I must admit I've had a particularly grumpy couple of days due to the news that the Spanish State Public Prosecuter (Fiscal del Estado) Eduardo Torres-Dulce is insisting on bringing charges  of disobedience and perversion of justice among others against Catalan President Artur Mas and Vice President Joana Ortega as well as possibly against Minister of Education Irene Rigau and Minister of the Interior Ramon Espadaler. All the charges arise from the Catalan participative vote that was held on Sunday 9th November so let's review what happened.

Legal Action Against 9n

The Catalans have been wanting to hold some kind of referendum on independence ever since the massive demonstration in Barcelona on September 11th 2012 and have tried to get agreement from central government by every means possible. Last May permission to hold a referendum was refused by Spanish Congress with all major parties, including PSOE, voting against giving Catalans the right to express their opinion democratically.

In September, the Catalan Parliament passed a Law of Non-Referendary Consultations and President Mas signed a decree calling a non-binding consultation on Catalan independence for November 9th or 9N, as it became known. The consultation, which may I remind you wasn't even a referendum but a non-binding way of collecting the Catalan people's opinion, was almost immediately prohibited by Spain's Constutional Court.

Apart from there being something extremely perverse about not allowing people to vote, central government's use of the Spanish judiciary as a weapon in what is essentially a political disagreement has been extremely cynical. Furthermore, politicising the legal system is an extremely dangerous road to go down. In a modern democracy, Politics and the The Law (both in capital letters) should be kept completely separate.

The Sacred Spanish Constitution

The Spanish government's argument at all times has been that a referendum on Catalan independence is both illegal and unconstitutional because the Spanish nation is 'indissoluble' and sovereignty resides in all the Spanish people. However, Spain has had 12 different constitutions over the last 200 years so they're not exactly written in stone.

The current constitution was rushed through in 1978 shortly after the death of Franco, when Spain was still under the threat of a military coup, by a group of politicians that included a number of Franco's ex-ministers, Manuel Fraga and Rodolfo Martín Villa being two of the most obnoxious members.

Similarly, the current constitution was modified in 1992 and then again in 2011 so when Spanish politicians want to make changes, they are happy to do so. The problem with the Catalan question is that there is no political will from central government to resolve it so they use the law and the constitution out of sheer laziness.

9N Goes Ahead

Anyway, once the consultation had been blocked by the constitutional court, the Catalans were bound to find a way round it and announced that they would be holding a 'participative process' on November 9th. It wouldn't be called by decree so it would be even less official than the consultation. The official census wouldn't be used to avoid coming into conflict with data protection laws and voting wouldn't be at normal polling stations but on Generalitat-owned properties so there would be no last-minute hitches. Furthermore, all people manning the polling stations would be volunteers because any civil servants involved in official capacity had been threatened with suspension from work by central government.

Basically, what was being organised was a big voting festival that had no more validity than signing a petition. Central government's initial reaction was to make fun of the event saying that it included no democratic guarantees. This was perfectly true but the symbolic meaning of 9N was completely obvious.

Soon there were over 40,000 volunteers willing to man the polling stations and the Generalitat invented a system whereby voters registered using their identity card guaranteeing that nobody could vote more than once. This meant the voting results would be pretty reliable and actually counting the number of people who voted in favour of independence is a lot more powerful than estimating the number of people on a demonstration.

A Confused Spanish Government

The Spanish government started to get rattled and typically turned to the legal system to do their dirty work for them. About 5 days before the 'New 9N', the Constitutional Court had a difficult ruling to make. How could they ban something that hadn't been officially called, had no validity and was being organised by volunteers? They couldn't stop the event taking place so they ruled that the Generalitat should take no further part in the organisation of the vote.

Central government continued with its mixed messages. On the evening before the 9N vote, Spanish President Mariano Rajoy made a speech saying that he had promised that a consultation wouldn't take place and the following day's vote wasn't a real consultation so he had kept his word. Effectively what he was saying was that they had tried to illegalise something that wasn't happening.

The 9N vote was an extraordinary success. The day was happy, festive and peaceful and the vote was extremely well-organised. This was confirmed by a group of international observers led by British MEP Ian Duncan, who celebrated the Catalans' desire for democracy.

Over 2.3 million Catalans voted, which made up around 40% of the census, and of these about 1.9 million voted in favour of independence. Given the difficult circumstances, although not yet a majority, the turnout and vote in favour show that a significant number of Catalans want to be allowed to express their opinion and many of those want to break away from Spain.

A Break With Spain

However, even more significant was the fact that more than 2.3 million Catalans had deliberately disobeyed the Constitutional Court ruling. In fact, many people had got to the polling stations early just in case the police came later to withdraw the ballot boxes. What had happened was a massive act of civil disobedience. Normally law-abiding Catalans had ignored the wishes of the Spanish government and would have stood up against the police. The divide between Catalonia and Spain had just widened and for most of the people who voted on 9N Catalonia is no longer part of Spain.

During the day, Catalan President admitted full legal responsibility for the event, which was in effect another way of sticking two fingers up at Mariano Rajoy's government and their constitutional court lackeys. However, given the success of the day, this should have been no surprise to anyone. By accepting responsibility, he was staking his claim to continue leading a political process that looks increasingly like it's going to end in independence for Catalonia. He is a politician after all.

