Catalonia and Its Referendum on Independence from Spain

Catalonia, satellite image of snowfall
March 8, 2010

Catalonia is located on the eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula and has a population of 7.52 million people. Catalonia has a distinct history, culture, and language. Its main city, Barcelona, was captured in 1714 by the first Bourbon king of Spain, Felipe V, and Catalonia lost its autonomy. Catalonia’s national day, September 11, commemorates this event.

The regional Government of Catalonia decided that a referendum would take place on Catalan independence on October 1, 2017. But the Constitutional Court of Spain declared on September 6, 2017 that the referendum and its invocation violated the Constitution.

Spain is divided in 17 autonomous communities with government delegates who must follow the same Constitution and legislation. However, Catalonia has tried for a long time to become independent. A few Catalonian politicians believe that they have something important to gain if they separate from Spain. After all Catalonia contributes the lion’s share of taxes to poorer regions. Catalonia provides one fifth of Spain’s industrial output.

 

Estelada blava, the pro-independence Catalonian flag

Photo: Wikipedia

 

Few citizens actually voted to break away in the legal referendum which took place five years ago on the issue of separation from Spain. Most ordinary Spanish citizens do not seem to be at all interested in separation. The average Spanish citizen sees the conflict in Catalonia in their own light.

But the current president of Catalonia, in an unconstitutional move, decided to organize a new referendum on the issue of independence from Spain.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his government made a mistake in dealing with Catalonia and addressed the conflict by calling in the national police and the civilian guards which he sent to Catalonia to “establish law and order” and to prevent Catalonians from voting.

Naturally Catalonians were outraged by the police presence and overt force and decided to vote even though many were not initially convinced that it was a good idea or even useful to separate Catalonia from Spain. It was reported that 2.225 million Catalonians voted on Sunday out of a total 5.5 million citizens registered to vote.

The conflict escalated when the Spanish police prevented Catalonians from entering the improvised voting centers while the Catalan police (Mossos d’Esquadra) protected the voters.

Additionally, the Internet was cut in voting centers and the voting population could not be cross-checked and verified; anyone could vote as long as they wrote down their names and an I.D. number. In the ensuing chaos, people who were not residents of Catalonia got to vote and some voted five times.

Catalonia is a more industrialized part of Spain, however, in the event of separation of Catalonia from Spain, business owners threatened to move to other areas. If Catalonia becomes an independent state, it is no longer part of the European Union; it must mint its own currency, have a monetary policy, and force Spanish citizens to travel with a passport in their own country.

The problem for Spain is that the rail road and interstate which connects it to Europe runs through the Mediterranean coast, through Catalonia. In the northern part of Spain, in order to cross into France through the Pyrenees Mountains, people use a narrow highway that crosses through Andorra.

Some Spanish believe that the Catalonian president acted unconstitutionally and forced the central government to take radical and unpopular measures which allowed Catalonians to claim that their democratic right of self-determination was violated.

The public opinion is greatly divided and many Catalonian families are separated along political lines; family members in the same house do not speak to each other because they have different political and economic views on the matter.

Most argue that an independent Catalonia would not benefit either side; it is simply a manipulation of the masses by a few elites with personal agendas.

For several years now, schools have been teaching the Catalan language while the Spanish language classes have been reduced. In public administration, nobody is hired unless they speak Catalan - same situation for professors or doctors. Some Spanish believe that English would be more beneficial since Spain has a huge tourist industry.

Violence was not the answer, many Spanish citizens claim, but it was necessary for the central government to re-establish law and order. Voting in a referendum that has been declared illegal by the central government in Madrid and by the courts was also a bad idea.

 

 

The Stars and Stripes of Glory

We are flying our American flag today in honor of our country’s 237 years of independence from British tyranny.

Our flag celebrates my husband’s 27 years of devoted service to our country and the sacrifice of millions of faceless and unknown Americans before him who gave their all to preserve liberty.

Our flag honors millions of legal immigrants who had sailed to the New York harbor in unspeakable conditions and waited out the quarantine at Ellis Island to come to the new world.

Our flag honors the 4 million legal immigrants who are waiting patiently in their countries for the resolution of visas to come to America, the land of opportunity, the “shining city on the hill.”

So many love America and what it stood for all these years. So many nations owe their freedom to Americans. So many hate America but secretly wish and dream they could live here.

We have a flag on our wall, carefully folded and mounted in a shadow box with a dedication to me – it had been flown over Iraq and Afghanistan. It honors my husband’s service in the “overseas contingency operations” against the “workplace violence” enemy.

On our multi-national street, two families with foreign nationals who are naturalized citizens fly the American flag, our family and an Ethiopian family. Only two American born families fly the American flag. The rest of the street enjoys the freedom in the privacy of their shuttered homes.

My local Wal-Mart was teeming yesterday with a Tower of Babel, non-English speaking shoppers, filling their carts with food bounty from America’s horn of plenty, paying with SNAP and EBT cards, compliments of the federal government, generous with other people’s money and eager to attract any illegals from anywhere as long as they vote the right way.

Are illegals smart enough to realize that Americans have built this abundant nation with hard work, not through government largesse? Do they understand that the government exists because “we the people” have paid taxes and allowed it to exist through our vote? Do they know or care that voting in our country carries a grave responsibility to our future generations? Do they understand that breaking our law, crossing the border illegally, and voting for the same hellhole they’ve escaped from, fundamentally alters the fabric of our society, potentially putting an end to the abundance the illegals are so eager to obtain?

My neighborhood Wal-Mart is a microcosm of what is happening to our country stealthily from within.  The BMW and Mercedes driving bureaucrats who work in D.C. but live in the suburbs do not shop at Wal-Mart, they shop at Costco. They push and vote for illegal immigration amnesty and cheap labor but they hide in gated communities and attend elite cocktail parties.

I drove through neighboring communities and saw on other streets flags of Mexico, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, and Columbia, flown proudly on modest rental homes. The occupants were having barbeques; their children were playing in the yard, or taking a dip in above-ground pools, celebrating. Were they celebrating America? Do they know its history? Do they care and are they here to assimilate, learn English, and make the country better? Or are they here just for the welfare benefits, off-the-books jobs, and the abundant lifestyle?

The Roman Empire was envied by many invading hordes who just wanted the Roman lifestyle and property in the Roman Empire. They were not interested in becoming Roman citizens, assimilating, or speaking Latin. The Romans allowed them in, did not require them to speak Latin, but denied them property. The hordes eventually succeeded in taking over the empire. No need for salvos to bring a successful empire/nation to its knees, just infiltration and erosion from within.

One home was flying the Gadsden flag.  Colonel Christopher Gadsden submitted a design for a yellow flag with a green coiled snake to the Provincial Congress in South Carolina with the words, “Don’t tread on me.” (c. 1775)

Our Star-Spangled Banner, our Old Glory, is not just a symbol of freedom to us; it is who we are in our hearts and souls, law-abiding citizens of a nation blessed by God, “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) metaphorically described our Old Glory in his 1819 poem, The American Flag:

“When Freedom from her mountain height,

Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night.
And set the stars of glory there.”