Feb. 21,  2019

I am studying in Spain during an interesting political time for Spain, and in particular for the region of Catalonia.

For many years now Catalonia has been fighting for Independence from Spain. This movement really began around 2010, when Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled additional statues granting greater power and independence to the Catalonia region to be unconstitutional.

Large protests about the reversal of the laws broke out and between 2009 and 2011 many towns throughout Catalonia held independence referendums voting highly for independence. After another attempted referendum vote in 2014 and Spain governmental backfire, the new parliament was a majority separatist’s in 2015 but still failed to win a vote for independence.

Illegally, another referendum was initiated by pro-independence leaders and held in 2017. The vote was even higher for independence but with only a 43% turnout and a boycott by anti-independence parties.

The government of Spain tried to suppress the illegal referendum through fines and increased police forces in polling locations. But the people found a way, even by staying inside the polling locations for the weekend until the vote opened. Leaders were arrested after this referendum.

Later the Catalan Parliament voted in secret, and illegally, declaring independence from Spain in October of 2017.

Many pro-independence leaders have now spent over a year in jail without a trail. Until recent! The past two weeks have brought much protest as those incarcerated leaders are now in Madrid, finally in trial.

Barcelona, as the center capital of the Catalonia region, has been home to many protests over the past years and in particular couple weeks on this issue. This week with the trials commencing, Barcelona saw protesting last week and again this week on Thursday.

My classes were cancelled in expectation of massive amount of protesters filling Plaza Catalunya and increases to metro travel time. I sat at home Thursday morning, doing work, and watching the Spanish news channel that flipped between major cities in Catalonia with demonstrations happening, including Girona, Tarragona, and Barcelona. The news was covering the thousands of people marching and standing together with yellow ribbons and Catalonia flags. It was honestly incredible to see how many people across the region were marching in support of independence.

Catalonia independence is a very heated debate and it’s interesting to talk to people from here that have opinions on both sides of the fence. Many separatists are from the Catalonia region and are extremely passionate about this area as being distinct in culture and language from the rest of Spain. There are also Economic reasons, as Madrid controls taxes and a lot of the regions high economic output is used in poorer parts of the country. On the other side anti-independence supporters do not see them to have a right to separate from the entire country. It’s an unconstitutional and illegal act.

Another debate that has challenged the Barcelona government during my time here is the Taxi/Uber struggle. Taxis are upset over the increased allowance of Uber drivers in the city and struggles to keep business. As a registered taxi driver they have to pay fees to the city and be a part of the taxi union, Uber drivers do not. There has been two taxi strikes since being here, where the hundreds of drivers have parked their taxi cars lining one street and left them for days until an agreement with the government was met. After a few demonstrations in the city plazas, an agreement was supposedly met. Now only a few Ubers to exist for every hundreds of taxi cars and other restrictions have been placed on their accessibility throughout the city.

There are so many new topics in Spain that are interesting to learn about especially when you can hear the point of view of residents. It’s awesome that I get to take advantage of learning about another country through direct interaction and observation, so much easier to feel involved and understand what’s happening!

Being in another country, specifically as an American can also be interesting at times. There are so many other interesting political and social debates happening across the world that are not understood or seen. People here know more or less a lot about what’s happening in the United States and with our President, and at times I feel guilty that I do not understand their situations equally.

Being raised in a country that generally considers themselves to be number 1 or better than most everyone else actually effects how you think about things. I catch myself at times thinking that the way they do things here are wrong vs. the way it is at home being right. But that’s not correct to say, things are different, and function in alternative ways that are not right or wrong but just new!

 

p.s

It’s hard keeping up with a blog, life moves so fast here! I’ve been to the South of France and Brussels, Belgium sense the last I wrote… pictures coming soon!