This article was originally published in Danish on February 8, 2018.
The discussion about Catalonia’s freedom clearly shows the boundless hypocrisy of the EU and the so-called ‘international community’. The Spanish constitution was adopted in a very specific situation after Franco’s death, where the risk of internal armed conflict was imminent. Times have changed and today’s needs are different. It is time for Spain to give up its European colonies! However, developments have gone in the opposite direction. For many years, the central power in Madrid has waged a war against the many non-Spanish regions through the education system, with the destruction of their language and culture as the first objective. Now it was apparently the turn of Catalonia, whose autonomy statute was annulled by the Spanish Supreme Court as unconstitutional. The Spanish Supreme Court is controlled by the Rajoy regime to a degree that cannot occur in a constitutional state. This revised Statute of Autonomy was the precondition for peace in the Spanish House and it was Spain and not Catalonia that broke the peace. In such circumstances, it is the inalienable right of a people to secede to avoid the indirect genocide of being deprived of its identity as a people. The Rajoy junta has made it abundantly clear that they do not want a peaceful solution. If they had let the famous referendum take place in an orderly manner, Madrid would have had a good chance of winning it. Today, there is no turning back. Unless there is a total replacement of the corrupt power structure in Madrid, including the abolition of the current horrible royal family, which at the height of the crisis turned out not to be the royal family of Catalonia, it is very difficult to see a solution. The only choice is between repression and an armed liberation struggle that will be difficult to win and difficult to rally support for.
And the Catalan people are just that: a people with its own history, its own ancient literary language, which has no more in common with Spanish than Portuguese does, and its own culture, history and identity. This is what legitimizes a people. When the editorial writer in e.g. Jyllands-Posten compares Catalonia to Funen or Jutland, it reveals an abysmal ignorance of conditions in Spain or Denmark for that matter. Catalonia is more comparable to Greenland and the Faroe Islands, which would hardly be denied independence. The only difference is that, unlike Greenland and the Faroe Islands, Catalonia also has the economic strength to fend for itself. And that’s the crux of the matter: Catalonia is the milch cow of the inept Spain. During Catalonian President Puigdemont’s visit, when EU-lover Malene Wind was asked about the Faroe Islands’ and Greenland’s independence, she cheekily replied: “They’re poor. They don’t interest us!” That’s where the dog is buried! And while we’re on the subject of comparisons: What about Kosovo? Kosovo was wrested from Serbia with Western help and American bombs – much against Serbia’s will. Would the opponents of Catalonia’s independence be kind enough to explain the difference? Jyllands-Posten clearly would not. Another analogy lies in the whole breakup of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Why can Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania be independent when Catalonia cannot? Or what about the US for that matter? It wasn’t with the good will of England that the US gained independence.
What added value the semi-communist Catalan government believes it will be able to secure for the Catalan population in the long run with continued immigration and EU membership, well, that’s a completely different story. But it has nothing to do with the first story. This marriage of Catalan nationalism and Marxism is a legacy of the Civil War, and it makes anti-Marxists automatically side with Spain. Otherwise, there would have been even more support for Catalan independence. Modern nationalism must rejoice in the dissolution of state formations that enslave other smaller European peoples (Catalonia has more inhabitants than Denmark, by the way). This is true nationalism. Of course, from a superficial point of view, it is illogical for a nationalist movement to be Marxist, but in Catalonia and the Basque Country, the connection is historical. However, it is also seen in other places, such as Northern Ireland. However, this is precisely because the nationalist right rejects nationalist independence movements out of a misguided chauvinistic support for the existing states, all of which disregard their historical national minorities that are today threatened with extinction.
Of course, the resistance of the EU system is partly due to the fact that both France and Italy have rebellious regions where France has clearly demonstrated what happens when oppressed peoples do not secede. In Brittany, there were around 1.5 million Breton speakers after World War I – today there are only a few thousand left. Road signs in Breton can’t cover that up. The same fate awaits Corsica, which wants greater autonomy within France, including official status for the Corsican language and de facto restrictions on immigration from France.
However, it is also a sign of what awaits us if we do not break out of the European federal state in time. Let us follow England! Let us choose independence and the Europe of the fatherlands!
Povl H. Riis-Knudsen
Translated by means of AI
Danmarks Frihedsraad 