A huge love for Spain

Empar Moliner
2 min

I love the Spanish and I love Spain. I love how they eat and drink. Cirsion, Pérez Pascuas, and Alabaster wines. Manchego cheese, the kind made in Casar. The bars and restaurants in Madrid, the land of my mother, and the happiness and frankness that apparently dominate human relations in Andalusia, land of my mother-in-law. I love the movies they make, now and from before, the books they write, their language that I try to speak very well (and it's true that I also like France, with its wine and its restaurants, but that's because I like the world).

I can't stand, however, the relationship that Catalonia has with Spain's system of government. I feel like I’m twice the subject. First, the subject of a king that I didn't vote for-- nor did my grandfather (he who fought a war to defend a legitimate Republic)-- and a subject to the whims of its government. Yesterday they struck down three more Catalan laws. The one for the tax on empty flats, the one on gender equality, and the one about local government. And this after the ones on fracking, and nuclear plants ... and that on energy poverty, which they claim is "positive discrimination" towards the Catalan poor. But they maintain the positive discrimination that is part of the Basque and Navarre finance agreements. We pay tolls on Catalonia’s highways and they don't, but this isn't discrimination to them. All Spaniards receive the same pension according to their pay and years worked, but in Catalonia living expenses are much higher, which discriminates against retirees here.

On the question of independence I've already set aside sentiments, which are important, because the State has also set them aside and isn't trying to suffocate the independence movement out of love for Catalonia, but simply because they feel like it and for balanced accounts at the end of the month. I'm not even talking about the money. I'm talking about welfare and basic services. If we don't become independent from this Spain that I will always love, we will continue paying the Royal House until we die. And what will happen in the meantime? What shall we say to those who don't have electricity? That they should wait and see if Rajoy retires and King Felipe moves to Estoril (1)?

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(1) N.T. Estoril was the Portuguese town where King Juan Carlos was raised while his family was exiled during General Franco’s regime.

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