chrisp65 Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 I'm not sure why Catalans are fiercely calling for indepenence either. Actually, I am, it's because the Spanish economy is up to it's neck in shit and of course, ceding from Spain will solve all of those issues overnight... To be fair, they've been chippy about Spain for quite some time. That bloke Franco upset them by banning their language and banning their use of traditional names (hence Cruyff being such a legend there). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Oh, I am well aware of that. Spain is probably even more unstable than the UK is with regards to its regions and there have been Basque separatist and Catalan separatist movements for as long as there has been Spain. I just see everybody panicking because the economy is in the toilet and I cant for the life of me see how ceding will solve anything. Distancing yourself from Madrid wont bring the good times back and putting up barriers between yourselves and the rest of the country will probably damage trade to the point where it costs more jobs than it creates. They probably have more grounds to cede than, say Cornwall do from England but I just think that if it does happen the first thing the Catalans will think is "well, what now?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted October 1, 2012 Author Share Posted October 1, 2012 Oh, I am well aware of that. Spain is probably even more unstable than the UK is with regards to its regions and there have been Basque separatist and Catalonian separatist movements for as long as there has been Spain. I just see everybody panicking because the economy is in the toilet and I cant for the life of me see how it will solve anything. It doesn't necessarily, but it gives the hardcore separatists a new and improved reason the start the drumbeat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted October 1, 2012 Moderator Share Posted October 1, 2012 Even if Catalonia did gain independance (which it wont) I cant see why anybody would think Barcelona would be kicked out of La Liga, it's simply not going to happen. I'm not sure why Catalans are fiercely calling for indepenence either. Actually, I am, it's because the Spanish economy is up to it's neck in shit and of course, ceding from Spain will solve all of those issues overnight... It's not a recent thing, it has nothing to do with the current times. It's not even a solely Catalonian thing either, the Basques even have terrorist separatists in ETA who have only been on ceasefire since 2010. There is also a group of Galician separatist terrorists called REGA who are still reported to be active. I think in total there are about 11 or 12 regions of Spain with some sort of separatist movement, mainly around the edges of the country. The central area seems to actually consider itself Spain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted October 1, 2012 Author Share Posted October 1, 2012 Yeah, I wasn't really being serious. Should have added a winking smiley I guess. Not obvious enough fail :winkold: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted October 1, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted October 1, 2012 Just got back from Mallorca, and as you'd expect, this is ALL over the TV news. That and the massive flooding that the mainland got (Balearics missed out, yay!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted October 1, 2012 Moderator Share Posted October 1, 2012 Just got back from Mallorca, and as you'd expect, this is ALL over the TV news. That and the massive flooding that the mainland got (Balearics missed out, yay!) Do the Balearics consider themselves Catalonian? It's the other official language there but geographically they are somewhat south and closer to Valencia. Just wondered realy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted October 1, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted October 1, 2012 Just got back from Mallorca, and as you'd expect, this is ALL over the TV news. That and the massive flooding that the mainland got (Balearics missed out, yay!) Do the Balearics consider themselves Catalonian? It's the other official language there but geographically they are somewhat south and closer to Valencia. Just wondered realyDunno really. I kind of get that impression in north/west Mallorca, although not in any strong flag-waving, Madrid-hating kind of way. But most of the TV channels we were getting seemed to be streamed from Barcelona and had that Catalan slant. Most of the local kids support Barca, but that's just gloryhunting really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 Sigh, Europe. China sorted their separatist troubles out more than 2 millennia ago Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCforever1991 Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 Taiwan and Tibet, just saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 Taiwan and Tibet, just saying. Yeah, it was a joke (but one with a grain of truth, China minus Taiwan and the like hasn't always been a unified state.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted October 2, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted October 2, 2012 Taiwan and Tibet, just saying. Yeah, it was a joke (but one with a grain of truth, China minus Taiwan and the like hasn't always been a unified state.)Would you say that China has more (internal) ethnic and cultural diversity than (say) Europe or North America? Another 30 or 40 years of being a global superpower, and it might start to break up. Where is Eric Hobsbawm when we need him? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 Taiwan and Tibet, just saying. Yeah, it was a joke (but one with a grain of truth, China minus Taiwan and the like hasn't always been a unified state.)Would you say that China has more (internal) ethnic and cultural diversity than (say) Europe or North America? I'll define "China" as "ethnic Chinese (i.e. the Han ethnicity)," rather than "political China," which is without doubt ethnically extremely diverse, officially containing 55 ethnic groups along with countless others that are either not officially recognised or officially subsumed into other ethnicities. From what I've read, China is linguistically and genetically as diverse, if not more diverse, than Europe. However, for such a vast and genetically diverse population, we Chinese do seem to be very unified from an ethnic perspective. There are, of course, cultural variations that are a result of regional and linguistic differences, but one would expect a population of more than a billion people to be ethnically much more disparate. Ethnically, culturally, most of China is extremely unified. Linguistically, genetically, the evidence seems to suggest it's as diverse as any continent on Earth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 Another 30 or 40 years of being a global superpower, and it might start to break up. I really can't see it. I've yet to see a single ethnic Chinese person ethnically self-identify as something other than Chinese - in contrast, a "Spanish" person from Catalonia might see himself as Catalan rather than Spanish. The outlying areas like Xinjiang and Tibet are of course always not far off from separatist conflict, but China proper is too culturally unified to remain broken up for long,* should civil conflict ever arise. * Then again, Korea.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 How about Hong Kong and Macau? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 How about Hong Kong and Macau? Never gotten the feeling that they want to secede from the mainland, what they want (at least in HK's case) is for democracy to be preserved. The "1 Country, 2 Systems" policy seems to have worked fine for them so far, there's been some unhappiness recently I think though as apparently Beijing are trying to get their grimy hands into HK politics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 Where is Eric Hobsbawm when we need him? In a wooden box, thank god. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 How about Hong Kong and Macau? Never gotten the feeling that they want to secede from the mainland, what they want (at least in HK's case) is for democracy to be preserved. The "1 Country, 2 Systems" policy seems to have worked fine for them so far, there's been some unhappiness recently I think though as apparently Beijing are trying to get their grimy hands into HK politics. I always got the impression from when I was in HK and speaking to people, especially the younger generation (twenties etc) that given the choice they would rather still be under British rule as opposed to Chinese rule Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCforever1991 Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 That's because the Brits did the whole Empire thing the best Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted October 2, 2012 Moderator Share Posted October 2, 2012 And despite our faults we are not a ridiculous communist dictatorship Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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