Dear Britons,
The truth is that choosing a title for this article has not been easy. I had thought of “I’d like you to stay". But who am I to want something that you have to decide yourselves? "I need you to stay"? I don't want to limit myself to just expressing pure need, either. My feelings go beyond that. “I would rather” -- that is, to prefer-- is a better choice of words because, should you decide to abandon the European Union (EU), I would not stop appreciating your decision.
I won't talk to you about the benefits that the EU offers. I would not be objective. A citizen of a country that has been advancing rudimentarily for centuries can only find advantages to being in the EU, which protects us from certain temptations and helps us with good practices. In addition, I've always been suspicious when somebody else wants to convince me of something by appealing to my interests. When somebody is excessively concerned about what is good for me, I begin to worry. We Catalans have suffered enough when Spain has tried to make us see what is in our best interest.
My intention is to ask you not to leave because, although everyone might lose out, we are the ones who stand to lose the most. When I say "us" I'm referring to my small nation --buried within a country that is diametrically opposed to everything that you represent--, but also to the rest of the continental EU. This morsel filled with too much history that, as a joke --though with a dose of truth that only an ignoramus would deny-- says that it is cut off from Great Britain when there's fog in the Channel.
We Catalans comprise a centuries-old nation that, due to its geo-strategic position, played a large role at the time when the Mediterranean was the center of our world. Precisely for its location, it has been a zone of passage. And because of its complete lack of strategic sense it has suffered disproportionately. This is much different from you, who are on the way to no place in particular, but with an enormous sense of strategy. The thing is that these characteristics have led to a complicated situation for us that now, with more luck than in the past yet still without much social intelligence, we are trying to resolve democratically. And the truth is that we have found in you the only Europeans who could perhaps understand and respect this.
I would also like to highlight what Great Britain has meant for Europe. Perhaps having family that was oppressed by the Nazis has helped me to always acknowledge this and to be eternally grateful to you for your commitment and the risks you took to free the continent from totalitarianism. That today democracy reigns in Europe, along with unprecedented well-being, is due in good part to your efforts. How can we allow ourselves, then, to say farewell to a country that during the past 100 years has had to get its hands dirty twice, and who almost lost everything, to rescue Europe from successive atrocities that only we, the continentals, had created?
This is the past. And what of the future? A European Union without the decisive influence of Great Britain concerns me deeply. What will come of us without your liberal nature? Your respect for the individual and for democracy, above all? Without you, nobody is left with the authority to influence other nations dominated by bureaucrats who have risen to power, by governments filled with high-ranking and low-level civil servants convinced that they are the ones who have to decide even what you have to drink when it's hot out. Indeed you have many reasons for wanting to leave. The expensive bureaucracy of Brussels, its poor democracy, the lack of accountability —the notion of "taking responsibility" that you value so highly and we despise so much--, the permissiveness, the inefficacy, the corruption ... All of these are flaws which you hope, at least, will not smear you by belonging to a broader territorial organization. You want to remain focused, logically, on the differences. It’s hard to believe that this fact, in a country like mine that specifically aspires to recognition of its uniqueness, continues to be so poorly understood.
I have to admit it: I'm afraid that you will leave. Among other reasons because I'll be less keen to carry on. You will survive unscathed, I have no doubt --you have never allowed yourselves to be scared by others. You are the source of the only serious and effective global civilization since the Roman Empire. For all that they might complain, nobody wants to renounce British citizenship once they have it. And this is a driving force for you. Now, what will become of the EU? We'll see. The truth is that I desire, as anxious as I am restless, that you show —once again— generosity.
