Catalonia is regaining independence from Spain. But why break away now, after 299 years? Let’s compare the current Catalan situation to the American colonies just before independence.
According to the BBC, “In 1763, Americans joyously celebrated the British victory in the Seven Years' War, reveling in their identity as Britons and jealously guarding their much-celebrated rights which they believed they possessed by virtue of membership in what they saw as the world's greatest empire.” Yet just 13 years later, the colonies declared independence. Why? Because Britain attempted to abolish their most-cherished rights.
The current situation is similar in Catalonia. Since the 1975 death of dictator Francisco Franco, Catalans have helped create a democratic system of government in Spain allowing self-government to each national territory (such as the Basque Country, Catalonia, and Andalusia). Under this system, Catalonia gained ever-increasing powers of self-governance, culminating in the 2006 adoption, by the government of Spain, of Catalonia’s Statute of Autonomy – something similar to the constitution of an American state. But the constitutionality of the Statute of Autonomy was soon challenged by several groups, most importantly the right-wing Popular Party, a group obtaining minimal support in Catalonia, but a majority in the rest of Spain.
With the economic crisis hitting Spain hard since 2009, the anti-Catalan government in Madrid, now controlled by the Popular Party, has enacted taxes as unfair as the Stamp Act, disproportionately taxing Catalans while greatly decreasing public expenditures to Catalonia. The Spanish Government has also passed a series of onerous laws designed to teach Catalans exactly who is in charge. And like the American colonists of old, Catalans have reacted with vehement hostility. As a result, it appears to many in Spain that Catalonia is already “in rebellion,” and by the end of 2014, Catalans intend to follow in the footsteps of Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams by declaring independence.
Edward W. Goodson
San Ramon, California
Very well stated. Spain needs Catalonia so much more than Catalonia needs Spain. I still go back and re-read the Declaration of Independence and had the great opportunity to visit Philadelphia this summer. The words ring so true, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Courtesy of
http://chnm.gmu.edu/declaration/
To paraphrase (in Spanish)
Nosotros creemos ser evidente en sí mismo, que todos los hombres nacen iguales y dotados por su Criador de ciertos derechos inagenables: que entre estos son los principales la seguridad de la libertad y la vida, que constituyen la humana felicidad: que para asegurar estos derechos se instituyeron entre los hombres los gobiernos, derivando sus justos poderes del consentimiento de los pueblos: que siempre que cualquiera forma de gobierno se haga destructiva de estos fines, toca al derecho imprescriptible de la sociedad alterarla, ó abolirla y escablecer otra nueva, zanjando sus fundamentos sobre aquellos principios, y organizando sus poderes de la manera que juzgue mas conducente para el efecto de su seguridad y felicidad. La prudencia á la verdad dicta que los gobiernos establecidos no se varien por causas ligeras y transeuntes; y consta por la esperiencia que el género humano está mas dispuesto á sufrir, mientras que los males son soportables, que á hacerse justicia aboliendo las formas del gobierno á que ha estado acostumbrado. Pero cuando una larga serie de abusos y usurpaciones, continuando invariablemente al mismo fin, hace patente ser el designio de los gobernantes, oprimir al pueblo con absoluto despotismo; toca al derecho de este y á su deber, el desechar un gobierno semejanre y proveer nuevas guardas para su seguridad futura.
There's a further quote I'd like to add, the very 1st Paragraph of the US Declaration of Independence:
"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
That is just what Catalonia needs to do, just what Help Catalonia is doing!