarters to another part of Spain means reducing corporate tax revenue for Catalonia, and that is never good. 2. On an international level, this looked horrible. How can you convince the world your movement is bonafide if all your major corporations, including your main financial institutions are going awol? What kind of message does it send to investors abroad?

A dreadful one. Catalonia had already suffered a drop of nearly 75% in foreign investment in the third quarter…before the real tension got going. As a result, it lost its position as second in this category to the Basque Country. One can only guess at what has happened since then. We will find out soon enough, but as of December, more than 3,000 firms have packed up and gone, and the exodus has not ended. Radical nationalists, often of the anti-establishment nature, will tell you that they are willing to ride out the storm if it means achieving sovereignty. But many of them are the people without tbe moolah. You should ask the ones who have it and you will get a very different answer.

Catalonia has always prided itself in its long and successful history as a land of merchants, traders, entrepreneurs and shrewd business practices. That’s why it alone makes up about 20% of Spain’s economy. Ironically, this strength which they use to argue that they are the nation’s turbine and thus deserve to be their own country (that makes no sense whatsoever, but nor do most of their arguments), just happens to be the area which is doing the most damage to their cause. Money is their true king.

The Catalan Chronicles: Something doesn’t seem quite right

It is tempting to say that the central government had fallen for a trap when it ordered members of the law enforcement to get involved. It’s tempting, oh, so very tempting. By doing so it would have at least taken some of the sting out of the blunder on that fateful Sunday, October 1, but the truth of the matter was that this was a totally avoidable situation and it probably had more to do with the fact the government thought it could pull it off than anything else. A bit of arrogance, if I dare say. Why did they think that? I really have no idea.

First, let’s get a few facts straight. Let it be known that, as a rule, security forces in Spain are very restrained, honorable and dutiful professionals who are respectful of citizens’ rights, helpful and perform their jobs very well. They had been calm and collected throughout the weeks leading up to the referendum and kept their poise in a land where they know they aren’t loved.

On that day, though, things got out of hand. Quite a bit so. Maybe they were following orders; maybe the nerves got the best of them in some cases; but there were casualties. Just how many is hard to say, but it wasn’t a handful. The Catalan government registered initially somewhere in the neigborhood of 900 individuals requiring medical attention as a result of police charges. These were hardly flattering numbers for a force that was supposed to keep law and order in a highly tense situation. But were they all caused by the police charges? The next day, the Catalan government was forced to clarify that the number they had given the day before referred to all the patients and not necessarily those hurt in the riots.

But the damage was done and the separatists had a field day. The ANC tweeted that not since World War II had the streets of a European city seen so many wounded. The ANC is an association that promotes Catalan culture, but it doubles as a propaganda machine for the independence movement. It is known to do so without the slightest scruples regarding accuracy. It has also proven itself in the past to have a rather liberal interpretation of history. For example, according to its seminars on Catalan history, it turns out that Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Cervantes were actually born in Catalonia. Why? Because they say so. By the way, they also discovered America fifteen years before the rest of Spain. Why? Because they say so.

It doesn’t stop there. In the 16th Century it was the world’s supreme super power, with strength so great it can only be compared to the United States in the second half of the 20th Century. And, let’s see, the entire apparatus of the Roman Empire owes its success almost exclusively to the Catalan cities of the time. We would all get a good laugh out of this if it weren’t for the fact that so many people who attended these courses believe it. It’s also called indoctrination. Or just plain lying.

None of my bitching, of course, should take away from the fact that there were instances where the police adopted an attitude that many would consider abusive. Including me. This is not anything I read about. I watched it with my own eyes as officers bushwhacked their way through crowds with uncommon zeal, dragged elderly women away and fired rubber balls into crowds. What was wrong with that? Don’t law enforcement officials have to take drastic measures from time to time? Well, maybe. In fact, one of the most graphic images sent around the planet that day, one of a man with a bloody face, actually came from a demostration five years earlier, and the culprits then were the regional police, the mossos d’esquadra. So desperate were some to depict the Spanish police and its alleged brutality that they resorted to fake news.

So, yes, there were times when these things happened. But this was not one of those times. The majority of the protesters were serious about their cause but they were generally everyday citizens practicing passive resistance. That day the police should have been there to ease tensions, not rile them.

