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> but I mind if you agree with their view of Spain as an authoritarian country There's a very ugly side to Spain, just as there is a very ugly side to Japan, F

by oska 7y ago

> but I mind if you agree with their view of Spain as an authoritarian country There's a very ugly side to Spain, just as there is a very ugly side to Japan, France, the USA, Russia, Australia (my own country) and, I'm sure, the Catalan independence movement too. There is an ugly side to any entity when it feels its power is threatened and when it tries to suppress people's freedoms in response. Viewing this story from abroad and following it fairly well I have been disgusted and sickened by certain actions taken by the Spanish government, the corrupt Spanish judiciary, and the support shown by a percentage of the Spanish people for those acts. So yes, my view of Spain as an authoritarian country has strengthened based on real acts that have taken place. If you don't want people to form that view then you should be doing what is necessary in your country to call out that bad behaviour from your own side (presuming you are for the Spanish state remaining in its present form). That is the stance I take when I see my own country behaving badly. (It should also be the stance that Catalan independence supporters should take against any bad behaviour by their own movement too).

yiyus 7y ago
Yes. You are totally right. The ugly side of Spain is quite big and very ugly. We have to fight that. I have already written in other comments that I absolutely reject the violence of the police during the referendum, for example, and that all Spanish governments have made big mistakes with this topic. We need reforms in our justice and electoral systems. We have horrible politicians (Catalonia is not exception here). But Spain is not, by any definition I know, an authoritarian country. Moreover, I think we have to condemn the governments, the institutions, the citizens with bad behavior (there are indeed many of them in both sides, and therefore obviously many more in the non-indpendentist side). But when they constantly talk about "Spain" as if it was something external to them and refer to it as some banana republic, I feel insulted. I quite often see the same thing happening with the USA. Sometimes people do not criticize their administration, but they criticize the US, or "the Americans". I would understand if the US people complained about that. I would specially understand it if this criticism came from inside the US.

by oska 7y ago

yiyus 7y ago

Yes. You are totally right. The ugly side of Spain is quite big and very ugly. We have to fight that. I have already written in other comments that I absolutely reject the violence of the police during the referendum, for example, and that all Spanish governments have made big mistakes with this topic. We need reforms in our justice and electoral systems. We have horrible politicians (Catalonia is not exception here). But Spain is not, by any definition I know, an authoritarian country. Moreover, I think we have to condemn the governments, the institutions, the citizens with bad behavior (there are indeed many of them in both sides, and therefore obviously many more in the non-indpendentist side). But when they constantly talk about "Spain" as if it was something external to them and refer to it as some banana republic, I feel insulted. I quite often see the same thing happening with the USA. Sometimes people do not criticize their administration, but they criticize the US, or "the Americans". I would understand if the US people complained about that. I would specially understand it if this criticism came from inside the US.