Building victory I

Foundations for political regeneration

From the west

From the west comes the scythe
that pretends the broom’s soul
but from the ashes is reborn
the bird that announces the last combat.

Albert Ubach

“Catalans wish for national Independence enough, but do not see the way to achieve it”. Carles Muñoz Espinalt.
Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like you to, just beginning to read this article, stop an instant and read again the sentence by prof. Espinalt which I decided to head this article with. Because, re-reading it, you will understand to the point that never has been said so much in so little: “Catalans wish for national Independence enough, but do not see the way to reach it”.

Here it is. In a sentence, the more precise portrait of a desire, of a wish to be, to remain, to develop; and yet, also, the confirmation of a statement of impossibility, or more clearly, impotence. Professor Muñoz Espinalt, as studious and knowledgeable of Catalan character, expressed loudly a reality that today, many years after his death, is still valid: the tough reality of a defenceless people in front of the aimless wandering of their leadership.

And it is exactly on the second part of the sentence where Espinalt gives us clues for Catalans to find the solution. After describing the main wish for Catalans –wish that is growing even more-, points that, even indirectly, which is the way to be followed to stop being subdued to the wandering caprices of the leaders that do not represent us any longer. Rightly, when he said but they do not see the way to achieve it, orientate us and even encourage us to ask ourselves why Catalans do not know how to achieve it. From here, believe me, the horizon of reflections that opens before us is thrilling.

How victory is achieved?

So, how do you reach victory? How do you achieve victory? What must be done to obtain it? Firstly, we must recognise that victories, as everything we do in life, are the result of combining aptitudes and attitudes. Concepts like work, efficacy, results, etc would not take the same meaning without adding self-esteem and effort to excellence as a creation mark of own value. Aptitude, but especially attitude, especially the latter, are two engines that work alongside each other to obtain the only goal: victory.

We see then, that to achieve victory, the first we must do is to interiorize a basic concept: to act always with morale of victory and winning mentality. Once again, aptitude and attitude are shown like undividable values to face challenges. Because, frankly, what country would trust, eternally, politicians who have never been convinced or decided to achieve victory?

The necessity of political regeneration answers to the need of substitution of the political attitudes of a leadership that has been not representing the Catalan people for years. The necessary substitution of these people, obsolete and fearful of constant flirting with Spain political attitudes, while Catalonia is bleeding everywhere. The necessary substitution of these humiliating political attitudes, only typical from a slave that constantly asks for the master’s permission, and to change them for attitudes of firmness, winning mentality, pride of the country and for the conviction that the right of Independence is a non-negotiable objective and that third parties do not have to decide for us.

Parliament must return to the country

When Catalunya Acció started to introduce the concept of political regeneration, it was made perfectly knowing that political regeneration means new faces that be willing to make new fire, with conviction to start a lighthouse that illuminated the way to victory, not only as a wish but as a duty, persistent and endless. Aptitude, yes, but especially attitude, to face the destiny that History claims to be sought after.

Mathematics say that two parallel lines always join in the infinite. We do not call to Maths, but to common sense, when we say that, certainly, there are two parallel lines that must reconcile: popular and parliamentary. The social fracture that represents the actual situation of political discredit has left Catalans orphans of will, as was already mentioned by Espinalt. Otherwise, how can a country reach victory when does not feel represented by their Parliament? And, how can ensure a honest administration of their wills without putting leaders in front of the country decided to act with strong hand when is necessary? Yes, it is necessary to bet on vibrant politics, able to be touching and speakers for the common wishes. Catalonia must be able to look at their leaders in the eye and to show with pride the aptitude and attitude that must convert her in a new State in Europe. We must return the Parliament to the Country.

The World reclaims a gesture from Catalonia

Catalonia, lighthouse of the western Mediterranean, cradle of the old Europe, economical incombustible force once free from alien rule. Who is to yield the constant flirting that countries like the United States of America have made and make in front of this key piece that is Catalonia in the international concert? Pujol’s governments and the first and second tripartit have preferred to ignore the occasions that extended hands from around the world have come around them. With no doubt, it is necessary that we return the Parliament to the country to correspond, equally, this international flirting that is inviting us to write world History in Catalan, too.

