Thursday, March 17, 2011
Friday, March 13, 2009
DOCUMENT SUBMITTED TO MEP IN BRUSSELS, 05.03.2009
From the Middle Ages to the XVIIIth Century, the Catalan nation, the Catalan countries, had its own independent political identity. As Pau Casals remembered at the United Nations in 1971, Catalonia, birthplace of European democracy, was the first nation to have a Parliament, even before England. At the outset of the Modern period, the Catalan nation entered a confederation with the crown of Castile and, despite the imperialist ten
From then on, the Catalan nation has been submitted to Spanish rule, and the most recent attempt by President Francesc Macià to constitute a Catalan Republic, within the federation of Iberian nations, en 1931, was brought to a cruel end by the Fascist alliance of dictator Franco with Hitler and Mussolini.
Once democracy was recovered, in 1977, Catalonia recovered her dream of of regaining her political status within a democratic federation. However, as a result of the Coup d’État of February 23rd 1981, Catalan hopes of reaching a bilateral relationship with Spain have been progressively dashed. This has become clear in the appalling episode by which our Statute of Autonomy has been mutilated, a process which will doubtless be confirmed by the forthcoming sentence of the Spanish Constitutional Court, in which a body made up of biased judges at the service of the Spanish parties shall decide against the will of our people as expreesed at the polls.
Depence on the decisions of the State of the Spanish people is leading us to a desperate situation. Daily the Catalan language is losing vigour and prestige as its social usage is progressively reduced as Spanish institutions launch campaigns of cultural homogenization highlighting the idea that there is one language, theirs, which is superior. Parallel to this, the difference between the taxes our citizens have to pay and the public services we receive in exchange is a case of outright spoliation defying comparison in the western world. It daily affects the lives of millions of people and puts social cohesion at risk.
The survival of Catalonia, as a nation, and Catalan as a thousand-year-old language of culture which is part of Europe’s heritage, are at risk. The Catalan people must opt for pacific mobilisation in defense of our individual and collective rights.
All of us have understood that it is the moment to say “enough”. The Europe of States is being consolidated along the lines of the will of the States that make it up and the dream of a Europe of People and Nations has been swept away for many years, if not forever.
We have come to Brussels with two objectives. Attaining them depends on us Catalans alone.
We want the Catalan national parties to once and for all place independence as an objective on their election programmes and self-determination as a priority in its Government action. We do not want government agreements which fail to make clear that the Government of Catalonia will promote self-determination with a view to obtaining independence to enable us to become state in the European Union with the same rights and obligations as the rest of current member states.
From here we wish to show the World that there is a conflict in Catalonia, a conflict of a pacific nature. The catalan people have the right to self-determination and wsh to exercise that right. We want to have the chance to decide our own collective future. We want to vote on this.
Europe has to know that the Spanish Sate will never be a democracy if it denies us the right to decide for ourselves. All we are asking for is a real democracy, we want to freely decide our own collective future as the citizens of Montenegro and Greenland have recently done, and as the Slovakians, Slovenians, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians did a few years ago, and as the Irish, the Poles, Finns, Hungarians and so many other nations of Europe did beforehand, as they progressively recovered their freedom.
With hope, with strength and with courage, we want to raise our voices and say:
We are a nation, we want to exercise our right to self-determination, we want to vote on this!
We want a State of our own, Long live Catalonia! Visca Catalunya!
(ENGLISH VERSION)
All Catalans here present, and those who have not been able to travel with us, but are here in heart today, have come here to proclaim that we want Catalonia to have a place in the World, alongside the other nations of Europe. We are here because we want a free nation, a modern nation, one which is advanced just, responsible, cultivated, open to the World and proud of itself. Because we have full right to this and beacuse we want a state of our own.
All Catalans here present, and those who have not been able to travel with us, but are here in heart today, have come here to proclaim that we want Catalonia to have a place in the World, alongside the other nations of Europe. We are here because we want a free nation, a modern nation, one which is advanced just, responsible, cultivated, open to the World and proud of itself. Because we have full right to this and beacuse we want a state of our own.
From the Middle Ages to the XVIIIth Century, the Catalan nation, the Catalan countries, had its own independent political identity. As Pau Casals remembered at the United Nations in 1971, Catalonia, birthplace of European democracy, was the first nation to have a Parliament, even before England. At the outset of the Modern period, the Catalan nation entered a confederation with the crown of Castile and, despite the imperialist tendencies of Spanish monarchs, for centuries maintained its own state until, through the force of arms, the Spanish king, with the help of France, conquered Valencia in 1707, Catalonia in 1714 and Majorca in 1715. They then proceded to dismante our institutions of government and our Parliament and did their utmost to wipe out our language and our identity thus converting us into Spaniards.
