Monthly Archives: October 2017
The Catalan Tragedy
The Catalonian UDI declared by pro-independence members of the Catalan parliament who command a slim majority of regional deputies, would be a farce if it were not so tragic. Don’t be taken in by anti-system youths euphorically waving Catalan Independence flags and emotional memories of Franco’s repression and comments about this ‘day of liberation.’ Spain has had forty years of democracy. It is not run by a dictatorship. It believes in the rule of law and has every right to defend it. The UDI was declared with scant regard …
Modern Spain’s Unchartered Territory
The phrase Direct Rule has a certain resonance for a British and US media sensitised by the not so distant memories of Northern Ireland where the British government sent in the army to try and maintain law and order at the height of the Troubles. Its use to describe the next stage of the Catalan crisis may be convenient short hand but it is not a phrase that the jurisprudential Spanish prime-minister Mariano Rajoy has opted to use. Instead the phrase has been Article 155, as incomprehensible on a first …
The Catalan Show
Last night’s prime time show in the Catalan parliament served as a reminder of the seemingly dangerously uncompromising nature of the current Spanish crisis, even if it seems to have temporarily pulled back from the brink. If there were highlights from recent episodes of this seemingly enduring melodrama to be drawn from previous episodes I would identify the following: The unnerving site in early September of a small majority –less than the two-thirds required by the Catalan Statutes of Autonomy- of pro-independence deputies in the Catalan parliament bulldozing …
The centre cannot hold
REVIEW IN THIS WEEK’S THE TABLET BOOKS Books > The centre cannot hold THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD 05 October 2017 | by Jimmy Burns The centre cannot hold The Struggle for Catalonia: Rebel Politics in Spain Raphael Minder (Hurst, 344 PP, £15.99) Tablet Bookshop price £14.40 • Tel 01420 592974 Few local festival rituals in Catalonia are as popular as the castell, the human tower. A large group of male and female volunteers – from a minimum of 60 to maximum of 600 – link arms to create the pinya …
Puede Catalunya aprender algo de Escocia?
Vengo de visitar la capital escocesa de Edimburgo, una ciudad elegante, relajada y acogedora del patrimonio mundial, que me ha dejado impresionado por la tranquilidad y el civismo del proceso politico de Escocia en comparación con el desastre que ha llegado a caracterizar la cuestión catalana en España. En el impresionante e histórico castillo de Edimburgo, una de las atracciones turísticas más populares de Escocia, perdura una sensación de identidad cultural que es británica y escocesa. Visitándolo recordé el lema “Mejor juntos”, que los unionistas usaron con éxito para …
Can Catalonia learn something from Scotland?
I was in the Scottish capital Edinburgh, an elegant, relaxed , welcoming world heritage city, earlier this week and was struck by the peacefulness and civility of Scotland’s devolutionary process compared to the shambles that has come to characterize the Catalan issue in Spain. In the impressively located and historic Edinburgh Castle, one of Scotland’s most popular tourist attractions, there endures a sense of cultural identity that is both British and Scot. Visiting it I was reminded of the “Better together”, slogan which unionists used successfully to win the ‘no’ …
The Spanish Government’s Own Goal
Few images circulating globally from earlier yesterday (October 1) seemed to risk being more damaging to the Spanish government’s attempts to woo over a majority of Catalans to its concept of a lawful constitutional democracy than that of helmeted Civil Guard officers using a hammer to break a window and a lock cutter to break open a door at a sports centre near Gerona. Tougher tactics have been used before by British and other European police including Catalonia’s own force the Mossos D’Escuadra to deal with violent protestors, criminals, and …
Catalan History & Choreography
Few sights in Catalonia claim to be as emblemic as La Seu Vella on a hill above the city of Lleida,the region’s second largest city . The group of semi-ruined and restored buildings include the sight of a former conquered Moorish castle, a Cathedral and a military barracks whose last extended use as such was during the early years of the dictatorship of General Franco during the 1940’s. In this “place of suffering” as some locals call it , there are remnants of plunders as a result of religious …