Catalans wish for Independence enough. And yes, there are chances. There is one way of reaching it. There is a way. The how, where and when. Here and now. There is the aptitude and the attitude. There is firmness and morale of victory. There is the sense of political ethics as an unbreakable duty from historical duty. There is the train of Força Catalunya that has started its way and where every new wagon to join will be first class. And there is, especially, the renovation of the political way in internal key and the political way in international key, because these two parallel ways advance, unstoppable and invincible, to the station that must not be the termination end, but the start of a new Catalonia placed firmly within her world: the independence.

Albert Ubach
Member of Catalunya Acció

Carles Muñoz Espinalt talking about Josep Maria Batista i Roca

Prelude of the Independence.

Carles Muñoz Espinalt, 1992

5th Chapter

THE CYNICAL DELETION OF INDEPENDENTISTS FROM HISTORY

When a country suffers from a crisis of patriotism, civic spirit from their best countrymen is silenced, not appreciated and is normally in the way of all those who do not bear that others have exemplary behaviour, and make fun of them saying that is ingenuity. They would like that political mastery equalled backstage plotting, and leadership was synonym of entangling situations. They would like to think everything was a trick.

Do not fool ourselves, people like these cannot have a good opinion of patriots like Josep Maria Batista i Roca –and again I will use an exemplary figure-, not better than Josep Pla’s opinion, when he wrote, on a certain place in his “Complete Works”: “Prof Batista i Roca, who was, as separatist and catalanist, as militarist. Rich family –cod fishing business-. Cambridge University –England-. I do not believe that he ever had a follower. Inevitable decadence of his surname”.

Fortunately, Josep Maria Batista i Roca never worried about other people’s judgments towards his person. All his suffering was the situation of our country. All his life was a prelude of the Independence of Catalonia. 1 He knew it was possible when there was no longer a majority of Catalans that walk on the street with fright on their sight. Batista i Roca knew the Catalans too well. Precisely, he was the first to make an exact diagnostic of the peculiarities of our enslaved character. We will not discuss whether he got the remedy right, but he did not miss an inch on telling us what was the ailment we suffered from. In 1928, wrote “A glance to the actual character of our people do not inspire reasons for optimism”. He saw us sporting very profound inhibitions and lack of audacity that create in our soul a situation that Batista i Roca defined as follows: “We take, unreflectively, defeat for granted even before we try to attack”. However, we infuriate when we are told so, but this attitude must be confronted if we want to strengthen our damaged and frightful character. “In front of a difficulty –Batista i Roca continues-, we have thousands of ways of going around it, shutting our eyes, thinking of overcoming it, although the obstacle remains intact”.

During the last years of his life, Batista i Roca remembered his diagnostic –formulated nearly fifty years before-, with nostalgia and regretfulness for not being able to do everything he wanted to help us rebuilding our character. I asserted that, to me, it had been a shame not to have known his diagnostic, when I, in 1955, participated in a controversial debate with Vicens i Vives, and vehemently, I did not stop telling him that it would be a very costly mistake, in the future, to affirm that Catalans go from wisdom to rage. Catalans go from wisdom to merriment, thinking that they might defeat their fears with laughter. Or are we not proud of being people that laugh at the dead and who stays at the funeral wake?

Confessions like these, motivated that Batista i Roca put a thoughtful face, where man could see how he had suffered during the exile, not being able to stay near those who he would have exercised some mentorship. To me, it represented an incalculable wealth of knowledge, to have had the privilege of maintaining around thirty long talks with Batista i Roca, the majority of them at my house. The rest, with me going at his place, being Batista i Roca seriously ill. We talked and we talked again about the situation of Catalonia, he never tired.

At moments, he seemed to get angry, when I referred that, in Catalonia, the problem is the strong unconsciousness of their leaders more than the preparation of the people. “Look how short-sighted and careless they are –I remember telling him-, that they have neither understood the peculiarities of Spanish Fascism nor they know their chimeras of the main admirers and theorists”.

Like pausing, I looked for papers from my archive and with major emphasis, I added: “Who has worried about what Ledesma Ramos said in 1931? He exclaimed angrily ‘No matter how many ideas a man can have about the regional characteristics of the country, it appears, in sheer manner, that the unity of Spain is only in danger in Catalonia, where the autonomic opinion is only a hidden separatism that cowardly waits for its time’”.

I wanted to point at Batista i Roca that the actual Catalan politicians, do not smell –even right at their noses-, the obsessions, prejudices and deliriums that are the essence of Spain, whatever their ideology. I cited again Ledesma Ramos, with the aim of seeing what consideration he would extract. The sentence was controversial too: “Basque people are noble and their loyalty is so notorious that they convert their regional dispute in an inoffensive and ingenuous claim”.

