The title of Mariano Rajoy in Spanish is “presidente del gobierno.” I refer to him as president, too, based on the Spanish title. And I hate it when people make a big deal out of nothing.
Presidente
Opinions, art, debate
Opinions, art, debate
The title of Mariano Rajoy in Spanish is “presidente del gobierno.” I refer to him as president, too, based on the Spanish title. And I hate it when people make a big deal out of nothing.
Clarissa's Blog 
Been meaning to ask you this. Is there a moral justification to prevent a people from seceding and creating their own nation? I always hear arguments against this based on pragmatism. But is there anything deeper than that? Who am I to tell the people of say Kashmir (or Catalonia) that their demands for separation have no ground?
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I don’t know about Kashmir but in Spain the situation is complex. The main achievement of Spain since the fascist dictatorship of Franco is the Constitution. Spaniards are super proud of their Constitution because it was so hard-won after so many frustrated attempts. Being able finally to arrive at the point of having a functioning democracy and not a military dictatorship and doing it peacefully is a culmination of a long and tragic history. 200 years after the US Constitution was written, Spain finally gets one of its own that survives for more than a couple of years.
So now that the independentists in Catalonia are reneging on the document that has this huge symbolic value and don’t want to follow the procedure it outlines, that’s a hard blow for many people. And the immorality of the situation lies not in Catalonians wanting their own state but in pretending they don’t know all this. This Constitution is still quite young. What if it doesn’t resist the pressure, especially in a country shaken by economic and political crises at this point?
If only they were going about it in a different way. But right now, it’s horrible. They are hounding people like writers, even some who are very elderly, for simply writing their books in Spanish. And it’s just scratching the surface.
Sorry for the rant but I totally needed an excuse to let it all out. 🙂
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To resume, it can only be decided on a case by case basis if an independence movement is justified. There is no single criterion.
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Thank you, that was great!
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“But right now, it’s horrible. They are hounding people like writers, even some who are very elderly, for simply writing their books in Spanish. And it’s just scratching the surface.”
And they think people they’re hounding would vote for indpendence? I’ve yet to see a shred of evidence that this is about anything more than making vast amounts of money disappear into well hidden bank accounts of key independistes.
If they do get ‘indpendence’ this way, it’s absolutely vital that Catalonia becomes a Pariah state and is expelled from the EU (in accordance with every analysis of the relevant treaties) and Schengen, even if it hurts others financially and if border control stations have to be established at every road.
At present the leadership is ouright lying to the population claiming there will be no bad consequences to abandoning the rule of law.
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Even my very pro-Catalonian acquaintance have realized something stinks. For the academics, attacks on Calderon and Cervantes as evil, oppressive imperialists did it. ‘Cause if you feel victimized by Cervantes, no amount of Independence will help you.
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I keep starting to read it but just can’t get into it. Which doesn’t mean I won’t love it eventually.
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This was supposed to go to the Bazatan comment.
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