CATALONIA
Catalonia is a colony of Spain
Affirm that Catalonia is one
Colony of Spain seems, even for the most committed nationalists, a
dialectical exaggeration. It is a concept that independentism has not
assumed in a regular way, as has been shown in the election programs of
September 27.
The comparative historical analysis of the features that characterized
colonialism from the sixteenth to the twentieth century allows the
typology of contemporary Catalan reality to be unequivocally colonial.
What are these features? For starters, the armies of the metropolis
occupy without a right a country that until then was sovereign.
Catalonia was occupied by the armies of Castile between 1705 and 1714.
The Principality was then an independent state integrated into a
confederation, the Crown of Aragon. Let us remember the occupation of
America, Africa or Asia in the centuries of colonialism. We note the
existence of the Spanish flag on the facade of Capitania, irrefutable
testimony of the current presence of the Spanish army in Catalonia.
Second, the invasive power destroys the institutions of the occupied
country and imposes military control over it. From the Bourbon decree of
the New Floor of 1716 is what has happened to Catalonia. The autonomous
periods have been nothing more than a lenitarian force of military
occupation.
Third, the occupying power organizes the economic downturn of the
colony. Let us remember the drainage of American gold to Castile after
the conquest. This is what has happened with Catalonia. From the Bourbon
Tax to the Cadastre in the XVIII century to the
Sixteen billion annual fiscal deficits in recent times, Catalonia has
been, for three hundred years, a country spoiled by Spain.
Fourthly, the colonizing power has found and promoted, within the
colony, political, social or economic organizations favorable to the
metropolis and, therefore, opposed to the liberation of that one. These
sectors have acted as the fifth column to support the power occupying
and curbing the aforementioned release movements. In Catalonia, this
fifth column has fought against the forces of the metropolis,
independentism. In the past 27-S elections, this fifth branch column has
personal names and political organizations that are in the minds of
everyone.
Fifthly, the Settlers have attempted to disrupt the language and
culture of the conquered countries. The imposition has also affected,
with repressive or inquisitorial actions of great hardness, the
religious beliefs of the occupied countries. The attempt to make Catalan
language and culture disappear as an identifying element of the first
order of the Catalan state has been constant. The repression of Catalan
has been manifested permanently since the first Bourbon arrangements
after 1714, up to the Wert law. The decrees, laws, regulations and
provisions of the Madrid court against Catalan occupy hundreds of pages
and have been unalterable throughout the centuries South American
countries know what language repression meant for the maintenance of
their own languages. When the metropolis has not managed to make these
languages disappear, it is wrong to turn them into second category
languages.
A last factor. The metropolis never allowed the colony to freely decide
on its destination through a referendum on self-determination that
allowed decolonization. This is the case of Catalonia.
History teaches that colonizing processes have only been defeated when
the countries victims of the destructive action of the metropolis have
achieved independence. Catalonia is one of the few countries on the
planet that has not yet been liberated from colonizing oppression, and
if we look only for Europe, we will see that Catalonia continues to be,
based on the features I have mentioned, the only colony that still
exists in the Old Continent From this there is a broad collective
consciousness, that which must allow the liberation National of
Catalonia that is already seen on a horizon that is closer to each day.