Heard this, Batista i Roca remained thoughtful, an instant, to comment, bluntly: “And, this conception remains the same, despite the same Catalan politicians do not want that to be said. With hindsight, the likes of Adolfo Suarez and Felipe Gonzalez were more or less important officers of Fascist organizations. Could be possible that they denied their old masters? In this way, Basques will be nobles, inoffensive and ingenuous, regardless of how many Civil Guards are killed and we will be hidden separatists that cowardly wait for their time, regardless of what smiley face we put at them when they scrape-clean our pockets.

I answered that,” in Catalonia, we can only overcome this by training leaders with temper, asking ourselves everything from scratch and looking at everything from another angle, being able to cheer the quiet and to return hope the disappointed”.

A few weeks after this conversation –I am talking about 1977-, Batista i Roca published on the Catalan newspaper Avui, a sort of compendium of his thought in the last years of his life. The title cannot be more meaningful: “Begin again”. The article commences with a sentence in the most typical style of Batista i Roca, because his most original thoughts carried a comment that was highlighted by tone of voice. He also used dashes when he wrote. That sentence was “They robbed us our wallet. Now they say that they wanted to return us it –but empty”. Please note that, after it, he put that dash, means that allowed him, even when he talked, to increase his sarcastic tone. Then, like a pounding sledge hammer, used to follow expressions like “-but empty”.

I think that Batista i Roca is one of our more eminent characters that has ever produced Catalonia and its best teacher of civics as I remembered in my speech at his funeral in Barcelona. I still confess you that I miss him. His only presence would have accelerated the prelude of Independence of Catalonia. Do not go further, when the young troops of my followers go around towns and cities to spread the question “Will 1992 be the year of the Independence for Catalonia?”, not for the people to answer with a confident yes or a fearful no, but to create a new motivational image to renew the reasons of our rights with a psychological strength that was able to melt the hurdles. Or is it not true that faith is able to move mountains? Therefore, when my disciples come back to Barcelona and tell me their argues, often, what I do is asking myself What Batista i Roca would have said about that?

Some might think that, if so operative were the ways of doing and of looking at ourselves, when Batista i Roca returned from exile, why did he not found more warmth and welcome in the Catalonia of the last Borbonic restoration? On one side he was already eighty years-old, on the other, he lived in moments of considerable political confusion. I remember that, in 1976 I recommended a lot of young men with political worry that they must support Batista i Roca to formulate the prelude of Independence of Catalonia, but the proposal did not set. Some of them said that we was too far right, thing that, later, has not made them frown their eyebrows and they have featured in the most nationalist conservative candidatures. Some others, that people would suspect that shaved every morning singing “The International”, pointed that Batista i Roca was an exalted extremist and that Lenin had already sentenced that leftism was the early age illness of communism. And so on.

All this, would return us to talk again about all those who deliberately confuse political capacity with messing about with politics. However, in the foundation of all this, we find a worse ailment. Let’s talk about it: Even if it only was to wash our faces with a dirty flannel –with the previous approval from the Spanish empire-, in the last decades it was imposed a false version about the Catalan ways of life, that quiet the culpability complex of a lot of conservatives and, at the same time, seduced the leftists because they thought they could advance from romanticism. From this convenient version, with the objective of praising it, Raimon Gali gave a clarifying synthesis: “One of the qualities of Vicens i Vives and his school was that he used adequately all that the Marxist school has of usable. One of the other qualities, his vision of our bi-polarization between the wisdom and the rage, it appears to me that is the only coherent psychological explanation about our personality. All others are pure pamphlets”. Therefore, we just knew what to expect. The interpretations of other Catalans, like Batista i Roca, that had nothing to do with this non-sense of wisdom-rage, were “pamphlets”. And pamphlets have no consistency. In summary, without the half a dozen of friends that have strived to keep the figure alive, people will end up questioning the existence of Batista i Roca or if he had been a 17th Century outlaw, or if we had invented him now, like when somebody creates a fictional character for a novel. And, then, another interpretation for the prelude of Independence of Catalonia that had been made disappear.

Carles Muñoz Espinalt, 1992

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Josep Maria Batista i Roca (Barcelona, 1895-1978)

Had an intense activity in the field of anthropological research and folklore, but as an excursionist, his most important contribution was the creation of the “Minyons de Muntanya” –Catalan Boy Scouts- and his constant preoccupation for the increase of wellbeing for the young Catalans.

