Catalan Independence: Spanish attitudes to Catalonia

September 3, 2013 Leave your thoughts

September 11th every year is celebrated in Catalonia as la diada de Catalunya, a public holiday that commemorates the fall of Barcelona in 1714 to the Spanish crown after a fourteen month long siege.

catalan-flag

After a massively attended pro-independence march in Barcelona last year (2012), at 17:14 on this year’s diada a 400,000 strong human chain will stretch the 400 kilometres from Catalonia’s border with France down to the border with Valencia.

With the pro-independence movement having grown over the last 18 months or so, and 2013 expected to mark the second year in succession to see the public turn out in force in support of independence, I thought I’d take the opportunity to examine the reality of Spanish attitudes towards Catalans and Catalonia.

Let me ask you, which of the views below do you think is acceptable?

November 1996, Hertfordshire

A conversation between me and my new Spanish lodger (from Murcia via Madrid):
“I’ve just come back from Catalonia, I spent a few days over there on the Costa Brava.”
“Catalan people are shits”.
“Errrr. What????”
“Very bad people. Very bad.”

I forget how the conversation went directly after that but he did climb down afterwards (probably as he had just arrived in the UK and had nowhere else to sleep); I doubt he actually changed his mind about Catalans though.

August 2000, Putney

Me at a barbecue talking to the next door neighbour of the host:
“My girlfriend lives in Barcelona, she’s Catalan.”
“Fucking Catalans!”

He goes on to have a tantrum, throwing his arms in the air while he continues to rant against Catalans and Catalonia. I walk away as he continues to have what appears to be a breakdown. His (British) wife later apologised to me, explaining; “He doesn’t like Catalans much”. I had already got the message.

March 2001, London

Host of barbecue (above) to me after dinner with our girlfriends and an Argentinian friend:
“She [his Spanish girlfriend] didn’t want to come tonight.”
“Why not?”
“She doesn’t like Catalans.”

My jaw just drops.

Each of those three incidents shocked me (so much so that I remember them clearly) and made me understand the mindset of many Spaniards. Replace “Catalans” with “Black” and you label yourself as a racist. Why is being anti-Catalan considered to be acceptable?

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