The use of the police was not just short-sighted, it was just plain dumb. After all, what had they hoped to achieve? Stop the referendum. Despite the effort, 2.5 million Catalans still deposited their vote in the ballot box. So we could chalk that up as an utter failure. And I don’t know where to start about Spain’s public relations image. Someone up top had forgotten that in today’s society anyone who has a smart phone, in other words everyone, is a potential graphic reporter, each with a twitter account cocked and loaded and ready for action. The international community looked on with dismay. Even the United Nations considered investigating to see if their were human rights violations. How embarrassing is that?

There was so little to gain, and so much to be lost. And for a while there, it seemed as if Spain had lost everything.

While it appeared as if the independence backers were basking in the attention they were getting, they made some mistakes too. The errors wouldn’t become immediately evident to many, but they would be costly down the road. What were they?

1) To begin with, 45 minutes before the polling stations were opened, the government of Catalonia announced that, given the situation, voters no longer had to go to their own assigned location but could now vote anywhere. This may have seemed like a cunning trick to undermine Spain’s efforts, but it was a poorly thought out decision. By doing so, they effectively began to delegitimize their own referendum, as no foreign observer in their right mind was going to vouch for such a chaotic situation. There were videos of the same person voting at different stations on the same day. Cameras filmed people stuffing unattended ballot boxes in the streets. There were towns with 200 residents registering over a 1,000 votes in favor. These all but confirmed suspicions.

2) They also decided to use translucent but not transparent ballot boxes, as was customary, once again raising concerns about the validity and transparency of the vote and posterior count.

3) That evening, with just 43% participation (and 39% in favor of indepedence), Carles Puigdemont announced he had enough support to recommend that the Catalan parliament initiate the process of independence, in accordance to the law they had passed weeks before. This statement made the international community consider two points: first of all, Puigdemont needed a refresher course in what constitutes a majority; and more seriously, it became clear to some that all the talk about democracy was just a pile of manure. The feeling was the separatists had intended to go ahead with the declaring independence no matter what the results were. The referendum wasn’t proof, it was an excuse.

And finally, one nagging point started to surface. One that I believe even Puigdemont and company had become too blind to see. These were democratically elected officials, sworn to uphold the institutions of not just their region but those of the country as a whole, who had sidestepped the law, ignored supreme court rulings, walked all over the rights of the majority of its constituents, and were now overtly encouraging civil disobedience, while at the same time constantly changing the rules of the game so that they work in their favor. And all in the name of liberty and justice for all. You get the feeling they thought they had it in the bag. That the rest of the world was going overlook all that and leap to their defence to save them from the bad old Spanish Inquisition. But not everyone was taking the bait.

As a friend of mine put it. “I want to believe these guys, but something just doesn’t seem right.”

The Catalan Chronicles: The Guns of September

The Catalan government gave everyone just about three weeks to ready themselves for the referendum, so within hours of the passing of the independence law, everyone dropped their plates of paella and raced to position themselves for the great clash. I had just gotten back from Portugal and was trying to get a handle on just what the hell was going on. I mean, this was Spain, for Christ’s sake…the independence movements were supposed to be talked about…not really acted upon.

Deep down, however, I knew this was a run-in which had been a long time in the coming. I had students from the 1990s swearing on the Bible that Spain would not collapse into another Yugoslavia Reboot, but they didn’t know what I did. They hadn’t seen the James Joyce ads in the Herald Tribune. They hadn’t detected the tunnel being dug beneath the castle walls. The Spanish also failed, it seems, to understand that all those years of pacting with nationalist parties just to have control over parliament was going to land them with a hefty bill. After decades of wrestling over issues, compromising, conceding and rescinding, bickering back and forth, it seemed, though, that this time there would be no negotiating.

Prime Minister Rajoy chose a route that was fairly clever, even for Rajoy, and on paper it made sense. He let the judicial branch dictate his policy for him. All he had to do was execute the court orders. This meant that it wouldn’t be his conservative Popular Party depriving the Catalonians of their desire to vote. He would be obeying a higher law known as the constitution. No one could accuse him of acting unilaterally.

He also managed to get his party’s historic rivals, the Socialist Party, PSOE, and a young and good-looking center-right party, Ciudadanos, to join in alliance. It was almost unprecendeted. But then again, so was the situation in Spain’s young democracy. The other major national party, the rehashed left wingers called Podemos, shied from the union. You see, its leader Pablo Iglesias hates Rajoy so much, that he just couldn’t bring himself to supporting the country’s head of state for the betterment of nation. Iglesias was also within a whisker of overtaking the Socialist Party as the country’s main left wing force. The implosion of his country seemed, puzzlingly, like the ideal moment to go for the winning touchdown. Instead, he shot himself in the foot.