At political level, Batista i Roca defended, until the last minute, the right of auto determination for our people. Consequently, because of his political ideas, exiled after the War in Spain (1936-39).

We must remember that he was the main promoter of the newspaper “Excursionisme” and the patriotic movement Palestra.

"The State language immersion in Catalan makes our children vulnerable to drugs"

tAccording to José William Vega, chairman of Asocolombia, “with the last government, integration of immigrants was easier”.

Exposure of young migrants to drugs is the main consequence of schooling in Catalan language, said José William Vega García, spokesman of Asocolombia, one of the two associations of Colombian immigrants resident in the Balearic islands. This association began the campaign “No compres si no entiendes”, “Do not buy if you do not understand”, to boycott products labeled in Catalan.
Vega concludes this based on “the linguistic politics applied by the Balearic institutions make that the young Colombian newcomers unable to integrate. Because they do not integrate, failure rates at school shoot up, and, youngsters do not enjoy going to school. This fact increases absenteeism. And if young people remain all day in the street, they finally manage drugs”.
Finally, Vega concludes that “many families, in front of the danger of drugs, opt to send their children back to Colombia, so they can attend school without fearing of problems that drag the educative system in the Balearic Islands”.
The chairman of Asocolombia thinks that “during the last government, the way that language immersion in Catalan was conducted, was more effective because the number of hours taught in Catalan was progressively increased”. According to Vega, “since Unió Mallorquina is in power –qualified as radical xenophobic nationalists by the association-, children have to learn quickly another language and it is not possible”.
Classroom hosts
Asked about what would be ideal, as has happened in Catalonia, temporary “classroom hosts” for immigrants were created, Vega answered “those are totally xenophobic classrooms, that do absolutely no good to immigrants and hinder their integration”. Nevertheless, the spokesman of Asacolombia sustain that “is not contrary to the process of linguistic normalization, and for venture, could win many Colombians to the cause”.
The campaign of boycott against products that are labeled in Catalan is, according to Vega, “for safety reasons”. “How do they pretend that people buy goods that they do not know what contain?”, wanders the chairman of Asacolombia.

Vega, a character linked to the last government

This ex-militant of PP, demonstrated at la Marjal in favour of the PJ Ramirez swimming pool.

José WilliamVega García. This is the full name of the person that promotes the campaign “Do not buy if you do not understand” in the name of the association Asacolombia and it has for object to boycott products labeled in Catalan. Despite Vega’s widespread effect thanks to this campaign, he is not a new character but somebody who has tried to make himself known in the country politics for years.
In fact, this citizen, with Colombian origins that practices Medicine, was a member of the Popular Party in Calvià , from 2001 until April, 27th 2007, not long before the election campaign started. On May 26th, day of reflexion, it was discovered that he had sent, from his cell phone, messages asking for votes to his party.
After abandoning it, Vega made public a letter that said “The cessation is due to personal reasons. It was rewarding to share with the Party, in Calvià, a lot of activities and I learnt that is a party that carries out their promises. In the Balearic Islands, is the party that has made the biggest effort with the immigrants and I feel very pleased by that. This step is necessary to keep the neutrality of the association I am chairman of. And because the time has arrived for the immigrants to have their own voice heard, independent from actual political parties. We have enough capacity to name our own speakers at all levels in the political and social life in the Balearic Islands”.
Furthermore, this spokesperson of a part of the immigrant population of Colombian origins, has taken part in campaigns of big repercussion, promoted by the Spanish right wing. He participated in the infamous demonstration in 2006 at the la Marjal beach, where the platform “Son Servera basta ya” made a homage to the editor PJ Ramirez, manager of a private use swimming pool sited within public use land and sea.
During 2006, Asocolombia, was granted €7000 from the government in concept of projects and expenses, reported by sources from the Conselleria d’Afers Socials, Promoció i Immigració, the Social Affairs, Promotion and Immigration Department of the Autonomous Government of the Balearic Islands. However, is not an “scandalous” sum, as reported by Norbey Andrade, chairman of Asacol (the biggest association of Colombians of the two); they received similar quantities each year in concept of punctual aid.
Translated from OCB, Obra Cultural Balear Artà.

