Two native Spanish residents of Eindhoven are hopeful for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The pair shared their stories with Studio040.
With one from Catalonia, and the other from western Spain, the two are diametrically opposed. The Catalan, of course, wants independence. “We have been suppressed for years,” Rosa Mary Sanllehy says. “I was not allowed to speak the Catalan language as a child.”
David Novo Piñeiro, who studied at the TU/e and now works at the Solar Energy Company, says Catalonia should not become independent. “If you turn away from Spain, you also turn away from Europe,” David told Studio040. “In the longer term this will be a bad choice.”
Both said they watch the news daily to keep up with the latest developments.
The deposed Spanish president has called on Catalans to support his government. He also wants the European Union to take action.
Source: www.studio040.nl
Translated by: Bob
Quoting from Rosa Mary: “We have been suppressed for years,” Rosa Mary Sanllehy says. “I was not allowed to speak the Catalan language as a child.”
In the years of Franco (he past away in the 75), as he was a dictator and in Spain there was a dictatorship, of course there was repression (unfortunately for all Spanish people). However, he passed away, he is not there anymore, and even if some people keep on saying that Spain is still a dictatorship, or Spanish government is suppressing Catalan people, that is not the truth. Catalonia is one of the autonomous communities with major independence grade in Spain. They have control over education, they have their own police corp, they can use Catalan as a teaching language (actually, it is considered at the same level as Spanish, and Catalan people are told to use Catalan preferably; if a Spanish person wants to go to work as a public employee, that person has to learn Catalan), they manage the economy of Catalonia, and they can approve some specific laws under the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia.
Having said this, the fact that they still say that Spain is suppressing Catalan people…of course doesn’t make sense at all. They can keep on saying that Spain is full of corruption (which unfortunately is true), but at the same time, there are a lot of open cases of Catalan Parliament rulers who were involved in corruption cases (just look for 3% commissions case). So this argument does not make sense to support the independence. They can keep on saying that they were a different country in the past years. However, they were never an independent country. They were always under Aragon Kingdom, and that is something that anybody can look up on internet. They can keep on saying that Spain steals their money. Everyone can take a look at the balance and see how much Catalonia gives to the central government and how much it gets back (notice that the debt of Catalonia is one of the highest in Spain and no one mentions this; https://countryeconomy.com/national-debt/spain-autonomous-communities).
In short, I respect Catalan people, I fully encourage them to speak their own language and feel proud of themselves as Catalans. But, at the same time, I cannot support people who only want to break apart from a Country because of non-sense arguments, messing up with history (Catalonia was never a country, it was part of Aragon Kingdom) and distorting people’s mind. They can always resort to the feeling of being Catalan, which is something that does not react to rationality, but apart from that, in my humble opinion, they have no real arguments to want to become independent.
I would like to highlight the fact that Spain is a solidary country in which poorer regions depend on richer regions just to make sure little villages with old economy systems (agriculture, for instance) don’t get abandoned and the business fully stops. In the end, Catalan industries use products from the rest of Spain (the famous Cava uses cork taps from Malaga); and in the same way, rest of Spain industries use Catalan products or consume Catalan things. If we are together, we will be stronger. If we break apart, for sure we all will suffer.
Thank you for your extensive response.