To all my friends abroad, after reading the texts, pictures and videos that some of you are sharing and commenting today, I kindly ask you to please get the facts straight and read the whole story before getting publicly outraged about the so-called disproportionate violence from the Spanish Police, against the so-called peaceful voters; and most importantly, before getting moved and touched and sympathize with an apparently democratic, liberal, beautiful and idealistic movement as the secession of Catalonia can look like at first sight. The reality is far from that.
The illegality of the vote is irrelevant and the infinite irregularities surrounding it are irrelevant as well. All foreign media have informed abundantly about how the vote had been declared illegal by the Constitutional Court, about how it was approved in the Catalan House of Representatives without regard to any of its own laws, bypassing all possible statutes and not observing any legal procedures or guarantees. We have all seen that not even half the polls were duly monitored, how countless people voted in multiple stations, how the census included minors and deceased and how ballot boxes were placed in the streets for anybody to vote without control.
We all know that already. Yet it is not important nor the point. A lot of things that are legal are immoral, and vice-versa. History does not judge events by its legality but by its legitimacy. Laws change every day, and what is illegal today can be legalized tomorrow. Even if all those irregularities had not happened, and even if all regulations had been observed, the situation would not be altered.
What matters here is not whether the vote yesterday was legal or not; what matters is that it was illegitimate, because it tried to grant a few the right to decide over what belongs to all. Catalonia is NOT the exclusive property of the people who were born in Catalonia, or of the people who live in Catalonia, or of the people who call themselves Catalans.
Catalonia belongs to all Spaniards. Catalonia is the heritage and patrimony of us all; and it is so, not just because our young Constitution declares it explicitly, but because we have all worked for Catalonia, fought for Catalonia, contributed, committed, and served to Catalonia. Catalonia has been part of Spain for more than 500 years, never ever having been an independent State (unlike Scotland, FYI), and has been part of the Spanish Nation for more than 1.000 years. And it has been so because our ancestors, our fathers and our grandfathers have fought for it. Because they worked together to build it, because they shed their sweat and blood, fought in countless wars and died for it.
The bridges, roads, dams, ports and cities of Catalonia were not built by Catalans only, but by all the people in Spain. The wars that freed Spain and Catalonia of foreign enemies were not fought by Catalans only, but by all Spaniards. The Reconquista that defeated and expelled the Islamic invaders from Spain and Catalonia was not fought by Catalans only, but by all Spaniards. So was the liberal revolution that brought a modern State and Constitution, or the peaceful transition from a dictatorship to the current democracy. We did all that together. Catalonia is part of the United Nations, of NATO, of the European Union and of the Euro Zone because it was part of Spain when we joined these Institutions, and we achieved so with the effort of all the Spanish people. Catalan banks have been rescued with Spanish money. Catalan pensions, education and health care are paid by us all.
We all paid the Barcelona 1992 Olympics or the high speed train to Barcelona. We have all together built what Catalonia is today. And we did so because we are a Nation. Because we have a history together and we together have a project for the future.
That entitles us all, ALL Spaniards, to enjoy Catalonia and to decide over it. Today I have the right to go freely to Barcelona. Why are a few entitled to deprive us all of that right? I can go to work in Catalonia if I wish, to live there or to peacefully retire if I want. Who are these few and with what right they can prevent us all from that? On what grounds?
Again, Catalonia has never been an independent State and has never decided to freely join Spain. It has always been part of Spain. The same goes the other way round. Today, citizens of Catalonia can move around Spain as they wish, and enjoy a world of rights for being Spanish citizens. They can establish themselves wherever they want. They can work, go to school, to university, to hospitals, to a football match, to cathedrals or museums. Who are these few to take those rights away from all of them? They have always had and always will have those rights, because they have earned it as Spaniards, by contributing to this country and Nation for generations and centuries.
We have done great things together and we wish to do more. If a few do not feel Spanish, they are free to go wherever they want. This is a free country and they can go at any time and moment. But they cannot steal us a part of Spain that rightfully belongs to us all. A part of our land, a part of our history, a part of our sentiment, a part of us. I refuse to accept that a few can take what is ours by right, and has ALWAYS, ALWAYS been.
Please do not get fooled by the black or white childish argument that ”to vote is always right". To vote is NOT always right, regardless of whether legal or not, the same way that voting on torturing, beheading and killing every tall or short or blonde or bald person would not be right.
The vote in Catalonia yesterday was not only illegal, it was above all illegitimate and immoral, because it was sheer robbery. And that is all that matters. Plain and simple.
Cheers to all!
. Rating of the region is also junk bond.