From then on, the Catalan nation has been submitted to Spanish rule, and the most recent attempt by President Francesc Macià to constitute a Catalan Republic, within the federation of Iberian nations, en 1931, was brought to a cruel end by the Fascist alliance of dictator Franco with Hitler and Mussolini.
Once democracy was recovered, in 1977, Catalonia recovered her dream of of regaining her political status within a democratic federation. However, as a result of the Coup d’État of February 23rd 1981, Catalan hopes of reaching a bilateral relationship with Spain have been progressively dashed. This has become clear in the appalling episode by which our Statute of Autonomy has been mutilated, a process which will doubtless be confirmed by the forthcoming sentence of the Spanish Constitutional Court, in which a body made up of biased judges at the service of the Spanish parties shall decide against the will of our people as expreesed at the polls.
Depence on the decisions of the State of the Spanish people is leading us to a desperate situation. Daily the Catalan language is losing vigour and prestige as its social usage is progressively reduced as Spanish institutions launch campaigns of cultural homogenization highlighting the idea that there is one language, theirs, which is superior. Parallel to this, the difference between the taxes our citizens have to pay and the public services we receive in exchange is a case of outright spoliation defying comparison in the western world. It daily affects the lives of millions of people and puts social cohesion at risk.The survival of Catalonia, as a nation, and Catalan as a thousand-year-old language of culture which is part of Europe’s heritage, are at risk. The Catalan people must opt for pacific mobilisation in defense of our individual and collective rights.
All of us have understood that it is the moment to say “enough”. The Europe of States is being consolidated along the lines of the will of the States that make it up and the dream of a Europe of People and Nations has been swept away for many years, if not forever.
We have come to Brussels with two objectives. Attaining them depends on us Catalans alone.
We want the Catalan national parties to once and for all place independence as an objective on their election programmes and self-determination as a priority in its Government action. We do not want government agreements which fail to make clear that the Government of Catalonia will promote self-determination with a view to obtaining independence to enable us to become state in the European Union with the same rights and obligations as the rest of current member states.
From here we wish to show the World that there is a conflict in Catalonia, a conflict of a pacific nature. The catalan people have the right to self-determination and wsh to exercise that right. We want to have the chance to decide our own collective future. We want to vote on this.
Europe has to know that the Spanish Sate will never be a democracy if it denies us the right to decide for ourselves. All we are asking for is a real democracy, we want to freely decide our own collective future as the citizens of Montenegro and Greenland have recently done, and as the Slovakians, Slovenians, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians did a few years ago, and as the Irish, the Poles, Finns, Hungarians and so many other nations of Europe did beforehand, as they progressively recovered their freedom.
With hope, with strength and with courage, we want to raise our voices and say:
We are a nation, we want to exercise our right to self-determination, we want to vote on this!
We want a State of our own, Long live Catalonia! Visca Catalunya!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
I'm fed up with you, guys
After having read many times The Economist’s piece “How much is enough?” (November, 6th), I can only say "I’m fed up with you, guys". It is an example of biased journalism. Well, to be truth, this is not journalism. It comes straight from a Spanish government-contracted PR agency.
Your approach to the issue is clearly committed to one point of view. So, now, it seems that Liberty has degrees, right? Of course not. Liberty has no degrees at all. You’re free to choose your own future or you’re not free, and someone decides your future on your behalf. That is the key question.
From the author’s point of view, Catalans do not deserve the same rights as Slovenes, Slovaks, Finnish, Lithuanians, or Irish peoples. Are Catalan human beings, with dignity and rights , or only subjects to tax extraction, cultural annihilation and economic and social impoverishment?
If, as the author states, Independentism is marginal, why the Spanish government, politicians and media oppose to a Catalonia self-determination referendum?
Are Catalans not entitled to decide their own future? Are we different from other Europeans nations?
After more than three centuries of Spanish and French aggression, we’re still alive. We’ve survived, and yes, we have failed to gain statehood. But also we have overcome extinction. Sometimes paying a big price, in lifes and pain. So here we are.
And believed it or not, Spanish credit is exhausted. The autonomy model will be killed in a matter of weeks, thanks to the Constitutional Court sentence. The federal model is a bad joke. No one is federalist in Spain.
The only “great Spanish project” is the one that sees Madrid as the cosmic, universal center of the World, even though they have failed to be an Olympic City (sorry, amigos, I think that 2016 won’t be your turn… again).
The only “great Spanish project” is a racist driven vision of the cultural diversity principle. A vision that considers there are cultures and languages not only different, but superior than others. And that those inferiors cultures fate is extinction in a more or less tolerant way.