Iglesias was a proponent of the referendum, which is legitimate enough. He just forgot that he was backing a group of politicians which had basically just flushed democracy and the law down the toilet, and wiped their butts with the constitution. Iglesias also failed to recall that his own party represented much of the rest of Spain and not just Catalan interests. So, when at a political rally, he stood over the podium in his characteristic haunch, raised his right fist and shouted “Visca Catalunya!”, or “Long live Catalonia!” in Catalan, it goes down as one of the most boneheaded acts in recent Spanish history. It’s not just me. His own constituents made him aware of this screw-up, as support for his party fled like rats on a sinking ship.

Puigdemont and company were playing the “poor little us” routine, seeking international sympathy for their cause. And they were adept at it. Afterall, if you know nothing about the issue, as was the case for most people, you think to yourself, “Of course, they have that right to decide for themselves. Those bad old Spaniards!” And for much of the 20th Century, they weren’t the nicest guys in town. Forty years of ultra-conservative dictatorship under the Franco regime had made their mark. That may seem like a long time to many, but consider this: one of the most heated debates in the United States this year had to do with what to do with the old Confederate Civil War statues that stood in many cities. It’s a conflict that came to an end, at least on a military level, over 150 years ago.

Defending democracy and the right to hold a referendum was the separatists’ strongest argument, and the Spanish government’s weakest. Ironically, defending democracy and the duty to uphold the constitution was one of the national government’s best points. All the same, the separatists went for the jugular with their rhetoric. They threw in “Franco” here and there, “fascism” when they could, and “oppression” quite often. All the familiar ghosts from the past.

In the final couple of days leading up to the referendum, you got the feeling the Rajoy administration was doing everything in its power to ensure that the world had that very negative image of Spain. It was persecuting councilmen, jailing leaders for sedition, threatening with taking legal action against mayors who disobeyed court orders, tracking down and confiscating ballots from warehouses, roping off professional printing centers, shutting down websites, demanding Google remove sites which provided information on polling districts. At the same time, it was trying to pursuade the international community that the referendum meant nothing. It sure didn’t look that way.

Then October 1 came.

The Catalan Chronicles: The R Word

One of the emotionally charged issues regarding the Catalonian independence movement is the famous referendum, or R word, as I call it, because it’s probably the debate that irritates both ends more than any. It’s the event that has contributed to both sides ramming head on into each other. It’s also where you have to deal with the most absurd argument of this argument and probably the most childish behavior.

First of all, let me make it clear that I have always been in favor of a referendum for a couple of reasons, not the least being that people should and do have a right to decide what they want to be. A chance to determine their own future, so to speak. Especially if enough of them want it to happen. It’s as universal a right as you can get. I also feel that not allowing a referendum has been one of the Spanish government’s weakest links in its defence of unity. It makes it look inflexible and authoritarian (not a good thing as we still live in the wake of the Franco era), foolishly democratically unfriendly, especially when comparisons are made with Scotland and Quebec (though I’d like to see Vermont try to hold a referendum and see what the federal government would say), and finally, it was just a plain marketing blunder on their part. You can say what you want about the Catalans, but they always have to referendum on their side.

In my humble opinion, Spain had a golden opportunity a few years ago. They could have allowed a referendum, assisted in its process and handling, ensured it was done correctly and, barring some catastrophe, won by a sizable margin, because, let’s face it, the numbers weren’t there for the secessionists. Not by a long shot. And then the Spanish government could have always shown the world, “hey, they had their chance.” But that’s neither here nor there. They didn’t. Why?

1. First of all, because the constitution does not contemplate this eventuality. Once you’re in, you’re in for good. Honest Abe Lincoln certainly would have seconded that, and the Spanish government certainly does too.

2. There is nagging worry that if the central government allowed the separatist Catalans to have a stab at self-determination, they would in some ways being granting legitimacy to their cause, which in many ways would undermine the previously mentioned belief that independence is not an option. So why let them vote on it? There is some logic to this argument, which is a rarity in this story.

3. Even if they did allow a plebiscite to take place and a predictable NO vote against independence was to take the day, chances are the separatists would fight on. In other words, the referendum would only be valid when the desired result was finally obtained. That sort of makes sense because independence supporters have a record of behaving in such a way.

4. They argue that over the past forty years, Catalonia has held plenty of regional elections which in their own way give the Catalans a right to express their feelings.

