6 ms·

Can anyone (preferably from the region) share some link to a good serious source for a foreigner to understand the modern thing with this Catalonia thing? (pref

by nnq 9y ago

Can anyone (preferably from the region) share some link to a good serious source for a foreigner to understand the modern thing with this Catalonia thing? (preferably without the history bullshit because... people never make decision based on history that's just pretext). Because every article about it I've clicked ended up as an example of horrible quality journalism! Either 0% facts, or too un-opinionated to be of any use, or the other extreme with the "it's the Russians behind it" wackos. Like... why tf would people want to "break" a country that works so well, such as Spain?! Yeah, some regions are poorer and other are richer and also pay some of the bills of the poorer ones, but that's how a country works.

jdale27 9y ago
Spain is working well? They have 17% unemployment, second worst in the EU, after Greece. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...
- Wellshit 9y ago
  I would say they're just not manipulating the numbers as much as other countries in the EU. Maybe their numbers just reflect people without a job.
m00x 9y ago
Not from Spain, but from Canada where Quebec tried to separate multiple times. I can iterate a few points that are might be similar. - Quebec has a different official language (same with Calalonia) - People from Quebec have a very different culture, which is more socialist. - They constantly have businesses disrespecting their culture for sake of cost cutting. - Their heritage is different. They don't care about the commonwealth, etc. - They can survive on their own. They invested hard in environmentally friendly power sources and keeping ownership over their own resources. - Other provinces disrespect their culture and right to be different. - They pay a lot dividends to other provinces that are now broke because they sold ownership of their resources to third parties. (Alberta, NB, etc) Disclaimer: I'm from NB, but most of my family lives in Quebec.
- JaumeGreen 9y ago
  From Catalonia, and this is almost spot on. The only thing being that not only businesses disrespect our culture, but the government and current main party do it too. And have been doing for some time. They are descendants (sometimes literally) from the ones directing the dictatorship that ruled Spain until 40 years ago. And they act like they had the same kind of power.
  - mcdevilkiller 9y ago
    People that disrespect Catalonia, I can count them with the fingers in my hand. Catalonia is one of the most productive regions in Spain, and also the one with the greater deeds. Big businesses are mostly in Barcelona and Madrid, and more in Barcelona. Tourist from inside the country visit Catalonia as much as other regions. Catalonia is not hated, but politicians and independentists are making us hate it.
    - goliatone 9y ago
      Looking at it from the outside it does seem to be some contempt towards Catalan people, like referring to them as polacos (Polish, I guess because the speak “weird”). It also feels like when Catalan governments have tried to discuss the model of autonomy/government and the relationship between central government and autonomous governance and there’s an almost childish reaction from the central government.
      - zentropia 9y ago
        They were called "polacos" because during the civil war people said that Catalonia was a province of Russia.
- arkona2 9y ago
  > They pay a lot dividends to other provinces that are now broke because they sold ownership of their resources to third parties. This is not exactly true. Quebec doesn’t pay anything to other provinces, in fact it is the biggest recipient of Equalization Payments, by a huge margin.
mcdevilkiller 9y ago
No, links, just someone from Spain that wants to give a somewhat "objective" opinion. Catalonia has always had problems with the rest of Spain because of politicians. Around the 17th century (don't quote me on this, I'm not good at history), the Castillians had been oppressed in terms of taxes, because they had started a revolution the king and lost. As Spain was suffering an economical crisis (how strange), they decided to collect the same taxes from Aragon as they had been from Castilla, and also to recruit 5000 soldiers (peasants) to fight in France. Catalonia, which was under Aragon's crown government, decided to secede and form a republic. They tried to ally with France, but what happened was that instead of fighting in France, Spanish and French fought in Catalonia. It ended up with France retiring from Spain but with some Catalan territories under their belt. After that, the kings mantained the tax benefits in Catalonia, because they didn't want another war. It is important to remakr that the kings were Austrian in this period of time. Time after that, when Charles II, king of Spain in 1700 and with severe mental and physical problems, was about to die without descendants, he chose his grandnephew, Philip of Anjou as succesor. Philip was French, and the Austrians didn't want a French king (Austria had been part of the Spanish empire). So they proposed a candidate, Leopold I's son, Charles. No one wanted to accept the other candidate, and even the people were divided, leading to a war known as the succession war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spanish_Succession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spanish_Succession Philip, who had the Castillians support, won the war, and Aragon, which supported the Archduke Charles, lost its regional code of laws that every region (because Spain was composed of crowns and such) had. Jumping into this days, Catalan politicians have been using this last part (being oppressed without their jurisdiction) as an excuse to ask for benefits. The problem is, no party has said no to them, and they have always gotten more. Recently they tried another time, and they got denied (when Artur Mas was the president in the Generalitat), that is why they started again with the independence threats. As they didn't get what they wanted, they forced it and it has shifted into a big snowball, too large to be stop already. (Also, Catalonia had proclaimed independence before, but it got quickly shut down, and the president was taken to jail and after that executed, but bear in mind that this was while Franco was in the government. This is something they are using now to accuse the Spanish government of opression and other things.) Sorry if there are typos, I'm writing this from a phone.
blackbagboys 9y ago
>> preferably without the history bullshit because... people never make decision based on history that's just pretext If you seriously believe this, then I don't think you have much of a chance of understanding much of anything
- yellowapple 9y ago
  Agreed. Deliberately ignoring history is deliberately ignoring all sorts of vital context behind all sorts of factors and variables and decisions. History is also necessary to extrapolate trends and predict future effects. As the saying goes: "those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it; those who do know history are condemned to watch everyone else repeat it".
  - nnq 9y ago
    I don't have a disregard for history in general. Like, there's lots to learn from the world wars and the whole communism story... But Europe's "local" medievally rooted history is always either useless or utterly malignant and has only been used to turn against each other people that could otherwise live in peace and prosperity, sometimes with violent consequences. Even the concept of "nations" is utter bulshit and should be erased from people's mental vocabulary imho. You just have groups of people with regional ties (because assets like land property rights can't unfortunately be easily transferred like you can with Bitcons ...yet :P) and economic interests and real cultural identities (that never, ever map in a useful way to "nations" or "provinces"... if they do map to anything it's at the bigger scales with race and religion, or at smaller scales with sub-culture groups, gender identities and these kinds of sutff). The whole modern version of "understanding history" is a freakin cancer that can only bring confusion and false understanding.
6t6t6t6 9y ago
The issue of the Catalans is quite complex and I don't think that anybody will be able to make a short summary in a forum comment. The Wikipedia entry about Catalan Independence contains a lot of information but I would say that does not explain all the reasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence My take: Catalans are a National Minority in Spain. Catalonia has its own government, culture, language and, quite important, different political culture. Just to give you an idea, the party of Rajoy (Spanish president) that wins with majority in Spain election after election, got only 8% of the votes in the Catalan Parliament. After the death of the Fascist Dictator General Franco, many catalans thought that Catalonia would be able to thrive as a Nation inside of Spain. This general opinion lasted for many years but, since 10 years ago, the attacks of the Government of Spain against the autonomy of Catalonia have made many people change their minds and realize that that the only way Catalonia will survive is by getting its own State. > why tf would people want to "break" a country that works so well Spain does not work so well. It has a massive unemployment and some of the lowest salaries in Europe. The economy is f* up and the Spanish government just spent all the money that was supposed to be used to pay our public pensions once we retire. Also, the most important thing for me, is that most of the politicians in the Spanish main political party (PP) have direct links with the Fascist Dictatorship. Could you imagine a minister in Germany was the son of a Nazi official? Well, this is quite common in Spain.