Time To Talk

All the posturing over, with a very clear message from the Catalan people, it would have made sense for the Spanish government to start to talk. The message from the international press was that the Catalans should be allowed a legal vote and when you stop and think about it, this is the only way to avoid what might turn out to be an unpleasant confrontation.

Furthermore, a proper debate on the pros and cons needs to take place and who knows, in much the same way as the Better Together campaign did in Scotland, Spain might be able to convince the Catalans that they still have a future within the Spanish state.

Legal Action Against Artur Mas

However, almost immediately Mariano Rajoy was back up to his old tricks. It wasn't the Constitutional Court this time but rather the Fiscalia General del Estado - the State Public Prosecutor's Office - who were asked to take legal action against Artur Mas and other Catalan ministers accused of disobedience and perversion of justice. The State Public Prosecutor duly drew up the charges and sent them to the Fiscalia del Tribunal Superior de Catalunya, who would be responsible for the prosecution before the Tribunal Superior de Catalunya or the Catalan Supreme Court.

Last week the Catalan Public Prosecutors met and after more than a day's deliberations reached the decision, by 6 to 3, that the accusations against Artur Mas and the other ministers wouldn't stand up in court. Let's face it, disobedience and perversion of justice for organising something which the government claims didn't take place and if it did was run by volunteers are pretty flimsy charges.

Unfortunately, the government insisted and ordered the State Public Prosecutor Eduardo Torres-Dulce to pressurise his Catalan homologue José Romero de Tejada, who put the charges before the Catalan Public Prosecutors again. This time they voted unanimously against and it looks like all hell's going to break loose because the government insists that the law acts on its behalf.

Can't they just let it drop? It seems not.

As former Vanguardia editor José Antich wrote in Ara yesterday "It's an old tradition. They always take the wrong route. We have to get used to it. There's a normal intelligent way to go, and they always unequivocally take the wrong one."

I think he's right. Every time one of these confrontations between Catalonia and Spain looms, I can't help but expect them to behave like normal human beings. When they react like raving totalitarians I feel hurt and upset because it's actually not any good for anyone. The best thing to do would be to sit down and talk.

However, after a bit of a rant and a rave yesterday, I've finally come to realise that it's just another stage in the separation process. 2.3 million Catalans now no longer feel Spanish and it looks as if the Catalan legal system is about to unhook from Spain as well.

It's quite possible that Torres-Dulce will force the Catalan Public Prosecutors to take legal action against Artur Mas but if he does the results for Spain will only be worse. The Catalan Prosecutors have to build the case against Artur Mas and then they have to argue it before the judges of the Catalan Supreme Court. They've already said that they don't think there's a decent case against the Catalan President so they're going to have their work cut out to be convincing.

Furthermore, due to the qualification system known as opposiciones, many of the Catalan Public Prosectors tend to be Spanish-speaking and have often been sent to Catalonia from other parts of Spain. However, judges tend to be Catalan because they've worked their way up through the legal system here in Catalonia. To make matters worse for the government, a lot of them tend to be in favour of independence for Catalonia so if the Catalan Public Prosecutors try to bring charges against Artur Mas, the case is going to have to be watertight otherwise it won't be accepted.

It seems to me that Spanish government, as José Antich suggests, is taking the worst decision it possibly can. I was unhappy about this yesterday but now I'm looking on the bright side. Independence for Catalonia has just got one step closer.

***

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I have decided to serialise my new book Catalonia Is Not Spain: A Historical Perspective on EyeOnSpain. Here's the first chapter An Adopted Catalan. If you like what you read you can buy the book on Amazon.

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***

Chapter 1: An Adopted Catalan

When I arrived in Barcelona in 1988, I landed in what I thought was Barcelona, Spain. I had no idea that Catalonia had ever been a separate country or had aspirations of separating from Spain again in the future. I immediately fell in love with life in the city of Barcelona and my early trips up the coast and out into the Catalan countryside convinced me that I'd wound up in a pretty cool place.

Catalonia still felt like a region of Spain to me so given the choice of two languages, I opted to learn Spanish rather than Catalan. All the bilingual Catalans spoke Spanish anyway and it would also mean I'd be able to get by on jaunts around the rest of Spain.

Adaptation

The process of immersion in Catalan culture was a slow one. I suppose it began by choosing to support FC Barcelona rather than Real Madrid and continued as I started to watch more and more television in Catalan. In those days, Spanish television was as dreadful as it is now and was mainly game shows, South American soap operas and dumb gossip programmes.

I vividly remember the first time I switched the dial on my cheap portable TV over to Catalan TV3 and was greeted by an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In fact, the 'Space the final frontier..' introduction was the first thing I ever memorised in the Catalan language. What's more, I was probably feeling a bit homesick and lots of British series were shown on TV3. Dubbed versions of sitcoms, such as Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and Yes, Minister, and the soaps Eastenders, Coronation Street and Neighbours all made me feel much more at home even if it was a little surrealistic hearing Michael Crawford say 'Oooh, Betty ...' and then continue in Catalan.

This must have been around 1989 or 1990 and I wasn't yet familiar with some of the differences between Catalan and Spanish culture. To be perfectly honest, everything seemed a foreign jumble to me. I do remember thinking, though, that if these people chose to show British TV series, they probably had more in common with me than the ones that chose to show South American soaps and bullfighting.