The only “great Spanish project” is the one that exists in the mind –and the pocket- of those puppet Catalan politicians like Mr. Narcís Serra –implicated, by the way, in the dirty war against ETA, that is in the state-sponsored terrorism in the eighties- or like J.A. Duran i Lleida –whose party faces very serious judicial problems due to corruption accusation-, that deny to their own people the right to a better life, with liberty and dignity…
In fact, what this article shows is the fear and terror that Spanish politicians and media have that sooner than later a vast majority of Catalans will opt democratically for Independence. And to the fact that to oppose such a decision, the Spanish government won’t be able to use the army, since that will be condemn by NATO and EU partners, and of course by public opinion -may be with the exception of The Economist, that will applaud it.
(And because the Spanish state lacks the economic and military resources needed, other than the puremacho element, that is “balls”).
Is it necessary to remind you that Spain has not yet recognized Kosovo Independence? You may say that Catalonia has nothing to do with Kosovo. May be you think that they belong to different planets. But that’s not true, I know for sure. What’s more, they belong to the same continent. Of course they are different cases. But precisely because they are not the same cases, why Spain is afraid to recognise Kosovo Independence? Because they know perfectly well the implications of such recognition.
The next Independence wave, in the following decade, will include Quebec, Scotland –less probably, Wales- and, yes, Catalonia’s. Also it will see the break-up of Belgian federation and Ireland reunification.
So I advise you to sit in a couch and try to assimilate it. Because you will see it, and better to accept it in the name of Liberty and Democracy. On the contrary, you will have to swallow all of it. From the beginning to the end, my friends.
Note: First published at Bloc Gran del Sobiranisme
Your approach to the issue is clearly committed to one point of view. So, now, it seems that Liberty has degrees, right? Of course not. Liberty has no degrees at all. You’re free to choose your own future or you’re not free, and someone decides your future on your behalf. That is the key question.
From the author’s point of view, Catalans do not deserve the same rights as Slovenes, Slovaks, Finnish, Lithuanians, or Irish peoples. Are Catalan human beings, with dignity and rights , or only subjects to tax extraction, cultural annihilation and economic and social impoverishment?
If, as the author states, Independentism is marginal, why the Spanish government, politicians and media oppose to a Catalonia self-determination referendum?
Are Catalans not entitled to decide their own future? Are we different from other Europeans nations?
After more than three centuries of Spanish and French aggression, we’re still alive. We’ve survived, and yes, we have failed to gain statehood. But also we have overcome extinction. Sometimes paying a big price, in lifes and pain. So here we are.
And believed it or not, Spanish credit is exhausted. The autonomy model will be killed in a matter of weeks, thanks to the Constitutional Court sentence. The federal model is a bad joke. No one is federalist in Spain.
The only “great Spanish project” is the one that sees Madrid as the cosmic, universal center of the World, even though they have failed to be an Olympic City (sorry, amigos, I think that 2016 won’t be your turn… again).
The only “great Spanish project” is a racist driven vision of the cultural diversity principle. A vision that considers there are cultures and languages not only different, but superior than others. And that those inferiors cultures fate is extinction in a more or less tolerant way.
The only “great Spanish project” is the one that exists in the mind –and the pocket- of those puppet Catalan politicians like Mr. Narcís Serra –implicated, by the way, in the dirty war against ETA, that is in the state-sponsored terrorism in the eighties- or like J.A. Duran i Lleida –whose party faces very serious judicial problems due to corruption accusation-, that deny to their own people the right to a better life, with liberty and dignity…
In fact, what this article shows is the fear and terror that Spanish politicians and media have that sooner than later a vast majority of Catalans will opt democratically for Independence. And to the fact that to oppose such a decision, the Spanish government won’t be able to use the army, since that will be condemn by NATO and EU partners, and of course by public opinion -may be with the exception of The Economist, that will applaud it.
(And because the Spanish state lacks the economic and military resources needed, other than the puremacho element, that is “balls”).
Is it necessary to remind you that Spain has not yet recognized Kosovo Independence? You may say that Catalonia has nothing to do with Kosovo. May be you think that they belong to different planets. But that’s not true, I know for sure. What’s more, they belong to the same continent. Of course they are different cases. But precisely because they are not the same cases, why Spain is afraid to recognise Kosovo Independence? Because they know perfectly well the implications of such recognition.
The next Independence wave, in the following decade, will include Quebec, Scotland –less probably, Wales- and, yes, Catalonia’s. Also it will see the break-up of Belgian federation and Ireland reunification.
