Today is Catalunya's National Day and, hopefully, more than a million people will be on the streets of Barcelona calling for Catalunya to become independent ... a new European State.
Much of what will appear on this blog will also appear in the Syniadau Forums, but the emphasis on this blog is slightly different. The forums are focused more on the structures and institutions that Wales will need to develop in order to become a successful independent nation, arranged on a subject by subject basis, but the blog will have more of an emphasis on day to day political news and developments.
People are welcome to reply or leave comments either here or on the Syniadau Forums. If anyone wants to initiate a new subject they are very welcome to do so there.
15 comments:
Looks like there's nothing to inspire a Welsh nationalist in Wales.
of course no story on the BBC's 'Welsh' news. Only Golwg360 are running the story:
http://www.golwg360.com/newyddion/rhyngwladol/85191-catalwnia-rali-i-fynnu-annibyniaeth
There's liove all-day coverage of the rally on www.tv3.cat - which you can watch online in the UK.
TV3 is in Catalan and is Catalonia's most popular channel.
M.
Loads of videos about the history of the defeat of Catalonia by Spain on 11 Sept 1714 on TV3: http://www.tv3.cat/videos/4235630/Context-historic-de-la-Diada
It was this defeat (though Britain supported the Catalans) which lead to the treaty of Utrecht which gave Gibraltar to the UK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Catalonia
Couldn't find a mention anywhere on the BBC's massive news site. Oversight or manipulation?
Annon 14.14 - Up to a million people peacefully demanding independence isn't news, see. Death of a corgi is.
Why do we pay the licence fee? The BBC is reverting more and more into a British nationalist version of Russia Today. The Welsh newsroom is just a translation unit of what London pumps out. Waste of money.
The Help Catalonia blog has just reported that one and a half million people are there!
There's nothing wrong with Russia Today. What's nationalistic about Max keiser for example! And RT had a piece about Wales and independence a year or two ago and they are covering this event in Catalonia as well today. So there.
I like RT too. In fact watch it more than BBC smug and boring. It's totally biased, but Max Keiser is good and as you say, it has interesting and unexpected items.
The BBC is taking us for granted. It's becoming a Brit parody. In fact, I rarely watch it. The news in Welsh is inane. Golwg360 is more rough but is more interesting, less patronising. I go to G360 and rarely bother with BBC Newyddion any more. It's dull, predictable and a cut and paste of the British smugocracy. Won't be sad to see the end of the BBC. Salmond is right.
If you go deep into the bowels of the BBCs website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19564640
'Huge turnout for Catalan independence rally
Some 1.5 million people have been taking part in Catalonia's annual independence rally in Barcelona, according to police.
Tens of thousands of people poured into the city waving the region's independence flag and brandishing the colours red and yellow.
This year's march aimed to be the biggest ever - and a protest against the Spanish government's tax laws.'
The BBC did indeed report on the event eventually but it was slow coming and, as 23:06 suggests, well camouflaged.
... BC Uk covered it, but BBC Cymru still hasn't. It's as if they think if they cover a nationalist story it'll make them a nationalist outfit. The default news is Brit news. They are by definition denying a Welsh narrative or Welsh interest or political outlook and by doing so are undermining their own raise d'etre.
Again, what's the point of BBC Cymru Wales?
Terrible service. Golwg360 is better at a fraction of the price.
Russia Today tries to appeal to younger people in the west who are disenchanted with politics. It reports on issues that the Russian state wouldn't be interested in, like Scotland, Catalonia, and "edgy" lefty stuff. It isn't really comparable to the BBC. It's an international channel.
I have always been a supporter of the BBC because I think the alternatives to state broadcasting are usually worse. ITV Wales is okay, but imagine if it was the state broadcaster. But BBC Wales is deteriorating, especially because of cutbacks. They also have to continuously prove they are not nationalists or Plaid.
Ultimately Wales needs its own state broadcaster that is reliable, accurate and diverse and at arms length to the government, but responsible to the public.