My grasp of the language improved very quickly and I began to notice the positive effect that a few words of Catalan had on people. I was mainly freelance English teaching in those days and every time I went to meet a new client things seemed to go better if I introduced myself in Catalan, apologised for my limitations and then switched to Spanish. So in many respects my first reason for getting to grips with the language was in order to get better work.

A Personal Introduction

The crucial person in this early period, though, was my ex-wife's, then girlfriend's, Aunt Magdalena, a committed Catalanist who was in her sixties and so had lived in Barcelona throughout most of the turbulent 20th century. Aunt Magdalena told me stories of the Spanish Civil War, of getting arrested for speaking Catalan under Franco and of the celebrations in Barcelona on the night the dictator died. As they were personal anecdotes, everything hit home much more deeply and my imagination was fired. I remember one story she told of how, unlike most of her generation, she learnt to read and write in Catalan.

In 1939, as soon as the Civil War was over, all schooling was done in Spanish even though this was long before the mass immigration to Catalonia from the rest of Spain began in the 1950s. All the children and teachers at Magdalena's school in the working-class neighbourhood of Poblenou spoke Catalan as their first language but weren't allowed to speak it in class.

Magdalena's class teacher made a pact with the children and their parents. All lessons would be done in Castilian Spanish during the school day and the children would stay behind for an extra hour to go over the lessons again in Catalan. This would serve both as revision and the chance to study in Catalan. It had to be a secret and the schoolbooks couldn't leave the classroom under any circumstances. The teacher hid the books behind the false back of the classroom cupboard. As she was quite pretty, every time the school inspector came, she would flirt with him to make sure he didn't look too closely at what was in the cupboard.

Magdalena and her friend Mercè would also take my ex-wife and I on cultural excursions out into different parts of Catalonia. This was taken as a great excuse for her to teach me Catalan history. She'd had polio as a child and had a walking stick that she used not only as a means of support but also as a form of exclamatory punctuation as she told her stories. I vividly remember her standing on the beach at Cambrils. She waved her stick in the air in the vague direction of the Balearic Islands proclaiming that it was here from where the fleet of Jaume I the Conqueror had sailed on the quest to capture Mallorca from the Saracens.

Magdalena's claims that Catalonia had once had an empire covering a third of Spain, the bottom half of France and most of the Mediterranean, including parts of Italy and Greece, struck me as a little far-fetched. I started reading up on the subject in various languages, English, Catalan and Spanish, and found that all these claims were backed up by reputable historians. Why had I never heard anything about this? I wondered.

Integration

In 1992, I moved to the Barcelona suburb of Sant Andreu and set up home with my future wife. Having moved away from the city centre expat haunts, the integration process accelerated. Gradually my social life became more locally centred and soon I was a regular attender at the Narcis Sala football stadium, home to third division UE Sant Andreu.

I also got to know my in-laws much better and to a certain extent, became a member of a Catalan family. One of the things that struck me was how Catalan they were in private but how they became Spanish in public. Catalan was the only language spoken over Sunday dinner behind the closed doors of the family home.

After lunch, Jaume, my Catalan father-in-law, and I would sometimes go for a beer in one of the local bars. As the lift hit the ground floor and we walked out into the street, Jaume suddenly became Jaime using the Spanish version of his name and only speaking Spanish.

It struck me as very strange having two versions of your name, one private and one public. I could only surmise that the change in identity went back to the Franco period when, if not completely illegal, speaking Catalan in public was definitely frowned upon. Nearly 20 years after the death of the dictator this was the learned behaviour that had become a habit. My father-in-law had no particular political axe to grind. He had always always kept his nose clean in order to earn a decent living for his family.

Another formative experience was attending the wedding of one of my wife's cousins in the Empordà region up near the French border. Half the guests were Spanish. The other half were French and included the children of uncles and aunts who had moved across the border during the dictatorship. The language used by everyone was Catalan and this was the first time I witnessed that the Catalan identity stretched beyond the borders of Spain. Perhaps it was true that the Catalans were a stateless nation who still occupied a territory much larger than modern Catalonia. The common bond between these people was obviously the language.

In 1994, my daughter Carme was born and becoming the father of a little Catalan girl, brought home what the expression 'mother tongue' really meant. When a mother comforts her baby or sings them to sleep at night, they do this in the language that comes most naturally to them and in my wife's case it was Catalan. Speaking to her daughter in her native language certainly wasn't any kind of strident political act as some people had led me to believe.

A Political Perspective

By the time Jose Maria Aznar's first Partido Popular government came to power in 1996, my affections were already Catalan. Beyond the odd insult for supporting Barça and once getting physically thrown out of a bar in Mallorca for ordering in Catalan, I wasn't really aware of how much the existence of the Catalan language annoyed a certain section of Spanish society. This all changed very quickly under a Partido Popular government.

It was immediately obvious that the Partido Popular's electoral tactic was to appeal to conservative deep Spain by attacking Catalans and Basques in much the same way as right-wing parties in Britain attack immigrants and attempt to create 'an ogre within'. As the legislature continued, so did the anti-Catalan insults, especially from the likes of Minister of Education, Culture and Sport, Esperanza Aguirre. I felt I was being pushed towards an increasingly pro-Catalan position but the idea of Catalonia as an independent state was still very far from my mind.