5. They didn’t feel like it.

Some hardcore Spaniards advocate a referendum but insist that all of Spain have a say in the matter, which is utter balderdash, as the results would be a foregone conclusion and the real subjects involved would be totally overlooked. A mental masturbation by ultra-conservative unionists envisions the rest of the country voting to actually oust the region from Spain. Now wouldn’t that be funny. Catalonia would probably stay in if only to defy the will of Spain!!!

Regardless, whether the central government liked it or not, time finally came for a referendum. The year was 2014, and the president of the region, Artur Mas, had decided that Catalonia needed to decide its own future, for a whole bunch of reasons. These included growing frustration with the way the goverment was handling the economic recession, and another had to do with the Constitutional Court, at the behest of the PP, repealed or retouched 13 articles from the newly signed agreement from 2006. This supposedly infuriated the Catalans, though the remaining 215 articles were apparently left alone.

As usual, the national government opposed the idea, the national parliament rejected it by a landslide and the courts outright banned it? But the Catalans went ahead with it anyway, passing laws that made their aims possible and thus sidestepping protocol. There has been a consistency with this. If playing by the rules doesn’t get you what you want…just change the rules. The vote was no longer a referendum but rather a legally vague term known as a Consulta. This sort of semantic fooling around has run rampant on both ends.

Mas also made a few astute adjustments regarding just who could vote. Three new groups were added: legal residents from foreign countries, minors who were 16 and 17, and just about any voter from abroad who ever spent a day in Catalonia. There were unquestionable benefits to their inclusion. The foreigners living in Catalonia would be less likely to feel allegiance to Spain as a whole and prone to identifying with the interests of the region; the teenagers were from a generation of Catalan youth heavily influenced by years of schooling where anti-Spain sentiment was widespread; and clearly anyone who wanted to send a message from abroad, it was apt to be the kind of individual who adopted a kind of nostalgia for the motherland or fatherland or homeland, what have you. Few examiners have picked up on these details, but I can assure you, they were important.

The vote took place in many schools and was financed in part with public money, even though it had been declared illegal. It was held on November 9, and this time the police didn’t decide to bash heads, thank God. The day transpired without an incident. To date, it was as close to a true plebiscite on self-determination as they have ever come.

The next day, the Generalitat (Catalonia’s government) announced that a whopping 81% had voted in favor of independence. It was an overwhelming majority. A landslide. Mas jumped all over the results and claimed it was a rousing success, which of course, it wasn’t. Here’s why. The finagling of participation eligibility meant no one really knew just how many people could potentially vote. But one was for sure, it was a lot more than usual. The number of final voters hovered around the 2.3 million mark, and that, while no small figure, constitutes about 37% of the voting population (according to the most serious estimates). 81% of that percentage means that in reality, only about 30% voted in favor of breaking away. That’s right, 30%.

Some may argue that participation was low because the consultation was rendered illegal, but let’s face it, when people want to be defiant, those matters are of little importance. If larger numbers had wanted to flock to the polls, they could have. But they chose not to. All the same, the separatists were sharp about getting that 81% number out there, and it’s still referred to in international stories on the subject. Mas had managed to turn what I considered to be semi-flop into a great achievement. It would not be the first time or the last.

The central government completely misread the situation and wasted a golden opportunity. They dismissed the vote as illegal and inconsequential. It had no validity, so who cared? Well, a lot of people did. Afterall, 2.3 million voters is nothing to turn your nose up at. Mas didn’t have a lot to work with, but he had enough to make noise. Plus, it seemed pretty much clear as day that, were a formal referendum to be held, the no vote was a shoe in. The unionists had it in the bag. And once they had held one, no one, absolutely no one could say Catalonia was never given its chance.

So instead of capitalizing on the situation, the national government did what irresponsible people do when they are in debt and get a bill in the mail. They turned on the TV really loud, watched endless episodes of Pawn Stars, and pretended it didn’t exist. It just never happened. This total lack of regard for the Catalan independence movement, this foolish hope that it would just go away by itself, was a whole lot of wishful thinking. Why? Plus, it was a little late for that.

The Catalan Chronicles: A long, long time ago

There is an excellent book on socio-economics written by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner called Freakonomics which was actually a collection of articles discussing a whole slew of totally unrelated issues with no apparent purpose at all…not wholly unlike my teaching style. In their case, however, they actually had one thing in common: they were willing to look at issues in unconventional ways. They were also effective.

