Catalonia free of a repressive Spain.
For Mexicans, Spain is known as the “mother country”, whether we like it or not we inherited the language, architecture and many customs that were mixed with the indigenous, giving us what we are now and have.
And it seems that Mexico forgot about our past and how difficult it was to become independent from Spain. President Enrique Peña Nieto like many other European countries and the United States, refuse to recognize the independence of the Catalan region in Spain, a topic that for years has been discussed and until now finalized.
The region of Catalunya is to the north, adjoins France and is considered one of the richest regions of Spain as it has one of the most beautiful cities in the country, Barcelona; In addition to having La Sagrada Familia, one of the most majestic churches in the world and the soccer team El Barça, considered without a doubt, one of the best. It has its own language – Catalan – and its own customs very different from those of the rest of Spain.
The Catalans, who many of them do not consider themselves Spaniards, say that the Spanish government takes away a lot of money in taxes and does not return them in services, so their communications infrastructure and other services are not as good as those in other regions and therefore the works do not occur. In addition, they feel that they are not respected for wanting to maintain their language and customs.
This started as a problem of social justice, where Spain has described the Catalans not wanting to help the regions that have less and that encourage the unification; and Catalunya says that they are looted and do not respect them.
Thus the years have passed, with demonstrations and citizen consultations, which to date have led to a blatant violation of human rights by the government of Prime Minister Rajoy.
To see this from a more objective perspective, here are the numbers. Catalonia is a region of about 7.5 million inhabitants, and represents 6% of the Spanish territory. However, it contributes 20% of the Spanish economy. Without being an expert it is seen that the problem of Rajoy and Spanish politicians is that they do not want to let go of the goose that lays the golden eggs.
On the other hand, European countries do not want to support Catalonia because they know that there are other countries that also want to become independent, so this would set a bad precedent.
Susagna Roura, a Catalan pro independence and councilor of PdeCat in the town hall of the city of Vic and a partner of Omnium and ANC. He told me that they are very outraged, because after the last referendum vote the 1st. In October, the Spanish government made a political persecution of the 738 mayors of Catalonia. They confiscated the ballot boxes with the ballots. They sent them 10 thousand civil guards and on the day of the voting they beat and prevented many citizens from voting by making extreme use of violence. You only have to see the videos that were uploaded to YouTube and social networks to see the use of violence to stop voting.
However, 43% managed to vote despite the repression and 90% of voters said they want to become independent. It is not possible that in a developed country the situations that were seen in the times of Franco’s dictatorship in the 30s can be seen.
Even the Catalans who oppose independence have stated that the people have the right to vote. As Susagna said, “it is a matter of democracy, not of independence.” For now, President Carles Puigdemont has declared independence and is preparing to confront the Spanish government. There is still a lot to learn from our history. That, although it is difficult to believe, is repeated every time the people face corrupt governments.
According to Susagna Rouda “we will see if our president exercises as such or considers himself dismissed by virtue of the application of 155 of the Spanish Constitution that Rajoy and the Senate (with majority of Rajoy’s partico) have interpreted at their discretion and have placed as president of Catalonia to the vice president of Spain Saenz de Santamaria. I hope this is not the case, because if all this process that started in 2010 has not been used at all. ”