My political position at the time was broadly Catalan socialist. I supported PSC, the Catalan affiliate of PSOE, the Spanish equivalent of the Labour Party. Despite a growing commitment to Catalan history, culture and language, I wasn't yet convinced by the purely Catalan political parties. The hopes of Esquerra Republicana for an independent Catalonia were simply not realistic in the 1990s. The middle-class Catalan conservatism of Convergència i Unió smacked of racism and snobbery at times.

One might not be totally happy that more than 2 million Spanish-speaking emigrants had come to Catalonia during Franco's dictatorship but for Catalonia to live in harmony, they had to be integrated. PSC or the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya was basically an alliance between working-class Andalusian trades unionists and middle-class Catalan left-wing intelligentsia. It seemed the only party capable of serving the needs of both Catalans and Spanish speakers at the time.

In Defence of Education

My daughter had started pre-school in 1997 but it was when she began Primary School in 1999 that I really got the chance to see the Catalan education system from the inside.

I hadn't really given the idea of linguistic immersion much thought before but in a neighbourhood like Sant Andreu, which is about 50% Catalan-speaking and 50% Spanish-speaking, it definitely made sense that the main language of teaching was Catalan. My daughter came from a bilingual Catalan-English home but had picked up Castilian Spanish through television and other kids at pre-school so, by the time she started proper school, she was comfortably trilingual.

Lots of her friends, who spoke Spanish at home and only watched Spanish TV, though, would never learn Catalan unless proactive measures were taken. Teaching the majority of subjects in Catalan definitely seemed the best way to ensure that all my daughter's classmates would grow up bilingual. In the long run, this was the only way to guarantee a peaceful and integrated society.

As I was very happy with the education my daughter was getting, I was appalled to see attacks from Madrid on the Catalan school system and Education Minister Esperanza Aguirre's plans to make Catalan optional and homogenise the humanities syllabus were completely ridiculous. Having done quite a lot of reading about Catalan and Spanish history by that point, I realised that they were two quite different stories. Normally the Spanish version simply didn't bother to mention Catalonia's medieval empire or the conquest of the Iberian peninsula's eastern coast from the Moors. For most Spanish school history books, the founding of Spain began in Asturias, was consolidated in Castile and finished in Andalusia.

If central government had its way, my daughter would be taught an edited version of the truth. The official picture of Spain as a homogenous indissoluble unit conflicted with the Catalan view of a group of independent states that had gradually come together to form a nation state between the 15th and 18th centuries.

Another effect of having a school age daughter was that it acted as a motivation to take my Catalan to another level. I could already get by in Catalan but it seemed enormously important to be able to help my daughter with her homework and the only way to do that was by working on my Catalan. It was interesting actually because I started off with really easy subjects when my daughter was five and things got progressively more difficult as she got older.

I also started reading a lot more history and politics and colleagues at the British Council began commenting on how strange I was for being so keen on Catalan language and culture. However, the language was a key factor in getting a teaching job at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona so perhaps I wasn't so strange after all!

By this time I was also already writing what would later become my first book Going Native in Catalonia, which was published in 2008. I was a Catalanist in all but the idea of full independence. I identified completely with the defence of the Catalan identity and understood Catalonia's complaints against the centralist Spanish  government but separating from Spain completely still seemed impractical.

Autonomy and Democracy

When José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's PSOE replaced José Maria Aznar's Partido Popular as Spain's governing party in 2004, the atmosphere of tension appeared to subside considerably. Political decisions were still taken in Madrid but at least Catalonia wasn't on the receiving end of attacks and insults.

Around 2005 I finally picked up on news that a new Statute of Autonomy was being drafted. Popularly known as the Estatut, it would bring the out of date 1978 Statute into line with current feelings and specifically recognise some of Catalonia's historic differences with the rest of Spain. This seemed like a perfect compromise to me.

The new Estatut was finalised and approved by the Catalan Parliament in 2006 and although I heard complaints that clauses had been removed or modified by the Spanish Parliament in Madrid, it still felt like a step forward. The revised document received a convincing majority when it was put to referendum in Catalonia. My argument at the time was that now we had a few more rights in the bag, the next step would be to push for some more.

I heard rumours that the Partido Popular were going to appeal against the Estatut but not being actively involved in politics at the time, I didn't take them very seriously. Furthermore, in autumn 2008 I became quite ill so I was busy worrying about other things. Just as I was pulling through the worst of the illness in the late-spring of 2010, it seemed as if the Spanish Constitutional Court ruling on the Estatut was about to be announced.

I dismissed talk that Madrid would never cede any extra power to Catalonia as pessimistic fear-mongering. When news broke that the Estatut had been declared unconstitutional on June 27th 2010, I couldn't believe it. I was utterly and completely flabbergasted.

How could it be? The Estatut had been voted on by the Parliament of Catalonia, approved by the Spanish Congress and Senate in Madrid and finally ratified by the Catalan people. After so many democratic processes how could it possibly be unconstitutional?

At that moment I, and many like me, realised that however much Catalonia tried to make a space for itself within Spain, its claims would always be rejected. Any plurality or deviation from the official Spanish identity would not be tolerated. I'd been pro-Catalan for a long time but after the Constitutional Court ruling it became clear that independence for Catalonia was the only way forward.

A couple of weeks later, I joined more than million Catalans on the demonstration in central Barcelona against the Estatut sentence. We shouted "Som una nació. Nosaltres decidim" - 'We are nation. We decide.' - until we were hoarse. I don't think many of us were very clear of where this would take us but as events have since shown, there was no turning back.

