Spain and the Catalan Crisis

For casual observers of Spain, the recent news about Catalonia and its dramatic impact seems to have suddenly appeared as a major political issue. Whilst the well informed tend to be aware of Catalonia’s major cultural figures such as Salvador Dalí or Gaudí, and the well-travelled often visit Barcelona, there is much less familiarity with a long standing political problem on the southern periphery of Europe. This is partly because in recent decades, the tussle that has regularly taken place between Barcelona and the government in Madrid has been low intensity and usually containable. However, the scenes of violent police action seeking to prevent a referendum in Catalonia on 1st October transformed perceptions of the Catalan problem. The Catalan question exploded onto the world news agenda.

Dr Andrew Dowling (School of Modern Languages, Cardiff University) is a specialist on modern and contemporary Catalonia and is the author of The Rise of Catalan Independence: Spain’s Territorial Crisis published by Routledge in December 2017. He has previously written Reconstructing the Nation: Catalonia since the Spanish Civil War (Sussex Academic Press, 2012), as well as numerous academic articles.

[peterthomas]

An interesting take. Perhaps a little too rooted in the post-2008 crisis, and focused on nationalism as a response to Aznar- and Rajoy-era PP rather than a deeper welling-up of feeling.

As with any nationalism, historical glories and nationhood are important (and magnified). With the Aragonese Empire, Rosellón, the Guerra Civil and the Retirada, the Catalans have long memories of dominating the Western Med and resisting perceived authoritarianism from Madrid. The legend of Ramon Berenguer's four bloodied fingers tracing the Senyera on his yellow shield remains deeply engraved in the Catalan soul.

There is also the wider European context of the post-2000 fragmentation of left-right pendular politics, and the heavier electoral weighting of old people (longer lives = gerontocratic nostalgia politics, with youth abstentionism and apathy a challenge). These are relevant to the Catalan Crisis. Podemos, Ciudadanos, Vox have been putting pressure on the PP and the PSOE to shift away from broad church centrism. One of the PP's responses has been a tilt to the right and towards identitarian flagshagging (comparable to the Ukip's influence on Brexit-Conservatives and Starmer-era Labour in the UK). On their side, the Catalans too have been printing Estelada flags and yellow ribbons by the million - adorning town halls (Vic, Girona etc) and businesses, and with sprayed yellow ribbons and star flags claiming public space. Identitarian graffiti abounds, similar to streets in Belfast or Derry.

The longer, incremental build-up of Catalan nationalism in the last two generations deserves a mention too: the reaction to Franco-era plantations of Extremeños and Andaluzes, the Olympics-era explosion in Catalan pride, school curricula, the Mnac Museum and Palau, the ever-more important coverage given to the Barça-Real clásico, TV and radio stations, Catalan-language media - as well as the recent spectacles of mass demos, petitions, referendums. These have been vital in the generational cleft too. The educational system in particular explains the gap between the unionist, cosmopolitan urban litoral (satirised as the 'Tabarnia' secession movement) versus the secessionist, Catalan-speaking rural interior - in this respect, reflecting Plaid's success in rural heartlands in Wales yet failure to gain traction in Glamorgan.

It is also vital to remember that two thirds of the Catalan population resides in Barcelona - it is a macrocephalic autonomía. So it's normal that the urban middle class of what is one of Europe's largest cities will dominate the narrative: most Catalans will consider themselves middle class, with many factory workers either drawn from the Franco-era plantations or immigrants with little political voice.

[randyvigallon]

Not an encouraging conclusion for those who wish to part ways with Madrid.