The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, they say.
There was little sign of precipitation in Barcelona yesterday as the sun shone down brightly on the brave
Catalan freedom fighters, or merciless wreckers of the constitution as many
would have it. Once again we see the diametric opposition of the happy optimists
and the miserable pessimists. In Spain it is the left who are broadly supportive of
Catalan independence, whereas everywhere else it is the left who are the
killjoys.
For this is what it is, this desire to stamp out the joyous
human yearning for liberation. Entrepreneurs, go-getters, call them what you will.
Pioneers, brave new worlders, people who long for change, for something new, for
something over which they feel they have control. In other words, Brexit in a
nutshell. Right on cue, the EU has declared that it does not recognise Catalonia’s
claim. Of course it doesn't.
The first instinct of big government is the
urge to oppress, to subjugate to stamp on the sunny, upturned faces for freedom and bring them to heel. No wonder socialist states seem to have such an admiration
for islam, they have so much in common; joyless inhibitors of spontaneity and
mirth. So while Leanne Woods has called upon the Welsh assembly to recognise a
free Catalonia, and many in the SNP say the same, the official, po-faced UK position
is to side with the bloc. If we had an independent English parliament you can bet your life
it would come out for the little guy.
Nationalism has been portrayed as Nazism; it’s not. It is
only natural to want to belong, but that doesn’t mean the bigger the herd the
better. The bigger the herd the more likely it is that parts of it will want to wander
off to find their own pastures. Even the United States is what it says - a union
of states, but with each one proudly retaining its own identity. And the US
has a long tradition of distrusting federal agency over self-determinism, backing
the loner against the might of government, cheering on the maverick.
The direction of travel for society may have been heading for the dead-end of ever larger central control for some time but maybe that
tide is turning. The next evolution of human organisation might not be the one
world government beloved of the scaredy cats but a new devolution into
manageable, human sized, identity-based units. I know, let’s call them nations;
there’s a novel concept.
Angela isn't happy
Of course, if you are dull and serf-like you may prefer
to amble along with the herd and live your life limited by others. Nothing
wrong with that; the majority might even be better off that way, but how dull a prospect
is that? Fortune favours the brave and as Shakespeare said, there is a tide in
the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. In 1587
Sir Francis Drake set sail for the bay of Cádiz to singe the beard of the
king of Spain. Today, the king of Spain may be well be Angela Merkel, but her
beard is long overdue for a singe.
There is a dark side to the freedom lovers. For decades they have been crimping the liberty of the others ; the ones quite happy to be Spanish as well as Catalan. The electoral law, written with good intentions gave disproportionate power to minority parties who have used it to allow the two big parties to form government in exchange for privileges. Catalunia and the Basque region have already a degree of autonomy not enjoyed by other regions.
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