With over 2,225,000 votes cast in the Catalan participatory vote in Catalonia alone, what has become known as the new 9N can be considered a massive success for both democratic principles and the Catalan people. With 80% of voters voting in favour of outright independence, it really looks like the Spanish government would be wise to start to take notice of the wishes of the Catalan people, although given their track record and initial statements from the Minister of Justice last night, this seems unlikely.

As you can see from the graphic above with 84% of votes counted, the Si-Si votes have come out a clear winner with an estimated 80% of votes counted. At the time of writing, this amounted to 1,649,239 in favour of independence from Spain.

Please remember that the question was "Are you in favour of Catalonia becoming a state? In the case of an affirmative answer, do you want that state to be independent?"

The Si-Nos, who want to see significant changes to the Spanish constitution and have Catalonia remain within a Federal Spain, polled 10% whilst those clearly against any change in the current relationship between Catalonia and Spain polled 4,55%.

Obviously, the results of the Catalan Participatory Vote would not be replicated in a legal referendum because yesterday the Si-Sis were the group who were most motivated to vote. If a legal referendum were agreed with the Spanish government, both the Nos and the Si-Nos would be able to mount a campaign and the opinions would be more evenly spread, although yesterday's results very strongly suggest that a clear majority of Catalans are in favour of independence from Spain.

Given the organisational difficulties of mounting a symbolic referendum of this type and the campaign against its validity from central government, getting well over 2 million people out to vote can only be considered an extraordinary success. It's obvious that the Catalan people want to be allowed to give their opinion on their political future and the Spanish government would be well advised to take note.

As I said before, allowing a legal referendum would mean that there would finally be a debate on Catalan independence and those against would be able to warn against the dangers of separation and also explain the advantages of Catalonia remaining in Spain. The tactic of prohibiting everything and denigrating Catalans' wishes to express themselves democratically has only led to a growing number of Catalans becoming pro-independence over the last couple of years.

However, the immediate reaction of the Spanish Minister of Justice, whose name oddly enough is Rafael Catalá, was to describe the Catalan participatory vote as a propaganda exercise with no legal or democratic validity. The Spanish public prosecutor is also looking into the possibility of taking legal action against those involved in the organisation of yesterday's symbolic celebration.

After he cast his vote yesterday, Artur Mas made a statement in Catalan, in which he switched to Castilian Spanish for a few seconds in order to say "el responsable soy yo" - "I'm responsible". If the Spanish Justice Minister decides to prosecute President Mas, he won't only foment the pro-independence lobby but will also create a hero-cum-martyr so he would be well-advised to let sleeping dogs lie.

If the Spanish government don't agree to a referendum, then sooner or later Mr Mas will call plebiscitary elections. These are normal Autonomic Elections that would be turned into a proxy referendum by the campaigns of the parties. President Mas's preferred option is for the pro-independence parties (his own CiU, Esquerra Republicana and the CUP) to stand together on a pro-independence ticket.

However, Esquerra Republicana want to declare independence unilaterally whilst Artur Mas favours continuing negotiations with Spanish central government. It's going to be difficult for the two main independence parties to come to an agreement on this so Catalan politics are going to remain in the news for some time to come.

***

If you are interested in the background historical reasons to the Catalan Independence movement, you may be interested in my book Catalonia Is Not Spain: A Historical Perspective.

It is available in paperback and Kindle version across the Amazon network.

Click here to buy Catalonia Is Not Spain: A Historical Perspective by Simon Harris on Amazon.es

Click here to buy Catalonia Is Not Spain: A Historical Perspective by Simon Harris on Amazon.co.uk

Click here to buy Catalonia Is Not Spain: A Historical Perspective by Simon Harris on Amazon.com

This is not a proper blog post but more a request for HELP and CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM.

I've been working on the cover for the Catalonia Is Not Spain book over the weekend and here's the result. The picture is La Diada by Joan Abelló and the Abelló Museum in Mollet del Vallès have kindly given me permission to use the painting that the great Catalan artist produced after the Catalan National Day in 1977, the first after the death of Franco.

One of the big difficulties is getting the blurb text right. Here it is :-

"How much does the world know about Catalonia and its role as a great medieval empire and one of  Europe's first nation-states?

In Catalonia Is Not Spain: A Historical Perspective, author Simon Harris takes the reader through 1,000 years of Catalan history focusing on the Principality's often difficult relationship with Castile-dominated Spain.

Assimilation attempts by the Catholic Kings and Habsburgs, the siege of Barcelona and annexation by the Bourbons and 300 years of absolutist monarchs and repressive dictatorships have brought Catalonia and Spain to where they are today.

This insightful and balanced history gives an insider's background to the current political situation and explains why Catalans believe that Catalonia is not Spain".

I appreciate that many of you won't agree with the content and if that's the case please refrain from commenting. A blurb has a very limited amount of space and you have to get key information across in a limited number of words.

The text inside, although from a Catalan point of view, is actually much more balanced and in the preface I make the point that Catalonia Is Spain and that the phrase Catalonia Is Not Spain is used on signs and placards as part of the independence campaign.

The title, cover and blurb are designed to provoke the reader, create interest and encourage them to buy the book.

I'd be grateful if you could answer the following questions

1. Can the text be improved in any way?

2. Would this cover encourage you to buy the book? Why/why not?

Any other constructive criticism would be much appreciated.

