Homage to Catalonia

States don’t like bits of them detaching themselves. It reduces their power. Iran, Turkey and Iraq don’t want the Kurds to have their own state. It may have something to do with the substantial oil fields situated within the region known as “Kurdistan”. They’re so worried about it the leaders of Turkey and Iran, one Sunni, the other Shia, normally bitter enemies, have cozied up and are speaking with one voice.
          We didn’t like it when Scotland wanted to become independent. But at least that is another country. With Catalonia, that’s like Yorkshire saying it wants independence from the rest of the UK. Hence the Spanish don’t want to lose Catalonia. Hardly surprising. Its industry constitutes nearly 20% of the Spanish economy, and the tens of millions of foreign visitors to it every year provide a huge source of foreign currency.
          My question is: why do they want to break away? What’s in it for them? I ask, because it is a question no one in the media has been prepared to address. It’s as if there’s a news embargo on why the Catalonians want independence.

Culturally speaking, Catalonia is very different from the rest of Spain. It has its own language, which is spoken by the majority of its citizens. Moreover, anarchist sentiment has long been part of the DNA of the Catalan people. Catalonians want to do things their way, and like all anarchists, bristle the moment someone else tells them what to do. I imagine the more they are told they can’t be independent, the more they’ll want to have their own way. But as I said, the media, the BBC and Sky News, CNN, Euronews, Al Jazeira, all of them seem to have signed up to a conspiracy of silence as to the underlying reasons. And you know what? That stinks.