The price of elasticity

Has everybody got a price? Most likely so. And countries, have they got a price? Probably, especially one, called Catalonia, North-East Spain, it is being sold on the cheap, a real bargain. After some years without "Budget", the agreement that has to happen every year with the capital, Madrid, the Department of Finances of Catalonia, endorsed the terms and conditions of "a paper" that has been labelled "the Budget", with the intention of being the financial framework of the region for the next few years, until 2011 or 2012.

In front of the Catalan claim for a fairer management of the finances among the Spanish autonomous communities, it has been shown to Catalans, once again, who is in control of the country and who is to receive more or less of these monies, depending on their loyalty to certain principles, only understandable to whom has studied History of Spain in depth, as they are not principles of equality, sustainability or fair distribution of wealth but similar to vassalage. Otherwise, unconceivable to human mind, how is possible that a region that has been plundered an astonishing 10% of their GDP, as recognized by the Spanish Government in 2008, is still keeping head above water? Similar fate and equivalent plunder are being suffered by the Valencian Country and the Balearic Islands.

It is logical that the Catalan Financial Councillor presented the agreement as "the best they could get" from the Spanish Ministry of Finances, but is very surprising that all political parties in the Catalan Government quickly approved the "agreed Budget", and all as one, with unity, in the heat of the summer, are campaigning to stress its unbeatable conditions, in spite of the opinion of eminent personalities like Xavier Sala i Martin, professor of Economics at the University of Columbia; Francesc Sanuy, lawyer and Catalan politician, and commentator to Catalan media; Muriel Casals, professor of Economical Analysis at the Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona; Alfons Lopez Tena, judge and politician, as well as so many others who have already claimed that this agreement looks between a farce and a sarcasm.

With so much division between the Government and the society, why do still exist political parties that are consenting such monumental robbery to the Catalan Nation? Is it more important their position in the Government than the defence of the people who voted for them in the last Election? It appears so. Or perhaps we have an idealistic approach to what politics and advocacy for the people -also called voters, must be. Perhaps I am antiqued to expect that if I vote for a candidate, I want my rights fought by them on my behalf, and not only their rights as representatives of the community.

As it seems it has happened, once again, in Catalonia, with similar result. One more genuflexion and one more bow from the Catalan government to Spain, to preserve stability within the Government and to remain in the same chairs -empty of power, which the Spaniards reinvented in 1979 to please ingenuous Catalans. I cannot compare the actual Financial Councillor of Catalonia, Antoni Castells, with Joan Fiveller, who, in 1416, made the King Ferdinand accountable of paying taxes to the meat, like every citizen of Barcelona under his rule. Since then, Fiveller signifies the paradigm of the power of the people in front of the power of the King.

Both men achieved something, but I can guarantee that Antoni Castells will be not remembered in the same way. Perhaps because Fiveller showed no elasticity in front of the bigger power he was challenging. Should Fiveller, like Castells, had failed in this task and who knows if the King, affronted, would have executed the Councillor at dawn. Nowadays, at least in Western countries, people are not executed for dissent, but it does not stop them from being humiliated and exhibited as losers.

And this is the main difference among the old and the new Catalans. History has shown, time after time, that people who win show no elasticity and has no price for it. Keeping their temper and never capitulating to bigger powers. Josep Maria Batista i Roca said in 1976 that "Spaniards robbed our wallet. Now they have returned it to us -but empty". The situation could not be more graphically described, more than 30 years ago.

Jordi Margalef i Turull
United Kingdom

We'll stand our ground, Fundación DENAES!

Spain is wounded and the only thing that comes to her rescue is an organization called "Fundación en Defensa de la Nación Española (DENAES)", foundation for the defence of the Spanish Nation, which is no more than a British Legion retirement home but for civilians. If Spain can only count with these "troops", I was very pessimistic when I asserted, after the Spanish Cup final FC Barcelona vs Athletic Club Bilbao that Spain would fall after two more jeering to the King and Anthem. I am now convinced that we will do it with the referee's whistle on its own.

Basques' and Catalans' victory at Mestalla (Valencia) against the Spanish Anthem and King, encouraged by ESAIT and Catalunya Acció, who have both been called before the Spanish High Court -where offences of terrorism are trialled, for "affront to Spain", "stirring of racial hatred" and some more bullshit. This, which would resemble a script for a comical movie, is what DENAES, so defending democratic tradition, they say, are presenting before the High Court.

