Love Thy Region

     

Spain’s Constitutional Court killed the Catalan dream, or perhaps let it lay in a coma for some time. The Court decided blocking the independent vote planned by Catalonia’s regional government, leaving the Catalan leaders no choice but suspending the November 9^th independence referendum. The Court argued that the 1978 constitution requires a majority of Spaniards to be consulted on any issue of sovereignty; since they were not, then the vote is simply unconstitutional. However, the regional government will not shy away from challenging the Court’s decision as it plans to appeal it. After all, the region's 5.4 million voters have been taken by the romanticized dream of independence from a lazy, impoverished and corrupt south – and west. What recently happened in Scotland was not a bad omen to the region’s enthusiastic separatists; over-confidence, pride, strong belief in the cause or sheer cussedness may explain the region’s will to fight for the referendum. Pro-independence citizens' groups in Catalonia are equally active, scheduling rallies to promote the referendum anyway.

     To force a group of people to be part of a state against their will is against every interpretation of a democratic and free society. Prohibiting a nation from establishing its own state also goes against democracy; it is equal to denying the right of Palestinians to establish their own state. But what is also an aggression to the free-will is the manipulation of a set of elite actors, intellectuals and positions of masses to rally around the cause of nationalism. First, a quick definition of a nation, quoting Montserrat Guibernau: “a human group conscious of forming a community, sharing a common culture, attached to a clearly demarcated territory, having a common past  and a common project for the future and claiming the right to rule itself. Thus, in my view, the “nation” includes five dimensions: psychological (consciousness of forming a group), cultural, territorial, political and historical”. Enjoying a common culture, language and tradition does indeed distinguish one nation or a set of people from the whole, but it does not necessarily feed the urge of marking the separation nor inventing the separation. Searching for symbols, myths of origin and a glorified inherited code-of conduct is a mechanism implied by separatists to inflame mass emotions and intensify their sense of pride in their separate being.

    Civicism or criticism – or belonging and loving one’s home-city – is a similar form of nationalism that is spreading, with global cities emerging and competing for the affection of their residents. Residents of these cities take pride in the particular ways of life of their own cities. A romantic Paris, an intellectual Moscow, a religious Jerusalem, a wild Ibiza or a fashionable Milan are trademarks to the city and its residents, their shared culture, their ethos and exclusive identity. Sweet so long as this recognition of distinctiveness is natural, unforced and un-manipulated. What is occurring these days is that a class of politicians and interested parties behind them are ignoring the fact that cultures are now mixed, that traditions change over-night, that a pure gene-pool is a stupid and offensive notion, that borders are receding and that what a nation enjoys in prosperity, wealth, art and culture is a result of centuries of interaction and exchange with nations. To unite the people by means of homogenisation is futile in our globalized world that is moving toward further integration. It is very commendable to have pride on one’s heritage and promote a territory’s a nation’s history, art and culture; but to obsess over employing the before-mentioned in a quest for distinctiveness and creation of a separated identity and self is an act of manipulation.

      John Breuilly once said that: “Nationalist ideology has its roots in intellectual responses to the modern problem of the relationship between state and society”. It is a problem, it does involve a society and the state, and it is an intellectual response.  Elie Kedourie suggests – as many others (as reported by Montserrat Guibernau) that “an elite of intellectuals captures the main  injustices endured by the mass of the population and constructs a nationalist doctrine whose aim is to eliminate the unjust situation shared by  all those belonging to the same nation, thus uniting elites and masses under a single banner”. The objective is to gain power in society and halt their alienation and exclusion from positions of honour and privilege. These intellectuals, perhaps present in modern day Catalonia, understand the delicate economic situation, the distribution of powers nation-wide and the benefits –both in terms of economy and status – they could reap with independence. Thus, masses must galvanize around the quest of independence and must be fed literature on the history, the culture and virtues Catalan’s inherited from their non-Spanish forefathers.

   Adolph Hitler (apologies for quoting him) said that “great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one”. Do fight for independence Mr. Más, but don’t trick people into it.