James Sobrequés:
"Catalonia is a colony of Spain"
Stated that Catalonia is a colony of Spain seems even more committed nationalists, dialectic exaggeration. It is a concept that independence has not taken regularly, as shown in the programs of the elections on 27 September.
The comparative historical analysis of the traits that characterized colonialism from the sixteenth to the twentieth century Catalan contemporary reality can classify as clearly colonial.
What are these characteristics? For starters, the armies of the metropolis without any right to occupy a country that until then was sovereign. Catalonia was occupied by the armies of Castile between 1705 and 1714. The Principality was then integrated into an independent confederation, the Crown of Aragon. Remember the occupation of America, Africa or Asia in the centuries of colonialism. We note the existence of the Spanish flag in front of the captain, irrefutable testimony of the current presence of the Spanish army in Catalonia.
Secondly, the occupying power destroyed the country's institutions are busy and impose military control. From Bourbon Nova Planta Decree 1716 is what has happened with Catalonia. Periods autonomy have been nothing more than a leniency force of military occupation.
Thirdly, the occupying Power organized the plundering economic colony. Remember drainage American gold to Castile after the conquest. This is what has happened with Catalonia. Since the tax Bourbon cadastre in the eighteenth century up to sixteen billion annual budget deficit of recent years, Catalonia has been, for three hundred years, a country seized by Spain.
Fourth, the colonial power and has been promoted within the colony, political, social or economic favor in the metropolis and, therefore, opposed the release of that. These sectors have acted as a fifth column for supporting the occupying power and curb the aforementioned liberation movements. In Catalonia, this fifth column fought, alongside the forces of the metropolis independence. In the last election, 27-S, the fifth column has sucursalista personal names and political organizations that are on the mind of everyone.
Fifth, the colonizers have tried to wipe out the language and culture of the conquered countries. The imposition has affected also by coating repressive actions or inquisitorial high hardness, the religious beliefs of the occupied countries. The attempt to remove the language and culture as an element of identity prime Catalan state has been constant. The repression of Catalan has manifested permanently from the first Bourbon provisions after 1714, until the law Wert. The decrees, laws, rules and regulations of the court of Madrid against the Catalan occupy hundreds of pages and have been unchanged for centuries. The South American countries are well aware that represented the linguistic repression to maintain their own languages. When the mother has not been able to remove these languages has strived to turn them into second-class language.
One last factor. Never metropolis has not authorized the colony could freely decide their fate through a referendum of self-determination that would decolonization. This is the case of Catalonia.
History teaches that processes settlers have only been defeated when countries victims of the destructive action of the metropolis have achieved independence. Catalonia is one of the few countries in the world that has not yet freed from colonial oppression, and only if we look at Europe, we see that Catalonia remains, based on the characteristics I mentioned, the only colony that still exists in Old Continent. Thus there is a wide collective consciousness, one that will allow the national liberation Catalonia already looms on the horizon that we see every day closer.
