10,000 Catalans to March on Brussels
Posted in British Nationalists in Wales WATCH on Monday, February 16, 2009
Once you've been on the St David's Day parade in the capital, you may wish to go another parade - this time in Brussels
I've just been alerted to a massive campaign in the Catalan Countries to march on the European Capital on 7 March to demand the right of the Catalan nation to chose their own constitutional future. The organisers are aiming for 10,000 persons to travel from Catalonia to Brussels for the march... and seem to be on target!
At the moment, the Spanish constitution has made it illegal to hold a referendum on succession from the Spanish state. So, although this right is part of the Good Friday Agreement in the UK and one supposes were Wales or Scotland to wish so, then we could also hold a referendum to leave the UK. This basic right doesn't exist in Spain. This illogical decision is one reason for the continued violence in the Basque Country.
If the Spanish constitution gave the historic nations which make up the Spanish state (nations which precede that state) the right to a democratic vote, then any legitimacy which ETA claims to have would have been taken from beneath their feet. It would then be the job of ETA's supporters to make a peaceful case as to why the Basque country should gain independence.
Unfortunately, the Spanish Cortes voted down the Basque premiere Ibarretxe's bill on the right to a vote on 'free association'. Making Ibarrexte a nationalist of WAJ-PNV party (the SDLP-type party) look stupid, and give credibility to the ETA supporters who say Spain will never democratically allow the Basques the right to chose.
Fortunately, there is no ETA-type militant wing in Catalonia. However, the Spanish elite are stalling many agreed principles in the New Statute which the Catalans campaigned and won a few years ago.
It's a basic questions. What moral right does the Spanish state, which was formed in 1492, have to deny nations which precede that state, the right to independence? It's a right which the west didn't recognise for the USSR, the Habsburg Empire, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Ireland nor countless other nations. Should we only recognise those states which existed in 1492?
Why not take a Draig Goch flag and take a trip to Brussels in support of our Catalan friends?
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As a Catalan linguist living in the UK, just realised how beautifully well do the words Drac Roig go with the version in Welsh, Draig Goch. I'm pretty sure the pronunciation would be quite similar, too. Curious!
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