CATALONIA -- Continental Drift: Europe's Breakaways - VilaWeb
Continental Drift: Europe's Breakaways - VilaWeb:
Continental Drift: Europe's Breakaways
Borders in Europe may appear immutable, but of course they are not
“Happy families are all alike: every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”—Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
The opening to Tolstoy’s great novel of love and tragedy could be a
metaphor for Europe today, where “unhappy families” of Catalans, Scots,
Belgians, Ukrainians, and Italians contemplate divorcing the countries
they are currently a part of. And in a case where reality mirrors
fiction, they are each unhappy in their own way.
While the United States and its allies may rail against the recent
referendum in Crimea that broke the peninsula free of Ukraine, Scots
will consider a very similar one on September 18, and Catalans would
very much like to do the same. So would residents of South Tyrol, and
Flemish speakers in northern Belgium.
On the surface, many of these secession movements look like rich
regions trying to free themselves from poor ones, but while there is
some truth in that, it is overly simplistic. Wealthier Flemish speakers
in northern Belgium would indeed like to separate from the distressed,
French-speaking south, just as Tyroleans would like to free themselves
of poverty-racked southern Italy. But in Scotland much of the fight is
over preserving the social contract that conservative Labour and
right-wing Tory governments have systematically dismantled. As for
Catalonia—well, it’s complicated. <Read More>