Not so surprisingly, the authors’ conclusions were often no less eyebrow-raising and, on occasion, shocking, when not altogether controversial. Good books should be like that. For example, they explored the notion that the crime rate in the 1990s in America did not decline dramatically due to increased sizes in the nation’s police force, as was commonly believed at the time, but rather as a result of an entirely different event which had taken place twenty years earlier: the introduction of legalized abortion. The assertion was startling to many and even dismissed by some experts. But one thing was unquestionably valid: the writers reminded us of just how important it was to think out of the box when trying to study the cause of certain phenomenon.

This book invariably came to mind when I started reading numerous articles in foreign newspapers and noticed that time and time again they would suggest that the Catalan independence movement really was a product of things going awry in the past ten years: major causes ran from the economic crisis to the corruption scandals involving members of the ruling party, the conservative Partido Popular (PP), the repealing of the Catalan Estatut, which is a kind of agreement the region had with the Spanish government. When you are talking about a conflict which predates any living Spaniard today, no matter how many years he has added to his life expectancy thanks to the fabulous Mediterranean diet, is there really any truth to it?

Granted, it is true there was a rough spell of economic inactivity, which the PP had inherited for the most part from the previous administration. The problem was so ginormous that it wasn’t like they could turn things around overnight. Everyone had to tighten their belt and suck it up. And it sucked. We teachers in Madrid had our Christmas bonus payment withheld. It really wasn’t actually a bonus at all, but rather a 7% cut in our salary that year, let’s stop kidding ourselves. We didn’t take to kindly to it at the time, but it sure beat lining up at the unemployment office. Eventually we were all paid back, but it goes to show lots of people all over the country were feeling the squeeze, not just the Catalans. And you don’t see us wanting to separate from Toledo. Please.

And it’s also true that the PP as a ruling party had also done just about everything a party can do to undermine its own credibility, with over 800 cases nationwide of unethical and outright illegal behavior and practices under investigation, making it one of the most criminally-investigated political formations in recent memory. I tell you, if you want to learn how to have your reputation as a trustworthy individual go down the toilet while in public office, these are the guys to talk to.

The party has finally tried to take a tough stance on these abuses of power, but the damage was done. In the 2016 elections, they lost 56 seats in parliament and 3.5 million votes. A blistering knuckle-rap if there ever was one. Another consequence was the founding of two new parties which have, for the time being at least, done away with the two-party system and are playing a crucial part in the most recent developments. One party is a kind of conservative-leaning, but not really right wing party, known as Ciudadanos. It’s hard at times to really know what these people represent, but one thing is for sure, all the leaders are really good-looking, which must be a prerequisite to becoming a candidate. The left wing, which had been in tatters for years after totally misreading the winds of change in Spain’s rise to prominence, abandoned the old traditional parties and regrouped under the guidance of a pony-tailed former college professor named Pablo Iglesias. I’ll tell you more about him at another time because he’s done a fine job of tanking his own cause.

No, those aren’t the reasons. They are merely the most recent episodes in a very, very long series of events which have stymied unity and union in this country. And, as you can expect, just where you want to begin depends heavily on what your perspective is. Let’s take a look:

Pro-union Spain likes to go back to the very dawn of time to dig up proof that Catalonia has never, ever, ever been its own country. And even if they wanted to play fair and pick up at the beginning of the Christian Reconquest, their position is essentially the same. Their argument is flawed if only for the reason that the fact they haven’t been their own country, doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to become one. Duh.
Hardcore Spaniards also point to the fact Catalonia was only a county and then a principality, and for centuries belonged to the Kingdom of Aragon, as in “Catherine of” fame, and they have a point…but only to a point. Catalonia did have its own institutions back then too. Its courts were among the earliest in Europe.
Independence supporters sometimes cite the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1704), as Catalonia’s first true attempt to break away. They claim they backed Archduke Charles to be king and not Philip V, and the Philip imposed his will on the Catalans. That’s B.S. They actually welcomed defended Philip at first, and only switched sides when they felt threatened by the influx of French commerce.
The Catalans often hark back to the 19th Century, and the cultural and nationalist renaissance that soared in many parts of Spain, not just Catalonia, not to mention Europe, where Germany and Italy were forming.
Skipping over to the 20th Century, Spain was a monarchless republic, as most are, in the 1930s, and it was at this time that Catalonia claims to have declared independence under Lluis Campanys. The Spanish government, as well as many conservative Catalans, did not look upon that with favor, and suppressed the movement. He would later be freed and ran Catalonia during the Civil War before having to go into exile. Poor man, he was later detained in France, extradited, jailed and finally executed. Naturally, he is a major hero of the Catalan cause.
The Franco regime is often a referred to as a blemish in the pro-Spain movement. Forty years of bliss for conservative and traditional Spaniards whose consequences, forty years later, the country would in part be paying a price for. At least say some. If by 1978, those with power, those with first-hand knowledge were letting bygones be bygones, it is sort of hard to understand why those who had nothing to do with try to use it as an excuse.
Pro-Spain advocates love to allude to the 1978 Constitution as their starting point. It flat out says the country is based on the “indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation, the common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards.” Yeap, and 90% of the Catalan voters supported that statement.
Yeah, but then the opposition will say that they were let down by the system and to longer believes in the constitution. This might be valid if it weren’t for the fact that, if anything, Catalonia has increased its autonomy since then. It enjoys more freedoms than forty years ago and lives a perfectly healthy and happy existence…unless you want to be independent, that is.