If the answer the Question 2 is YES, you've still get time until October 13th to help me reach the crowdfund target, I have created to publish the book.

Click on the image below, make a pledge and not only will you receive an early copy but also your name will appear in the credits.

This is obviously not a serious political or historical point but during the War of the Spanish Succession and particularly during the Siege of Barcelona in 1714, the Catalan troops dressed in blue and claret (blaugrana)

Whereas Felipe V's Bourbonic Castilian troops dressed in white

Some things never change!

PLEASE CONTRIBUTE TO THE CROWDFUND FOR THE BOOK!!!

The origins of Christopher Columbus are shrouded in mystery and show characteristics of a political cover-up. What seems extremely clear is that the idea of a humble Genoese wool weaver's son gaining favour with kings and leading an expensive expedition to discover the New World is highly implausible.

Was he Catalan? I am strongly inclined to think so but, although I present all the pro-Catalan arguments here, I have to admit that as far as international historians are concerned the jury is out. However, what might appear to be a slight tangent in the book's argument is worth recounting because it is a clear example of history being rewritten to favour the Castilian oligarchy.

The first time it occurred to me that Christopher Columbus might be Catalan was over 20 years ago whilst reading Robert Hughes' account of the building of the Columbus Monument at the bottom of La Rambla in his immense 'Barcelona', written just prior to the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.

"The presence of Columbus - Colom, to give him his Catalan name - requires some explanation today, but in 1882, the year Rius i Taulet commissioned the monument, it was self-evident. Columbus did have connections with Barcelona: he recuperated from his first voyage there and was received by Ferdinand and Isabella, who bestowed on him the plangent title of Almirante del Mar Oceano - Admiral of the Ocean Sea ... Late-nineteenth-century Catalans were convinced, as an article of patriotic faith, that Columbus was Catalan himself. (He was in fact Genoese.) Not only that: he was the Catalan who discovered the New World from whose subsequent plunder by Castile all future Catalans, at least until the time of the indianos, were excluded. It has never been lost on Barcelona that Columbus ... is pointing out to sea with his back towards Castile. Because of the inconvenient configuration of the coast, he is pointing in the general direction of Libya, not America, but the sea is Catalan. In order to reinforce Columbus's incipient catalanisme, the designer ... covered the plinth with ... figures symbolizing the role played by other Catalans in the discovery of America - the Blanes family, for instance, or the priest Bernat de Bol, who went on the Discoverer's second voyage and became the first apostolic vicar of the West Indies."

At the time I paid little attention apart from adding the fact that the Columbus statue was pointing out to Libya to my growing list of Barcelona trivia.

After Dinner Talk

Then a couple of years ago, a friend who had just come back from a holiday in the Caribbean came round for lunch and over coffee started talking about her visit to the British-controlled island of Montserrat. "That was when I realised Columbus had to be Catalan," she exclaimed. "After all, why would a Genoese sailor in the employment of the Crown of Castile call one of his discoveries after a religious mountain in the centre of Catalonia?"

This got us thinking and we quickly came up with Antilles, which loosely translates as 'Before Islands', presumably meaning the islands you come to before you reach the mainland. The word for islands in Catalan is illes whereas it is islas in Spanish. Similarly, the country Argentina uses the Catalan word for silver argent rather than the Spanish plata in its name.

These after-dinner reflections were a long way from solid evidence but my curiosity and been pricked and I decided to look into the Columbus story a little more closely.  To my surprise, there was a growing mass of literature on whether Christopher Columbus was Catalan or not.

The Conventional Story

According to legend, Christopher Columbus was born in 1451 in the Italian Republic of Genoa and his Italian name is Cristoforo Colombo while in Spanish he's known as Cristóbal Colón. His father was a humble wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand where young Cristoforo worked as a helper.

In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro and Spinola families of Genoa, and in May 1476  took part in an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry a valuable cargo to northern Europe. On the trip, he docked in Bristol, England and Galway, Ireland and possibly in Iceland. In the autumn of 1477 Columbus sailed  from Galway to Lisbon, where he met up with his brother Bartolomeo, and the two brothers continued trading for the Centurione family.

Apparently, Columbus was intelligent but self-taught and, as a result of his work with merchants and early sea voyages, he became interested in finding an alternative sea route to the Indies and China. In 1485, Columbus presented plans to João II, King of Portugal proposing that the king equip three sturdy ships and grant him a year to sail out into the Atlantic in search of a western route to the Orient.

Columbus also requested he be made "Great Admiral of the Ocean", appointed governor of any and all lands he discovered, and given one-tenth of all revenue from those lands. The story goes that the king submitted Columbus' proposal to his experts, who rejected it because they believed that Columbus' estimation of a travel distance of 2,400 miles was far too low.

On being rebuffed, Columbus sought an audience from the monarchs Fernando II of Aragon and Isabel I of Castile and on 1 May 1486 he presented his plans to Queen Isabel, who also referred them to a committee. After much consideration, the savants of Spain, like their counterparts in Portugal, replied that Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance to Asia. They pronounced the idea impractical and advised their Majesties to pass on the proposed venture.

However, legend has it that after persistent lobbying at the Spanish court and two years of negotiations, Columbus finally had success and in April 1492 at the Capitulations of Santa Fe, King Fernando and Queen Isabel agreed that if he succeeded he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed hereditary Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he could claim for Spain.