by nnq 9y ago

jdale27 9y ago

Spain is working well? They have 17% unemployment, second worst in the EU, after Greece. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...

Wellshit 9y ago
I would say they're just not manipulating the numbers as much as other countries in the EU. Maybe their numbers just reflect people without a job.

m00x 9y ago

Not from Spain, but from Canada where Quebec tried to separate multiple times. I can iterate a few points that are might be similar. - Quebec has a different official language (same with Calalonia) - People from Quebec have a very different culture, which is more socialist. - They constantly have businesses disrespecting their culture for sake of cost cutting. - Their heritage is different. They don't care about the commonwealth, etc. - They can survive on their own. They invested hard in environmentally friendly power sources and keeping ownership over their own resources. - Other provinces disrespect their culture and right to be different. - They pay a lot dividends to other provinces that are now broke because they sold ownership of their resources to third parties. (Alberta, NB, etc) Disclaimer: I'm from NB, but most of my family lives in Quebec.

JaumeGreen 9y ago
From Catalonia, and this is almost spot on. The only thing being that not only businesses disrespect our culture, but the government and current main party do it too. And have been doing for some time. They are descendants (sometimes literally) from the ones directing the dictatorship that ruled Spain until 40 years ago. And they act like they had the same kind of power.
- mcdevilkiller 9y ago
  People that disrespect Catalonia, I can count them with the fingers in my hand. Catalonia is one of the most productive regions in Spain, and also the one with the greater deeds. Big businesses are mostly in Barcelona and Madrid, and more in Barcelona. Tourist from inside the country visit Catalonia as much as other regions. Catalonia is not hated, but politicians and independentists are making us hate it.
  - goliatone 9y ago
    Looking at it from the outside it does seem to be some contempt towards Catalan people, like referring to them as polacos (Polish, I guess because the speak “weird”). It also feels like when Catalan governments have tried to discuss the model of autonomy/government and the relationship between central government and autonomous governance and there’s an almost childish reaction from the central government.
    - zentropia 9y ago
      They were called "polacos" because during the civil war people said that Catalonia was a province of Russia.
arkona2 9y ago
> They pay a lot dividends to other provinces that are now broke because they sold ownership of their resources to third parties. This is not exactly true. Quebec doesn’t pay anything to other provinces, in fact it is the biggest recipient of Equalization Payments, by a huge margin.