Conclusion. What would the freakonomists have to say? I couldn’t begin to guess. I’m not as smart as those guys. But if I had to go out on a limb, I’d say that just around the time constitution was passed at signed, a number of people smiled silently and said to themselves, we’re not done yet.

We still aren’t.

The Catalan Chronicles: What would James Joyce Say?

A whole helluvah long time ago when I was in my first year here and still had a vision of Spain with the innocence of a virgin, I was in my host family’s home and lounging on my bed, which was one of those low-rise thingies that were still the standard back then. They were known as camas individuales and I have always been curious to know just who that individual was on whom they based the dimensions. What I can say is that safety concerns due to inordinate height from the top of the mattress was not an issue. If ever you were to roll over the edge and let gravity take over, your knee and elbow would break the fall before you actually initiated your descent.

Anyway, as I was saying. I was flipping through the International Herald Tribune, which was the only main source of news from abroad back then, when I stopped and stared at a startling full-page ad that read in big letters, “Today, even James Joyce would feel Catalan.”

I grimaced as I shifted my position in the bed and read on. “What the heck is this all about?”

It turned out that the whole deal was seemingly about San Jordi (the feast of St. George), which is on April 23, in case anyone is interested. San Jordi is the patron saint of Catalonia, which is why so many males from that region go by that name. April 23 is also International Book Day, the anniversary to the day and year of both William Shakespeare and Miguel Cervantes. Yes, they both kicked the ink well on the very same day. Talk about your loss to literature. The Catalans have a very nice tradition of giving a book and a rose as a present on that day. No doubt it is a custom which counts on the fullest support of the florist and publishing guilds. It’s also so veeeery European chic. I happen to think it’s a very cool idea.

Anyway, that provides a little context. But that only solves part of the mystery. Why in an English-speaking language newspaper? And why all that money thrown into sharing a local but obscure custom? I’ll tell you why. Because it really wasn’t about San Jordi at all. You see, once the reader got past the eye-catching headline and the quaint story behind the day, the announcement got down to the meat of the matter. The pretext, the excuse, the real reason. The whole fuckin’ kit a caboodle. The rest of the information provided went something to the effect: Catalonia is a nation with its own language, its own history, its own traditions, etc…and so on, and so on. We’ve heard this all before. Does this all sound familiar?

This wasn’t an opportunity to share cultural diversity for the benefit of those who wish to know more about world; this was a piece of independence propaganda shrouded in a clever bit of publicity, which included the name of several well-known writers who, if we were to go by the claim, would also possess a special affinity for Catalonia that day. It was also posted and, presumably, paid for by the Generalitat, Catalonia’s regional government. The year was 1991. Way before the economic crisis, or the rampant political scandals or any other recent development the ill-informed reporter mentions. What was happening back then in that neck of the woods? Well, Barcelona was readying itself to host the summer games of 1992, an event so costly it obviously needed to look to numerous sources for financing. The central goverment was by far the biggest public investor, footing 37.7% of the bill, compared to 18% that the regional government chipped in. Then the Catalans showed their appreciation in one of the baffling ways possible…by trumpeting to the international community they have really nothing to do with Spain. What a bunch of sweethearts.

What does this show? Simple. It shows that back in the early 1990s, the campaign to sell the independence story to the world was on its way. The world wasn’t listening very much, but that didn’t matter. Maybe one day it would, and that was OK by the nationalists.

And what about Joyce? What would he have to say after all? Would he feel Catalan? Your guess is as good as mine. He probably would have wanted to have as little to do with the issue as possible. But there was little he could do about it because he was dead. For a long time. As were the rest of the referenced authors. The nationalists had cunningly chosen to tag opinions to people who could no longer give their own opinions.