The country has to rethink things (1)

1. Great technological changes have rapidly and drastically made obsolete production methods, systems of communication, and means of communicating. We need only consider the mobile telephone, which came into widespread use in 1994, and the Internet, which did not enter our homes and offices until 1998; these two examples are more than enough to gauge the magnitude and speed of change. And such progress requires a feverish development process in microprocessors, search engines, etc. In short, these changes have had a radical impact on our communication and information systems.

2. Globalisation has taken place, the fruit in large part of these technological changes. The world has shrunk in size and time has sped up. Change is relentless and there is a need to internationalise. Never before has the expression “our world is the World” been truer.

3. In this globalised world these profound and rapid transformations are affecting entire countries and continents. Though Catalonia as a country can have little or no influence on these events, she needs to bear them in mind. And Europe needs to ready itself for what is coming, and it is not doing so.

4. Because of all this and of the poverty rife in many countries, we are witnessing a formidable wave of migration. Television, mobile telephones, cheaper transport, specialised organisations – whether clandestine or not – have facilitated this these mass movements of people, an exodus of a magnitude and speed unprecedented in history. And this is having and will have major consequences.

5. Although science and technology have always been at the forefront of momentous economic and social developments and have been used to forge hegemonies and accelerate expansion, this fact has become more evident than ever, and above all has become decisive. It identifies more than ever the borderline between winners and losers.

To these five universal five points, we should add some from a Spanish perspective.

1. The balance that sustained the relationship between Catalonia and the rest of Spain for the last 20 years has been broken. Always fragile and hazardous, this difficult and unconsolidated period of stability was finally ended around 2004 – to our disadvantage.

2. Factors contributing to this include our own errors, exacerbated economic growth in certain parts of Spain that, for various reasons (infrastructure, political, business choice, etc.,) we have not be able to sustain with the same intensity, and the implementation by both the PSOE and the PP of a policy that aims to apply the French model of centralisation to Spain, which would primarily benefit Madrid and relatively harm Catalonia.

3. Both the Spanish political arena and Spanish public opinion have whipped up an air of radical hostility towards Catalonia. Whether it be covert or overt, its result is always effective. Resentment and old complexes have surfaced, and the general euphoria in the wake the progress achieved in Spain over the last 20 years or more, which was especially spectacular over the last 13 years, has turned into aggressiveness and ridicule against Catalonia. And the idea gaining momentum is that the time has finally come to reduce Catalonia to a strictly regional status and to leave our identity badly wounded. As we said in our editorial “Autonomy by Dragging” (20 February 2007), available on this website, to complete the assimilation process and subdue Catalonia.

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We must act to prevent this, and we can do it. As we have already said, this editorial does not seek to interfere in the political questions, and less so only 20 days before the Spanish general elections. But we can say that we are not on the right track, both politically and insofar as clarity of ideas, serious attitudes, the definition and prioritisation of Catalonia’s interests and the assuming of responsibilities, especially by those who represent us, are concerned.

To conclude, a positive remark and a positive announcement: the Catalonia that everyone nowadays appears to take on – to slander or deceive – has resources. Human, technical, moral, of every kind. Only confusion or trepidation can induce us not to know how to use them. We will dwell on this question in next Tuesday’s editorial.