Published originally in Spanish. Manuel Jabois. El País. Four years ago, I had to sit down with Oriol Junqueras for a ‘cute’ interview — a summer genre I’m not great at because I’m not that cute. I decided to kill two birds with one stone and booked an interview with the adult-cinema director Erika Lust […]
Categoría: In English
I am a bad Catalan
Originally published in Spanish. Pablo Mediavilla Costa. I was born in Barcelona, though we haven’t get along well. I always felt weird in it, as if it was a film set −one of the most fascinating ones− or me an extra. I lived there until my 23, in a town in the outskirts, and I […]
Personal memories
Original autor: Grad Student in USA. Tomorrow [October 1], the government in Catalonia will try to organize a referendum to declare, unilaterally, the secession from the rest of Spain. This process has been opposed by the central government, and by most population in Spain. People in Catalonia are also divided, but at this point, it […]
Is the ‘right to decide’ democratic?
Published originally in Spanish. Juan Claudio de Ramón. El País. One of the most striking aspects of the Spanish territorial crisis is the uncritical and almost automatic embracing by the left of the famous “right to decide”. The entire Catalan left, and a large part of the Spanish left too, have endorsed the use of […]
They have accustomed to spit on the rest of Spaniards
Félix Ovejero interviewed by Emilia Landaluce. Originally in Spanish. El Mundo. What such a boring, the Catalan issue… You see it. I wish we could be talking about poetry. But everything seems to lead us to the same place. And we must stick our neck out. That was, in essence, what I was referring to […]
The Ten Lies of the Rigged Referendum
Published originally in Spanish. Ignacio Varela. El Confidencial. Speaking to someone who had a long experience on international monitoring of electoral processes, I asked what an observer committee (of the European Parliament, for example) would do if it were requested to inspect the intended referendum of the October 1st in its current status. The answer […]
To laugh or to cry
Published originally in Spanish. Laura Freixas. La Vanguardia. Our president calls for a referendum that lacks a voter registry, an electoral commission, civil servants or voting places. Isn’t that worth laughing? The government is presided by a gentleman who didn’t run for the position, and whose star project is one that wasn’t in the electoral […]
Why Colm Tóibín is wrong about Catalonia
In a recent article published in the Guardian, Irish writer Colm Tóibín defended Catalonia’s referendum. Many of his arguments could be debated, and more than a few of his statements seem ill-informed.
Constitutional Democracy and the secession referendum in Catalonia (III, IV)
Published originally in Spanish. Manuel Toscano. JotDown. Constitutional Democracy and the secession referendum in Catalonia (II) III The above discussion refers roughly to what in the literature are known as ascriptive and plebiscitarian theories of secession. There is also a third way of justifying secession, according to which it could be morally justified as the […]
Tarda’s youth
Published originally in Spanish. Ricardo Dudda. El País. On September 22, Esquerra Republicana MP Joan Tardà gave a speech to students of the University of Barcelona. He said: «We have the commitment to give birth to the [Catalan] Republic, but it is you who will lead it. And if you do not, you will commit […]