A million and a half people took to the streets of Barcelona, according to police estimates, to demand independence for the autonomous Spanish region of Catalonia as the country as a whole faces crippling debt.
At least one train and more than 1,000 coaches were chartered to bring supporters from all over the region to the march. The mob filled the streets with red and yellow Catalan flags, rallying under the slogan "Catalonia, a new European state," chanting "what do the crowds want? A new European state! What do the people want? An independent Catalonia!"
A swelling unemployment rate combined with financial instability have fueled the secessionist spirit. Polls published on Tuesday show that 46.4% support the independence bid – twice as many as in 2008, when the financial crisis began, writes The Guardian.
The autonomous Spanish community, whose economy is bigger than the entirety of neighboring Portugal's, accounts for a fifth of Spanish output.
But it is burdened by the austerity cuts put forth by the Spanish and European governments in response to the global economic crisis that has left one in four Spaniards jobless.
Source with photos: Russia Today, 12 September 2012
Comments
Re: Over a million protesters demand Catalonian independence
Re: Over a million protesters demand Catalonian independence
Catalonia (population 7.5 million) is an autonomous region (they don’t even speak Spanish) that the central (pro-banker) government is sucking dry. Catalonia pays 15 billion euros more every year to Madrid than it gets back in funding for services and public projects. Despite Barcelona being an economic pole, a new high-speed railway network connected several other regional center to Madrid before reaching Barcelona. And unlike in the rest of Spain, Catalonia's motorway system has received almost no investment. Madrid considers Catalonians to be rich, spoilt, constantly complaining, and forever playing the victim.
Madrid keeps control of Catalonia via debt. Last month, Catalonia’s pro-banker politicians borrowed five billion euros from Madrid, and dumped the debt on the masses in the form of austerity that is even worse than the rest of Spain. So now, the Catalonian masses want 5 billion euros back from the central government's “rescue fund.” If they can’t get that, then the masses want Catalonia to collect and manage its own taxes, like the Basque Country.
Spanish and Catalan politicians will meet on 20 September to discuss how to deflect all this, and keep the masses enslaved.
This protest is only the beginning. There will be more and more populist independence movements throughout the world, along with more and more violence against them by central (banker-controlled) governments.
Scotland wants to hold a referendum on independence in 2014. Naturally the British media is already warning that this would mean the death of all people in Scotland. Anyway, Britain will rig any referendum so that the vote favors continued slavery to the City of London.