Catalunya és una colònia d'Espanya | Jaume Sobrequés i Callicó | Articles | El Punt Avui
CATALONIA
Catalonia is a colony of Spain
Jaume Sobrequés i Callicó
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.
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