About Catalonia

In all the justified outrage at the scenes in Catalonia, I feel I have to - have to - express a few issues. I will understand if this doesn’t interest anybody, there is no need for you to read it. But I need to write it, for myself and for family.

First in the interests of full disclosure, most of those who know me would consider me a thorough Lefty. I don’t think I am actually, I think I am a centrist, but OK, there’s no way I will ever consider ‘Lefty’ an insult, so it will do. Also in the interests of full disclosure, I am half Spanish, and those I have spoken to on this subject are mainly from the land of my mother’s family, Andalusia. I also number in my family several members of the police force, though I do not think any of them are involved in the Catalonian controversy. One of them lives in Galicia, the other two live in Andalusia.

The first thing that I wish to mention is an opinion. Rajoy is a bloody imbecile, incompetent, selfish and stupid. It is unbelievably absurd, as well as disgusting, to set the police on the people with the results we have seen today. I do not approve of it, but I am not surprised at it either.

One misnomer has to be dealt with straight away; I read today of the separatist Catalan cause being likened to Scottish devolution/independence. There is no historical similarity. Catalonia has been a part of Spain since Spain became a federation of Christian kingdoms. It was a county/province administered by the Count of Barcelona, and Aragon was its Lord. Before that it was part of Al-Andalus, the Moorish kingdom of Spain. Before that it was Frankish, before that it was Roman and before that, it was inhabited by Iberian tribes, like everywhere else on the peninsula. Not that the people of this place lacked their own identity, power, language, ability, and often autonomy, they had all these things. But so did everywhere else. Catalans were no less a part of Spain than Castilians or Aragonese, Valencians or Galicians.

Then there is the attitude towards Catalonia exhibited by so many, this sense that if they want to be self governing they should be. I agree with this, but I wonder how most Brits would feel if London decided to have a referendum declared illegal by its government in order to secede from the UK. Some might think ‘Good Riddance,’ but many would consider the amount of British tax that has gone into making London mighty. London could certainly exist as a city state independent of the rest of Great Britain, but one can only sympathise with the deprived of Cornwall and Wales and other areas who have paid their taxes only to watch London grow rich, while they stay poor.They might at the very least want their investment back plus interest. In many parts of Spain, Catalonia is seen as the spoilt favoured child having got all the infrastructural spending plus its food at discount prices from within Spain. Small wonder if there is a certain grimness at the idea of the now opulent county deciding it doesn’t want to contribute to those poorer regions.

Another point remains that of attitudes.It must be understood that many Spaniards do not recall Franco with disgust; that as far as they were concerned, he brought them safety and peace. I have older family members who spoke of the civil war. My grandfather, god rest his soul, had the kind of mouth his eldest grand-daughter inherited, and was imprisoned by the communists and the fascists. After taking him away to be shot, the leader of the local communists sat my pregnant grandmother down with her two wee kids, and proceeded to burn her house down in front of her. I recall her eyes burning as though she still saw it, whenever she spoke of those times. Grandfather got out of his pickle by pretending to be a doctor, only to be arrested by the fascists later. They put him in prison where he mysteriously lost all his teeth… But he came home at the end of the war, and he would not have political talk in his house after that. He had been an important man, my mother talked fondly of being tiny and playing with the capes of the guards at the door. They were always polite, gentle to the children, and always called him ‘Don Juan Diego,’ with great respect. But they were not standing armed on each side of the door to respect him.

There were no heroes in that war, however much we dream of valiant idealists and No Pasaran. The fascists killed, the communists killed, the fascists raped, the communists raped, the fascists tortured, the communists tortured… and this is hard for lefties who love a good cause. But the fact is they all behaved like monstrous shits. Does this explain why the Spanish authorities have now behaved like such blundering bullies? Better than any other country embroiled in a 20th century war, Spain learned what it was to be torn apart from within, and to have everything turn to death. After the war, my mother was sent to her aunt’s farm in the country. She loved vegetables, and especially loved to break the poppies open and drink the bitter white milk in the stems. She never understood why the labourers looked so stern at the fields full of red flowers, wheat stems springing up here and there. She didn’t realise that those few slender sheaves meant starvation, not just for one farm but for all the labourers depending on that harvest. This was, of course, not down just to after war poverty but sanctions. The idea was that somehow if people got hungry enough, they would overthrow Franco. But they were too tired, and had faced despair too long. Food supplies came in from a few allies here and there… and Spain did not become a democracy. But neither did it die.

Perhaps this is why Spanish justice can be so brutally physical about keeping the law. Spain is a very young democracy, do not imagine those wounds have faded without scarring. It must be understood that what is happening in Catalonia is an illegal referendum, in a country which has seen more viscerally and brutally than any other part of Europe, what happens when a country splits against itself. And if the Spanish govt believes that Russian interference is involved in a deliberate attempt to sabotage the state (as is an increasingly popular view regarding such matters as Brexit, Trump, Le Pen, Wilders, etc) then the threat becomes even more dire. Rajoy is a stupid man, but he may well be channelling old and once very real horrors. If that is so, however wrong and repulsive it surely is, do not expect the men with the batons to be gentle.

For anyone who has got this far, thank you for reading this.