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Comment by elecbit | Hacker News Reader

A Catalan here. Quite a bad description, I think. We should remember that Catalonia had its own language forbidden to even speak in the street for 40 years during Franco's dictatorship. Language and culture was kept alive thanks of people keeping it in secrecy.

When "democracy" returned, some of the competences they had before the war were returned to the government.

After 6 years of demonstrations of 2-3 million (out of 7million) asking to hold a referendum and receiving NO to any request, it was announced and proposed one year ago in order to agree it with Spanish government, but they would not even discuss it. In the end the unilateral way is the only way to hold this referendum.

Why shouldn't it be allowed to ask people's preferences? Isn't it democracy? People who doesn't want independence can say NO. Laws should serve people's desires, not forbid participation and opinion.

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Another Catalan here, a Catalan that has lived in Italy and France.

In the dictatorship Catalan was forbidden, but now Catalan in Catalonia is the only language used in schools (the teachers are told to only speak in that language even to the parents, search for "immersió lingüística"), the official buildings, hospital papers, and so on. Is this what you would call repression or not-democracy?

Now, in Spain other languages (I am using the word languages again) are official, and they are the language the teachers use at schools. Do you know what they call other languages in France or Italy? dialects! They are not official, of course, nor used as official languages in schools or public buildings.

So Spain is even more democratic than Italy and France in that issue, but people are complaining in Catalonia because of the adoctrination, and millions of euros spent by the Catalan government. Don't fool yourself. A referendum in a moment of maximum propaganda by the Catalan government is really democracy?

The conservative Catalan government, as the conservative Spanish government, have a lot of cases of corruption, and since all this irrationality nobody is talking about that. Last week Spain freed two Catalan politicians from the current governing party from going to jail because of the Pretoria case, but almost nobody mentioned that. Do you really thing this chaos is not premeditated?

Catalan is a lenguage... because it is. Don' play demagogy around that

*[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language

> but now Catalan in Catalonia is the only language used in schools(...), the official buildings, hospital papers, and so on. Is this what you would call repression or not-democracy?

Isn't this the point of autonomy? You decide what languages to teach/use in your institutions. We can discuss whether this is a good idea or not. Or whether what you say is true in reality or not. But it's the Catalans' decision, that's what autonomy is for.

> So Spain is even more democratic than Italy and France in that issue, but people are complaining in Catalonia because of the adoctrination, and millions of euros spent by the Catalan government.

Comparisons are meaningless in this situations. Maybe Spain is more "democratic" (if you say so) than France(which is not hard to beat honestly, considering the status of non-French languages in France). But one could also say that Spain is less democratic than Switzerland wrt languages, and that would be equally meaningless.

The question is whether the autonomy Catalonia receives is enough for the Catalans. That's for the Catalans to decide.

> Do you really thing this chaos is not premeditated?

Are you saying that all the Catalan citizens collaborating and organizing together have been manipulated by the elites for all these years? When did the manipulation start exactly? Would you mind sharing sources that support this?

"We should remember that Catalonia had its own language forbidden to even speak in the street for 40 years during Franco's dictatorship."

We should remember this is a false myth. Catalan was never banned. There were many works in literature and music using Catalan as language during Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975).

For instance, you can check the full list of works that won the Lletra d'Or awards, to the best year work written in Catalan. It started in 1956. Josep Pla, one of the most importan Catalan writters won that award in 1957.

https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premi_Lletra_d%27Or

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josep_Pla

And here you can watch Joan Manuel Serrat, singing in Catalan on TVE (the Public Spanish national television). That was in 1968.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6da-yrtBIY

What Franco did was to ban Catalan language from public institutions.

> What Franco did was to ban Catalan language from public institutions.

Like schools. An entire generation missed out on learning Catalan at school like my own mother. Call it whatever you want but that to me feels like forbidding a language.

> Why shouldn't it be allowed to ask people's preferences?

Doesn't that happen all the time in polls and in local, regional, and general elections?

Yes, and after last elections the majority of the Catalan parliament is pro-independence. Instead of proclaming independence, a referendum is proposed, which has the support of 80% of the population in Catalonia.

Yeah I know that. The point I was trying to make is that the referendum wasn't deemed illegal because "the government of Catalonia isn't allowed to ask people's preferences". It is allowed and it happens all the time.

You can do it your own way, if it is done just how I say.

Alternatively: You can do it your own way, as long as it doesn't conflict with the law. Like all other things in a democracy really.

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