mcdevilkiller 9y ago

No, links, just someone from Spain that wants to give a somewhat "objective" opinion. Catalonia has always had problems with the rest of Spain because of politicians. Around the 17th century (don't quote me on this, I'm not good at history), the Castillians had been oppressed in terms of taxes, because they had started a revolution the king and lost. As Spain was suffering an economical crisis (how strange), they decided to collect the same taxes from Aragon as they had been from Castilla, and also to recruit 5000 soldiers (peasants) to fight in France. Catalonia, which was under Aragon's crown government, decided to secede and form a republic. They tried to ally with France, but what happened was that instead of fighting in France, Spanish and French fought in Catalonia. It ended up with France retiring from Spain but with some Catalan territories under their belt. After that, the kings mantained the tax benefits in Catalonia, because they didn't want another war. It is important to remakr that the kings were Austrian in this period of time. Time after that, when Charles II, king of Spain in 1700 and with severe mental and physical problems, was about to die without descendants, he chose his grandnephew, Philip of Anjou as succesor. Philip was French, and the Austrians didn't want a French king (Austria had been part of the Spanish empire). So they proposed a candidate, Leopold I's son, Charles. No one wanted to accept the other candidate, and even the people were divided, leading to a war known as the succession war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spanish_Succession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spanish_Succession Philip, who had the Castillians support, won the war, and Aragon, which supported the Archduke Charles, lost its regional code of laws that every region (because Spain was composed of crowns and such) had. Jumping into this days, Catalan politicians have been using this last part (being oppressed without their jurisdiction) as an excuse to ask for benefits. The problem is, no party has said no to them, and they have always gotten more. Recently they tried another time, and they got denied (when Artur Mas was the president in the Generalitat), that is why they started again with the independence threats. As they didn't get what they wanted, they forced it and it has shifted into a big snowball, too large to be stop already. (Also, Catalonia had proclaimed independence before, but it got quickly shut down, and the president was taken to jail and after that executed, but bear in mind that this was while Franco was in the government. This is something they are using now to accuse the Spanish government of opression and other things.) Sorry if there are typos, I'm writing this from a phone.

blackbagboys 9y ago

>> preferably without the history bullshit because... people never make decision based on history that's just pretext If you seriously believe this, then I don't think you have much of a chance of understanding much of anything

yellowapple 9y ago
Agreed. Deliberately ignoring history is deliberately ignoring all sorts of vital context behind all sorts of factors and variables and decisions. History is also necessary to extrapolate trends and predict future effects. As the saying goes: "those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it; those who do know history are condemned to watch everyone else repeat it".
- nnq 9y ago
  I don't have a disregard for history in general. Like, there's lots to learn from the world wars and the whole communism story... But Europe's "local" medievally rooted history is always either useless or utterly malignant and has only been used to turn against each other people that could otherwise live in peace and prosperity, sometimes with violent consequences. Even the concept of "nations" is utter bulshit and should be erased from people's mental vocabulary imho. You just have groups of people with regional ties (because assets like land property rights can't unfortunately be easily transferred like you can with Bitcons ...yet :P) and economic interests and real cultural identities (that never, ever map in a useful way to "nations" or "provinces"... if they do map to anything it's at the bigger scales with race and religion, or at smaller scales with sub-culture groups, gender identities and these kinds of sutff). The whole modern version of "understanding history" is a freakin cancer that can only bring confusion and false understanding.

6t6t6t6 9y ago

The issue of the Catalans is quite complex and I don't think that anybody will be able to make a short summary in a forum comment. The Wikipedia entry about Catalan Independence contains a lot of information but I would say that does not explain all the reasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence My take: Catalans are a National Minority in Spain. Catalonia has its own government, culture, language and, quite important, different political culture. Just to give you an idea, the party of Rajoy (Spanish president) that wins with majority in Spain election after election, got only 8% of the votes in the Catalan Parliament. After the death of the Fascist Dictator General Franco, many catalans thought that Catalonia would be able to thrive as a Nation inside of Spain. This general opinion lasted for many years but, since 10 years ago, the attacks of the Government of Spain against the autonomy of Catalonia have made many people change their minds and realize that that the only way Catalonia will survive is by getting its own State. > why tf would people want to "break" a country that works so well Spain does not work so well. It has a massive unemployment and some of the lowest salaries in Europe. The economy is f* up and the Spanish government just spent all the money that was supposed to be used to pay our public pensions once we retire. Also, the most important thing for me, is that most of the politicians in the Spanish main political party (PP) have direct links with the Fascist Dictatorship. Could you imagine a minister in Germany was the son of a Nazi official? Well, this is quite common in Spain.