However, to show exactly what DENAES is, you need to look at who their Patrons of Honour are. Amongst them, ex-military Sabino Fernandez Campo, ex-head of the Spanish Royal estates and who entered in Barcelona, blood and fire, with the Francoist troops on January 26th 1939. This democratic "prodigy", who mentored the Spanish King for years, declared to "El Pais", Spanish newspaper, on July 16th 2001, "… to those who I remember, are who received the General Franco forces which fascist qualification I cannot subscribe to". I must add that, shamefully for Catalonia, Jordi Pujol, Autonomous President of Catalonia, conceded him the St George's Cross in 1988.

This element, forty or fifty years ago, probably would have been involved in the execution of the representatives of ESAIT and Catalunya Acció, but now has only the Spanish High Court, and in the near future, not even that, as, at least in Catalonia, the independence process is speeding day after day. Then, it will be when they will be able to rely only on the craftsmanship of their swords.

But, if they believe that can draw us back with claims like DENAES chairmen, Santiago Abascal, they are very wrong. Catalunya Acció is composed by men and women that are not like the actual Catalan politicians, to whom they are used to deal with. We do not withdraw our patriotism at the minimal cockiness this people vent nor are made from the same material as Pujol, former Autonomous President, or Carod, actual vice-president. Furthermore, in the 21st Century, the Spaniards cannot count with the "Moor Guard" or comrades like Hitler or Mussolini like in 1939.

Despite all this, they continue with the ill obsession of wanting to convert us into Spaniards, by force, without noting that the future Catalan or Basque State depends exclusively on our own will, democratically expressed, and because of this, they are so threatened. Because they know that the past May 13th, at Mestalla (Valencia), meant the visualization of the Catalans' and Basques' urge of freedom. It was the introduction of our independence with worldwide witnesses. Will it continue?

I am absolutely convinced that the next matches between "cules" (FC Barcelona) and "lions" (Athletic Club Bilbao) to be played in the next few weeks will be another claim for the freedom of the Basque Country and Catalonia. Not forgetting that it will be another chance to show our most energetic rejection, the try to present the thousands of patriots that exercised the right of something as basic as a protest, as some common offenders. Let San Mames and the Camp Nou be another impressive jeer against Spain and a loud shout for the dignity of both countries.

Santiago Espot
CEO Catalunya Acció

Argentinean land, the southern border

  
                     Flag of Argentina                                        Flag of Catalonia

Catalan signs are well present in this South American country, like elsewhere in the continent. The actual denomination of Argentina might have its origin in the Catalan word "argent", well used word with meaning of "silver", despite the official explanation still remains as "argentum", from the Latin. But if the first Europeans that arrived in that large area were Catalans, and not Spanish, like we have been told, it would not be strange that the Catalan name for the Riu d'Argent, "River Plate", had been the name of reference for the whole country.

Furthermore, it happens that the name of its capital,Buenos Aires, it has Catalan origins too. It may be proved, for example, by the existence of other places with the toponym Bonaire, that clearly show the roots of the word, which would have been carried by the Catalans from an original of great devotion in the island of Sardinia, the Sanctuary of Bonaria, and that could not stay in the literal translation to Spanish like "Buen Aire", as it denounces its Catalan origin, although it had been worshipped, with the Spanish name, in Seville too. Therefore, it became Buenos Aires, unique in the World.



Besides these two cases, there are a lot of other toponyms that are clearly Catalan, like in the rest of the American continent. Names that reproduce Catalan lineages and names of places and cities around the territories of our Nation, Catalonia, that are widespread from all four corners of the continent and have survived the step of time. One of the cases it has surprised me the most lately, is to find that the Isla Grande de la "Tierra de Fuego", in the southern corner of the country, was named as "Illa de Xàtiva ", until Philip V erased this denomination after the Succession War (1702-1714). The King abolished all own Catalan institutions, set fire to the city of Xativa and deported its inhabitants with the intention of completely exterminate it from the memory, and in its place, to build the Colonia Nueva San Felipe. In line with this, the King exchanged the name of the American island for the one that holds today. As punishment to Catalans and one more example among others, with the aim of making disappear as a Nation and from History, and like this case, the Valencian city that named a little portion of America.

