08/07/2011
Jordi Canal: “National conflicts are at the core of the history of modern Spain. Creating an Autonomic State, which was implemented during the Democratic Transition, was a partially successful way to try to solve this issue. The debate around this model is now reopened and Catalonia is the focus of discussions”
“The imaginings of ’98 have conditioned the whole of the 20th Century, from regenerationisms to Francoism”
“Not all regionalisms or all anti-centralist movements ended up as nationalisms. Aragon’s regionalism is a good example of this. Regionalisms actually can, in some cases like in the case of Valencia be an excellent path to Spanish nationalisation”
“New nationalisms developed their own process of national construction from the very beginning, in other words, of nationalisation, which was almost always addressed against the nation and against Spanish nationalism or patriotism”
“The convenience of anti-Francoism without Francoism that some cultivate and exploit and others accept without complaints is but a sign of a lack of ideas and proposals and, above all, of a perverse mental sloth”
“In the case if the so-called historical autonomies, these territories had never in all their history enjoyed so many capacities and so much decentralisation”
“Nationalism’s progress towards sovereign or independent stances should not come as a surprise. Claiming for something is always a winning bet: if it is granted, the triumph is deserved; if it is not granted, it is a new injustice that will obviously fuel nationalist resentment”
“Fortunately, the future is not set in stone. We are going through a delicate moment, where revising the autonomy model seems unavoidable. Duplications must be avoided and expenditure must be controlled. In the case of Catalonia maybe its financing will have to be reviewed. In any case shrillness in the debates should be avoided, and a lot of pedagogy will have to be used”