Columbus would have the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10% of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. Additionally, he would also have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits.

I Have My Doubts

This zero to hero story of a poor Genoese wool weavers' son even getting access to, not only one but, two of the most powerful courts in Christendom seems a bit far-fetched to me. Furthermore, not content with having the journey financed and equipped for him, this humble pauper set conditions on the hereditary titles he would receive and how his discoveries would be distributed.

The Columbus of legend had no formal studies yet apparently learnt Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian and there are surviving documents written in all of these but none in Italian or the Genoese dialect. In fact, most of his writings are in Castilian and linguists suggest that they are, in fact, translations from another peninsula language, possibly Catalan or Galician.

For some reason, the story has Columbus born in 1451 but according to his own writings he was already leading maritime expeditions in the 1460s when young Cristoforo Colombo would have only been 15 or 16. Similarly, not only did a commoner get the Catholic kings to finance his expedition and provide him with three ships and crew, most of whom were Spanish not Portuguese or Genoese where he would likely have had more friends, but they also offered him the rank of Admiral and the title of Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he discovered. Ferdinand and Isabella obviously had a lot of faith in the young Italian's abilities.

Titles such as Viceroy and Governor were only ever given to members of the Castilian or Aragonese nobility, never to foreigners and certainly in Aragon at the time the position of Viceroy, who would rule in the monarch's place, had only ever been given to members of the royal family.

More Research

I knew from the description of the plinth of the Columbus Monument in Barcelona that, in the 1880s, the Mayor and the City Council had believed Christopher Columbus and many of his companions to be Catalan. You only have to scratch the surface to find out how common the theory is. The first important publication on the subject was written in 1927 by the Peruvian historian Luis de Ulloa, who claimed that Christopher Columbus was a Catalan named Joan Colom, who after years of captaining pirate vessels established himself in Portugal and changed his name to Xristoferens Colomo.

Since the return of democracy in 1975, there have been other studies including a comparison of the Coats of Arms of the noble Barcelona family of Colom i Bertran and the official Coat of Arms of Christopher Columbus and both were found to include stripes, a rampant lion and a globe with a cross on top but the dove present on the Colom i Bertran Coat of Arms was missing the Columbus crest.

Coincidentally, the word dove is translated as colom in Catalan and according to testimonies in the court cases that the Columbus family brought against the Spanish monarchs for breaking their word on the hereditary titles promised at the Capitulations of Santa Fe, was initially present on the Columbus Coat of Arms. However, it was removed by Castilian censors in later versions presumably because it would have given away Columbus' true identity.

In 1976, another study showed that the four Colom Bertran brothers, Guillem, Francesc, Joan and Lluís, were clearly contemporaries of the Admiral. However, it wasn't until 1999 that the researchers from the Institut Nova Història led by Jordi Bilbeny began to pull the various threads together into a coherent whole. What follows is a much simplified version of the conclusions but gives a reasonably clear idea of their claims.

Joan Colom i Bertran

According to Bilbeny and his team, Christopher Columbus' real name was Joan Colom i Bertran from a Barcelona family of high-ranking religious or military men, navigators, cosmographers or merchants with access to the Court. His brothers, Francesc and Lluís were President of the Generalitat and a sea-captain respectively so the family had important political connections and maritime experience. Joan Colom had more brothers and sisters including Jaume, Guillem, Elionor, Isabel and Beatriu. All these names also appear in the official Christopher Columbus' family tree in their castilianised versions. Furthermore, Joan Colom had a son called Jaume whilst Columbus' son was called Diego, which is the medieval translation of Jaume in Castilian.

Joan Colom was born in 1424 and married twice. His first wife was Margarida d'Alós, with whom he had three sons, and his second Felipa de Coimbra, who was daughter of Pere of Portugal and of Elisabet of Urgell, which made her granddaughter of Jaume of Urgell, the failed Catalan pretender to the Aragonese throne.

Joan Colom had been a military leader on the side of the Generalitat in the Catalan Civil War against Fernando the Catholic's father Juan the Faithless during which time the Catalans had made Pere of Portugal their king. Following the defeat, Joan escaped and led pirate attacks off the coast of Catalonia on military and merchant targets before ending up in the service of Louis XI of France for whom he led expeditions into the Arctic. It seems very likely the Joan Colom would have visited North America so he knew of the existence of another continent across the Atalantic and reasoned that the rich pickings would be further south. This was why he could be so confident in his demands to the Portuguese and Spanish monarchs.

In the 1480s, Joan Colom wound up at the Potuguese court where he fell in love with Felipa, the sister of his deceased former ally, Pere of Portugal. They had a son called Ferran, who as great-grandson of Jaume of Urgell would have definitely had a claim to the throne of Aragon. Incidentally, Ferran is translated as Fernando or Hernando in Castilian and sure enough, the official Christopher Columbus had a son called Hernando.

For patriotic reasons, Joan Colom wanted to lead his expedition to the New World from Catalonia and, taking advantage of the amnesty for participants in the Civil War, installed himself in the port of Pals on the coast of Northern Catalonia. Negotiations began mainly with Fernando of Aragon in order to guarantee the benefits and hereditary titles, which would allow Colom to establish what would effectively be a new royal family in the New World. In return, Bilbeny suggests, Colom would have renounced his son Ferran's claims to the throne of the Crown of Aragon.

