Catalonian Wishful Thinking—Let them have it?

Escribe Peter Turchin en Cliodynamica un artículo sobre Cataluña, con una visión simplista (como la que suelen tener los anglosajones) sobre las ansias independentistas de Cataluña. ¿Que quieren independencia? "Let them have it", concluye.  No evidencia desde luego un mínimo conocimiento del Estado de Derecho en España, ni de respeto al mismo—cuestiones que son, digamos, relevantes para tratar la cuestión.

Le replico lo siguiente:

Sad to say, your post repeats much of the misinformation and inaccurate data which are part of nationalist Catalan propaganda, much more active in furthering its interests than the Madrid government has been in answering back to them. There are far too many points to address, but let us note just one. Madrid (which is an autonomous community in Spain just like Catalonia) also pays in taxes more than it receives. Indeed, in a state organized in autonomous communities, or Länder if you want, it is only to be expected that some regions will be above the mean income, and will therefore pay more taxes, than others. There can be no statistic in which all of the regions are above the mean. But the very idea of Madrid arguing that this would be a reason to make Madrid an independent state is ridiculous. Part of the problem is that there is no limit to taking ridiculous political positions in Catalonia just now, with a local administration élite which is promoting a collective delirium through misinformation and manipulation of the media. Catalonia is indeed an interesting case to study for social psychologists and an anthropologists, not to mention political theorists, but many more dimensions need to be addressed than you seem to allow for. Take the notion of "laws have to change": the same thing could have been argued by Southern States in the USA when their local interests clashed with the laws of the Union. Instead of a peaceful secession, there was a civil war, and one that America is (by and large) proud of. I could go into the assumptions about the meaning of "democracy", "voting", and "rule of law" promoted by the Catalan authorities, which are more than faintly reminiscent of Nazi populism. But really there is no way I can fight the propaganda machine of the New York Times (with absolutely shameful and ridiculously misinforming reports on the Spanish situation) in a commentary, or in a post. Suffice it to express my disagreement with your radical misinterpretation of the Catalan situation, which unfortunately is characteristic of many foreign media and, alas, of much Spanish popular and misinformed press.

Yes, misinformation. There's lots of fake news about Catalonia, and Spain. In particular, do not trust the New York Times. Get more information—much more information—and then, trust yourself.

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