Re: Should Spain Forcefully Suppress the Catalan Independence Referendum?
This really is about proportionality, it involves the magnificence of sovereignty and the depth of cultural identity. Unitedstatians (people from the US translated from Spanish) know what sovereignty means, but they don’t have “cultural identity”. It takes many more centuries than the US has existed for cultural identity to develop. There are the vague outlines of what will probably become its cultural identity in a few more centuries; a very mobile, transplanted population which arrived with different cultural identities.
Cultural identity ultimately relates an individual to specific geography, this is a key element. Architecture, costumes, diet, sports, music, and other elements that are part of an individual’s cultural identity and make him part of a community he shares these with, are all tied to the land where he lives. Since the US is inhabited by a transplanted very mobile population who rarely live and die where they were born, acquiring cultural identity is difficult.
One must look for commonalities shared by all Unitedstatians across the whole nation, there’s English, Protestantism, the cowboy hat, Thanksgiving, baseball, American Football, basketball, peanut butter and Boston baked beans, these may eventually become cultural identity in a few centuries.
Catalonia has its own cultural identity, much older, their own language, arts, literature, architecture, engineering, sports… These are particularly enterprising people which have excelled in the printing, textile, pharmaceutical and trade sectors, we study their development of trade laws in the
Libro del Consulado del Mar learned discursions on trade and law, insurance and regulations across the Mediterranean after the collapse of the Roman Empire are significant and the foundations for international trade today.
In the late 8th century [8 centuries before the US], the counties of the March of Gothia and the Hispanic March were established by the Frankish kingdom as feudal vassals across and near the eastern Pyrenees as a defensive barrier against Muslim invasions. The eastern counties of these marches were united under the rule of the Frankish vassal, the count of Barcelona, and were later called Catalonia. In 1137, Catalonia and the Kingdom of Aragon were united by marriage under the Crown of Aragon, and the Principality of Catalonia became the base for the Crown of Aragon's naval power and expansionism in the Mediterranean. In the later Middle Ages, Catalan literature flourished. Between 1469 and 1516, the king of Aragon and the queen of Castile married and ruled their kingdoms together, retaining all their distinct institutions, courts (parliament), and constitutions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalonia
So you’ve got cultural identity in a region with distinct differences. Their own language (a dialect), literature, dietary preferences, regional dress, sports…
Sovereignty, the capacity to relate to others as an equal with complete power and authority is what Catalonia had under the Count of Barcelona until the region was united to Aragon and subsequently to Castille. This process of consolidation took place all across Europe as feudal fiefdoms clashed and interacted, lords and warriors sized each other up, confronted, were beaten or conquered and submitted until they learned to respect boundaries, to trade and abide by laws rather than impose their rule by force.
So Catalonians can look back, like many others across Europe and elsewhere, to a time when they were recognized as sovereign equals to other peoples who also gradually were consolidated into other nation-states, all with an approximately equal capacity to impose rule by force and a preference to respect boundaries abiding by law.
Now then Spain, a nation integrated by joining a variety of regions (including Catalonia) in 1492, had the size and military capacity to be treated as an equal by France, Portugal, Britain and others around it. As a sovereign Spain (with Catalonia) went out and conquered, built an empire in America, fought, looted, converted and imposed its will. Spain sent ambassadors (some of them Catalonians) to foreign kingdoms, they negotiated treaties and did deals in Japan or the US.
Spain (with Catalonia) is a full-fledged member of the European Union, it is in the United Nations, contributes significantly to the ICRC and with distinction in numerous IGOs and NGOs, Spain (and Catalonia) has troops in Afghanistan, peacekeepers around the world, this is a ‘serious’ nation with capacity (we have two aircraft carriers and a space tracking station). Spain (with Catalonia) definitely punches above its weight in international relations.
Catalonians look back at their history and see more than half a millennia ago they were sovereigns, equal to Spain which now imposes its constitution upon them (with the EU, UN and assorted sovereigns approval). Some think this is outrageous, they are mistaken, it is evolution.