For me "Welsh media" now is all about personalities, not the channel. If Vaughan Roderick or Adrian Masters (or Betsan Powys) has an article up online I will read it because it'll usually be interesting. But the rest of the public, who knows. We really are in a medicore situation as a country, everything seems to be subdued.
BBC news is boring, smug and patronising.
Not one of their experts saw the economic collapse approaching, not one of them saw the SNP winning power.
It treats Wales as a region and the Welsh language service won't give a Welsh dimension to the international news. It just translates a summary of the English - not worth reading.
Hardly bother watching it. RT is more interesting and I get other UK news from other outlets and Welsh news through facebook and twitter or Golwg360. You can go a whole week without needing (or feeling the need) to read BBC Wales Cymru news.
S4C would be better off getting the news from an independent broadcaster and buy in footage from other news sources. It would be more interesting and more balanced. Why stay with a monopolist service?
The reporters have that smugness which those who've been to public school have. Boring, boring, boring.
I was at the march and went with 5 adults and 12 children aged between 5-12. Yes, the usual suspects (ERC, CDC, CUP, SI) were there but it was blindingly obvious - forgive the bringing together of what and how people wear their clothes with their political allegiances but in Spain it's still more obvious than than Britain and Ireland - that it was a crosscutting march in the sense that left-right formations took part although it took CUP, for example, up to one week beforehand to decide to take part. Indeed, another example is the UDC, the christian-democrat part of CiU who would undoubtedly have stayed away from the march, had it not been for the fact that it became obvious on the weekend previously that it was going to be Catalonia's biggest ever march. As a Catalan political formation, however much it stuck in their throats, they had to move the goalposts and then hope they could maybe ratchet expectations downwards afterwards. This of course is still to be played out, but CiU as a federation has a lot of work to do because it's now at a crossroads. Its base - most members coming from CDC - is now heaviliy influenced by independentism and the time to look out for tipping points within this key formation is now. Artur Mas, CiU leader and Catalan president, made three discursive moves in three days, 10th, 12th and 13th, taking him and his party away from a distinctly autonomist route. Saying the words 'Catalonia needs a state' is something never before uttered publicly by a Catalan president. CiU's desire for an internal Catalan treasury a la Basque Autonomous Community has had a shelf life now of about 2 years. So does CiU bargain for a tax and fiscal agreement with the central government whilst resorting to a blackmail position ('Look, if you don't give us this, we can't control what's out there on the streets, it's moving fast and if it's not nipped in the bud, everything changes.')? Or do CiU now feel that their base would not forgive them for forging ahead with a favourable tax-raising regime when actually independence seems the most reasonable path to follow, if the CiU base accepts the figure of 200 billion one-way flow from Catalonia to central coffers since 1986?
What's clear is that the march has lurched everyone towards a redefinition of 'Catalanisme', that oh so difficult description of politics, identity and culture writ large on all Catalan political formations. The positioning of the PSC the Catalan Socialists, is up for grabs. They recently got rid of most of the old-guard favourable to Catalanisme in favour of a younger generation of centre-left politicians wanting to keep in tandem with the mother-party in Madrid. This now looks like a horribly misplaced decision for this party. If they do not redress themselves (a difficult task, I admit) they will I wager be further decimated if and when elections are called in January 2013. What were they thinking?
At the EU level, there is of course, much flurry. Barroso 20 days ago talked of possible 'trilateral' negotiations in the event of a secession (again, the use of the word is key in the sense that if you want to suppress something, you simply don't call it by its name) whilst a spokesperson for the Commission on the evening of the 11th stated that Catalonia would need to plod through the acquis process. They simply don't know. How could they know?
Next stop, elections? CiU have been cutting services and jobs left right and centre like there ain't no tomorrow. Many lives are now substantially inferior to what they were 3 years ago. Yet will CiU be the only government in Western Europe which has taken the axe to the redistribution of services and still come out rosy in elections called two years early in 2013? It brings into focus quite nicely the link between the perception and refocusing of decades-long grievances and that crazy little thing called political belonging.
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