Idiomatic influences in words and phonetics of Catalan language that are present in South American Spanish, are equally reproduced in Argentina, with a special particularity: the expression "Txe!", so characteristic of the Argentines and that evokes to the presence of a destroyed and forgotten past and an important presence of Valencian population, reconverted into a Spanish speaking community. Curious it is also that the greeting "buen día”, generally said by South Americans, is a calque of the Catalan "bon dia" and not the Spanish "buenos dias", exactly the same difference as in Bon Aire- Buenos Aires.

Luckily, these traces of Catalan subtract help to recompose the puzzle of contradictions that the Spanish official report has left us and to remake the true History. Images also help, like these from the exact replica of the ship Victoria, which made the first around the world trip, built following the original plans and inaugurated at the Argentinean port of San Julian as a touristic attraction, where the flags shown are Catalan and not the lions and castles, another proof that the first circumvallation to the world was Catalan and not Spanish.The Argentinean Republic is another country that has a federal structure in America.

Formed by 23 States, called provinces and a Federal District, that is the autonomous city of Buenos Aires. Each State is holder of all competencies that have not expressly delegated to the Federal Government by the Constitution. Exactly opposite to the Spanish State, now and always, that is a central unitary power which delegates and decentralize. The old Catalan politic model is reproduced in Argentina, too.

As it could not be otherwise, Catalans had their own role in the independence of the country. When the British Army invaded Buenos Aires in 1806, the only resistance was from the "Voluntaris Urbans -Urban Voluntaries- or "Companyia dels Minyons Catalans" -Catalan Lads Coy-, militia founded by Catalans in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, following the tradition of the "Sometent" and the "Companyia de Voluntaris de Catalunya" -Catalonian Voluntaries Coy-. The initiative of Jaume Nadal i Guarda, Jaume Lavallol, Oleguer Reinals and Joan Larreu was the origin to the creation of other militia.

As the Spanish Government was not able to defend the colonies, many urban militias were created from then, and the victories over the British Army made increase the confidence and patriotism. One of the defenders that stood out was Domenech Matheu i Xicola, later, president of the Revolutionary "Junta" in 1811. In 1809, the Catalan voluntaries participated in the rebellion against the Spanish viceroy, the beginning of the movement in May 1810 and that ended with the proclamation of freedom of the United Provinces on July 9th 1816. Precisely a Minorcan resident in Buenos Aires remembered us this date and reproduced the Declaration of Independence with respect to the "despotic power of the Kings of Spain".

Also, like in the majority of American Countries, a typical Catalan traditional hat or Phrygian hat is present, highlighted, in the coat of arms, as a symbol of freedom. The national motto, "In union and freedom", is a lesson to Catalans of today that want to recuperate freedom for our country too. Freedom that has called the Argentineans that live in Catalonia, like Catalans contributed in its defence and independence, and that later, received exiled and migrants from all territories of our Nation in the past. Together with the ones that were the political first line, others like Doctor Cosme Argerich or the engineer Felip Senillosa were decisive figures in the construction of the new country.

It is the Argentineans, now, who emigrate and arrive in Catalonia to work, the majority of them, not knowing that they arrive in a country with a personality that resist the cultural integration in Spain that was not possible to stop there, and can be instruments of the same Spanish will that would have preferred that Argentina had continued subdued. But others, like Patricia Gabancho or Sr Lucia, become authentic Catalans and active stars of the defence of freedom. Such example will embarrass a lot of local Catalans who work for our dissolution in Spain.

Published at “Es Poblat de’n Talaiotic”
Member of Catalunya Accio

Catalonia Action begins its disembark in Europe

Press release published on April 1st, 2006
A few days ago the Catalonia Action management did several contacts with some deputies and officials at the European Parliament coming from different states, in order to personally inform them about the project to build an independent Catalan state in about a decade. In all cases the acceptance was very positive.

In parallel with these contacts, on Saturday March 25th, the Executive President of Catalonia Action, Mr. Santiago Espot, presented the strategic guidelines of “The 2014 Independence Plan" on a public conference at the Catalan Center of Lausanne (Switzerland). The event was very emotive, specially for those Catalans who for several reasons had to leave our country but they keep wanting to see it free. This conference managed to renew completely the audience's will and energies and their determination to collaborate actively with Catalonia Action. This first public event outside our homeland will be followed by a series of similar conferences, promoted by other Catalan Centers around the world, which are already showing a strong interest to collaborate actively with Catalonia Action, and which will be an important factor to internationalize the conflict that Catalans have with Spain and France since many years ago.

To learn more about Catalonia Action:
http://www.catalunyaaccio.org/