So I advise you to sit in a couch and try to assimilate it. Because you will see it, and better to accept it in the name of Liberty and Democracy. On the contrary, you will have to swallow all of it. From the beginning to the end, my friends.
Note: First published at Bloc Gran del Sobiranisme
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
CONGRATULATIONS, PEOPLE OF KOSOVA
CONGRATULATIONS, PEOPLE OF KOSOVA.
KOSOVA NOW, TOMORROW CATALONIA
TODAY, THE GLORY IS YOURS
TOMORROW IT WILL BE OURS!
GLORY TO KOSOVA PATRIOTS
GLORY TO THE FALLEN
WE MISS YOU
WE HONOUR YOU,
EVEN IF WE DON'T KNOW (MOST OF) YOU
A PATRIOT IS EVERYWHERE A PATRIOT
YOUR FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS
YOU DESERVE IT
BE PROUD OF THAT
PAST GENERATIONS ARE LOOKING TO YOU
FUTURE ONES WILL BENEFIT
WE, CATALANS,
WILL JOIN YOU
AS THE MOMENT WILL ARRIVE
SOON BETTER THAN LATER
TODAY, THE GLORY IS YOURS
CONGRATULATIONS, PEOPLE OF KOSOVA
JOSEP SORT, CATALONIA
http://josepsort.blogspot.com
http://aclearcutcase.blogspot.com
NOTE: This is a (poem?) I've just send to the following web: http://www.kosovothanksyou.com/
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Spanish terrorism strikes again
On Sunday, a provoked fire damaged Bloc Nacionalista Valencià's headquarter in Benicàssim, a very important tourist and beach municipality located 13 km. north from Castelló de la Plana. This is the third time that the same building is attacked by Spanish terrorist organisations that want to threat all those who consider that the territory south of Sènia river is also an integral part of the Catalan nation.
As usually, this agression has attracted no attention from mainstream media, neither from València nor from Barcelona cities. However, this is another step forward towards the terror campaign implemented by Spain, against Catalan identity. Let's remember it. We must stop all the fascist-style agression and bring all the criminals to the justice -not the Spanish one, cause it is not fair and balanced in these issues, but to the international judicial stances.
Also it deserves to be mentioned that a terrorist campaign including threatening graffities is on the move in Valencia's city section of Barri del Carme. Again menaces and threats are written on the walls against patriotic and leftists organisations and people.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
JOINT EFA DECLARATION ON THE FUTURE OF
THE CONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE BY THE EDINBURGH GROUP
Yesterday, representatives from independentists parties within the European Union, signed a Political Declaration, in demand of the recognition of the internal enlargement.
At the meeting, held in Edinburgh, Scotland, attended the top representatives of the following political parties: Ian Hudghton (Scottish National Party), Ieuan Wyn Jones (Plaid Cymru, Wales), Josep Lluís Carod Rovira (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya), Geert Lambert (Spirit, Flanders), Unai Ziarreta (Eusko Alkartasuna, Euskalherria) and Anxo Quintana (Bloque Nacioalista Galego). All these parties belong to European Free Alliance eurogroup in the European Parliament.
By internal enlargement is understood the process current non-state nations within EU, once they will access to independence, will be granted EU full membership status.
The signature is a big step forward to the coordination strategy of all those political groups. We have to bear in mind that in the years to come, in some of these nations are scheduled or preparing self-determination referenda. These are the cases of Euskalherria (2008-2010), Scotland (2010) and Catalunya (2014).
From this blog I hail this initiative, and expect it to have a real impact in the hearts and minds of eurocrats.
THE CONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE BY THE EDINBURGH GROUP
Yesterday, representatives from independentists parties within the European Union, signed a Political Declaration, in demand of the recognition of the internal enlargement.At the meeting, held in Edinburgh, Scotland, attended the top representatives of the following political parties: Ian Hudghton (Scottish National Party), Ieuan Wyn Jones (Plaid Cymru, Wales), Josep Lluís Carod Rovira (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya), Geert Lambert (Spirit, Flanders), Unai Ziarreta (Eusko Alkartasuna, Euskalherria) and Anxo Quintana (Bloque Nacioalista Galego). All these parties belong to European Free Alliance eurogroup in the European Parliament.
By internal enlargement is understood the process current non-state nations within EU, once they will access to independence, will be granted EU full membership status.
The signature is a big step forward to the coordination strategy of all those political groups. We have to bear in mind that in the years to come, in some of these nations are scheduled or preparing self-determination referenda. These are the cases of Euskalherria (2008-2010), Scotland (2010) and Catalunya (2014).
From this blog I hail this initiative, and expect it to have a real impact in the hearts and minds of eurocrats.
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