A blog about our life in Sant Cugat between 2007 and 2015, strange discoveries, amusing local news, politics, economics and cute stories about kids.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Lectures from abroad
From the kettle-pot-namecalling competition, we get rants from various Catalans living in foreign countries, complaining about the lack of adaptation by immigrants moving to Catalonia.
I suppose absence really does make the heart grow fondernationalist.
Makes you wonder why they left. And then you find that--far from practising what they preach and adapting to the prevailing political culture--they foment fring (albeit excellent) stuff like Scottish independence.
What is this now? Are we not allowed to talk about things because we don’t live there? What about all the stuff written about the whole Israel/Palestine conflict by people who have never set foot in the damned place? As arguments go, it is not a very strong one.
It is not a rant my friend, it is a detailed expositions of arguments. Arguments that the anti-Catalan lobby (from those who suffer from mild resentment to revisionist nutcases like TerrorBoy) are unable to counter unless they retort to Spanish nationalist propaganda as per PP, Ciudadanos, UPD, etc, or just rewriting of history. I don’t know yet which camp you will fall into: some times you seem to suffer from mild resentment, other times it just seems to be misconceptions or naive ignorance that time will hopefully remove.
Absence does not make the heart grow fonder or nationalist. It just helps to see things for what they are for most common-sense people. Travelling around the world and seeing how things operate in the US, Canada, Germany, the Baltic republics, Switzerland, Belgium or the UK has been far to much information for a lot of people, including me.
I had been a federalist all my life until my twenties: I was not pro-independence until I realised how much hatred most Spaniards feel for Catalonia. Meeting them abroad has been an eye-opener. A federal Spain is a fallacy and more people will switch sides in the coming years.
TerrorBoy: Scottish indepencence is hardly fringe when the SNP are in charge of a minority government, and getting in power in many councils, and with support for independence at a minimum of 30% in the polls. The principle is the same in Scotland, Catalonia or dare I say, Northern Ireland: let the people decide freely their constitutional future without fear or intimidation.
As for why I or others left, it does not matter one iota. People move countries for many reasons, you will know that too. Residence does not invalidate someone’s argument, not in Catalonia nor anywhere else. However, naïve ignorance or bigoted narrow-mindedness does.
For you, it's about arguments and theoretical discussions, whereas for us, my family and I actually have to deal with the consequences on a day-to-day basis. (A resident of Israel would probably say the same thing on being lectured by the diaspora.)
Sometimes it does feel like living inside "The Life of Brian", when someone starts complaining about some injustice done to their father's father (or was it their father's father's father?).
Well, the problem is that we are not talking about the past. It was neither theoretical nor comical for this woman: Link
This is what we are dealing with: vast sections of state (the police no less) that has not broken with the past. Some people want to change it, others want the status quo to remain. This kind of persecution is reality, not a myth and certainly not in the past. Some people choose to ignore it, others want to change it.
I wasn't saying it was theoretical for everyone, just theoretical for people who don't actually live here.
In terms of actual send-you-to-the-hospital police oppression, I've been far more worried about the Mossos than the national police. I saw a guy the other day getting the crap beaten out of him by a bunch of riot shielded baton wielding Mossos, he hadn't done anything obviously wrong (other than not leaving the area quickly enough).
There are some police who are assholes and thugs. It's like that in most places. I got worked over in the states as a teenager for not speaking with the proper respect when I got arrested for dining and ditching, since then I say "sir" when I'm have a run in with the law. It's called avoiding conforntation.
Haha. I wonder if it's on you tube. I pretty much blame all of my past illicit behavior on my gypsy gene. I'm praying my kid doesn't have it so she can spare me the torment I caused my parents.
10 comments:
Makes you wonder why they left. And then you find that--far from practising what they preach and adapting to the prevailing political culture--they foment fring (albeit excellent) stuff like Scottish independence.
What is this now? Are we not allowed to talk about things because we don’t live there? What about all the stuff written about the whole Israel/Palestine conflict by people who have never set foot in the damned place? As arguments go, it is not a very strong one.
It is not a rant my friend, it is a detailed expositions of arguments.
Arguments that the anti-Catalan lobby (from those who suffer from mild resentment to revisionist nutcases like TerrorBoy) are unable to counter unless they retort to Spanish nationalist propaganda as per PP, Ciudadanos, UPD, etc, or just rewriting of history. I don’t know yet which camp you will fall into: some times you seem to suffer from mild resentment, other times it just seems to be misconceptions or naive ignorance that time will hopefully remove.
Absence does not make the heart grow fonder or nationalist. It just helps to see things for what they are for most common-sense people. Travelling around the world and seeing how things operate in the US, Canada, Germany, the Baltic republics, Switzerland, Belgium or the UK has been far to much information for a lot of people, including me.
I had been a federalist all my life until my twenties: I was not pro-independence until I realised how much hatred most Spaniards feel for Catalonia. Meeting them abroad has been an eye-opener. A federal Spain is a fallacy and more people will switch sides in the coming years.
TerrorBoy: Scottish indepencence is hardly fringe when the SNP are in charge of a minority government, and getting in power in many councils, and with support for independence at a minimum of 30% in the polls. The principle is the same in Scotland, Catalonia or dare I say, Northern Ireland: let the people decide freely their constitutional future without fear or intimidation.
As for why I or others left, it does not matter one iota. People move countries for many reasons, you will know that too. Residence does not invalidate someone’s argument, not in Catalonia nor anywhere else. However, naïve ignorance or bigoted narrow-mindedness does.
For you, it's about arguments and theoretical discussions, whereas for us, my family and I actually have to deal with the consequences on a day-to-day basis. (A resident of Israel would probably say the same thing on being lectured by the diaspora.)
Sometimes it does feel like living inside "The Life of Brian", when someone starts complaining about some injustice done to their father's father (or was it their father's father's father?).
Well, the problem is that we are not talking about the past. It was neither theoretical nor comical for this woman:
Link
This is what we are dealing with: vast sections of state (the police no less) that has not broken with the past. Some people want to change it, others want the status quo to remain. This kind of persecution is reality, not a myth and certainly not in the past. Some people choose to ignore it, others want to change it.
I wasn't saying it was theoretical for everyone, just theoretical for people who don't actually live here.
In terms of actual send-you-to-the-hospital police oppression, I've been far more worried about the Mossos than the national police. I saw a guy the other day getting the crap beaten out of him by a bunch of riot shielded baton wielding Mossos, he hadn't done anything obviously wrong (other than not leaving the area quickly enough).
There are some police who are assholes and thugs. It's like that in most places. I got worked over in the states as a teenager for not speaking with the proper respect when I got arrested for dining and ditching, since then I say "sir" when I'm have a run in with the law. It's called avoiding conforntation.
I guess you should have been as organized as these guys.
Haha. I wonder if it's on you tube. I pretty much blame all of my past illicit behavior on my gypsy gene. I'm praying my kid doesn't have it so she can spare me the torment I caused my parents.
Whatever!
Hi Ian!
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