Quote:
Originally Posted by nik-
Sorry, are you speaking of Franco days? Where is this suppression of their language happening? It's a load of BS. The King can even speak Catalan. Additionally, a large part of the Catalan independence movement is based on them not wanting to punch above their weight economically in the country and have the money dispersed. They contribute a little more than their population should warrant and therefore don't want to act like a part of a country.
|
At the end of the day, many of the people of Catalon just aren't Spanish. These is even more true of the Basques, who of an ethnicity that likely predates the arrival of modern Europeans into Europe. Spain also seems to be using a lot of the classic tricks to suppress these populations: underestimating populations, disproportionate government spending/taxes, and suppression of independence movements. Spain also went through a bloody civil war in the 1930s, the Catalonians were on the side of the democratic government, which lost. This lost led to 40 years of suppressive fascist rule. This isn't ancient history; Franco's rule ended in 1975.
The simple truth of the matter is that most of the modern European states are relatively new inventions, largely coming into creation 100-300 years ago. The standardization of their languages, which largely define these states, happened during a similar time period. Many of these states came into existence via military conflict and have only been democracies for a few decades. So it's no wonder that these independence movements aren't just going away.