In August 1492, the expedition set sail from the Catalan port of Pals. The Spanish version claims Columbus embarked from Palos de la Frontera in Andalusia but recent studies show that as today, its port, which is set on a river estuary, was certainly not big enough to moor three large ocean-going ships. Furthermore, many of Columbus' companions are documented as living in the Empordà region of Catalonia and of being known to the Colom i Bertran family. The best example is the famous Yañes Pinzón brothers who in Catalan were Anes Pinçon.

In early engravings, most of the flags the ships carry bear stripes just like the Catalan senyera whilst the Castilian flag showing the picture of a castle is suspiciously absent. The flags cannot be Spanish flags because the red stripes on the gold background of the rojigualda wasn't invented until 1785. Incidentally, when you stop and think about it, the Spanish flag looks much more like the Catalan senyera than it does the Castilian flag. Perhaps the design was chosen to protect Castilian territorial claims to the Americas.

Censorship

There is so much evidence that Columbus and Colom were the same person and the reasons why the story was changed are pretty obvious. Colom's descendants were of royal descent and as soon as the Catholic Kings realised how much power they had given away at the Capitulations of Santa Fe and the size and wealth of the new territory, they knew they had made a mistake.

Fernando, in particular, was autocratic enough to have introduced the Inquisition so they would have had few qualms about breaking their deal with some rebellious Catalan nobles. Furthermore, the printing press was just beginning to come to centre stage and someone as capable as Fernando would have realised the power of propaganda. Unfortunately, the censors left traces of the cover-up and eagle-eyed researchers can still find them to this day.

The only remaining question is why did a Barcelona noble called Joan change his name to Christopher or Cristòfor in Catalan. The answer is simple. These were religious times and the current pope was the Valencian Alexander VI of the Borja family, who as a Catalan speaker would have known Joan Colom. The reason for the expedition wasn't only commercial but was to take Christianity across the water just as Saint Christopher had carried Jesus across the river in the Bible tale.

An interesting footnote to Catalan Columbus mystery came in 2011 when Spanish researchers collected the DNA of the families of the various claimants and the plan was to make a comparison with the DNA of Hernando Colón whose body lies in Seville Cathedral. As the research was drawing to a close, lead investigator Dr José Antonio Lorente was interviewed on Catalan TV and said that the Catalan hypothesis looked the most likely. Mysteriously, the research was never heard of again and the results still haven't been published.

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An edited version of this article is included in my book Catalonia Is Not Spain: A Historical Perspective.

It is available on Amazon as you will see by clicking on the following links.

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As far as the official history of Spain is concerned, the reign of Felipe II was, if anything, even more important than that of his father Carlos V, who by a slow process of piecemeal abdication from 1550 onwards left his son as king of Castile, Aragon and the Italian possession of Naples and Sicily as well as the Netherlands and newly conquered American and African territories. Felipe II became King of Portugal in 1581 and during his reign the Spanish began the exploitation of colonies as far afield as the Philippines, which were named after him. The expression "The empire on which the sun never sets" was coined during reign of Felipe II and reflects the extent and power of the Spanish empire at the time.

On the military front, the reign began well with victories against the French at Saint Quentin and Gravelines in 1557 and 1558 and a little later the major victory against the Turks at Lepanto in 1571. However, Felipe is best remembered for losing a large part of Spain's Dutch possessions, which declared independence from Spain in 1581, and the crushing defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English and the intemperate weather conditions in 1588. Although historians attribute these victories and defeats to Spain, they were in fact Atlantic campaigns serving Castilian foreign policy and Mediterranean Catalonia had no inclination to get involved.

Phillip's main contribution to the Siglo de Oro was the building of the great monastery-palace of El Escorial and his decision in 1561 to turn the nearby small town of Madrid into the capital of the Spanish Empire, beginning a building programme that would be continued by his successors. From a Catalan point of view, the decision to concentrate administration and decision-making in a town chosen mainly for its central location changed the course of history.

Stuck in the middle of Castile's vast central meseta, Madrid is the highest capital of any major European country. Unlike most other cities, it is not set on the coast or a navigable river and, although located in the centre of the Iberian peninsula, in the 16th century this made it impossible to get to. This meant a series of radial caminos reals or royal roads had to be built in order to connect the capital with the provinces and there is no other country to which the term centralism can be more aptly applied.

All public investment since the time of Felipe II has been based political rather than economic considerations and roads, railway lines and even flight routes fan out from Madrid deliberately marginalising the towns on the periphery. Prioritising the capital has meant that private investors have had to pay for transport infrastructure with the resulting need for profit, hence the high cost of toll motorways in Catalonia.

Airports in Spain are controlled by a national board AENA, which prioritises international flights to Madrid making it difficult for international businessmen to get directly to Barcelona or Bilbao. Similarly, the Mediterranean corridor, the freight railway linking Barcelona, Valencia, Cartagena, Malaga and Algeciras with Europe has been repeatedly blocked by central government in favour of a Central corridor connecting Madrid with Europe by blasting a tunnel through the Pyrenees at a much higher cost. Modern national transport policy is a direct consequence of Felipe II's decision to make the small town of Madrid the capital of his empire in 1561.

Another consequence of the decision was that unlike other provincial capitals located on rivers or the coast, Madrid had no history of commerce and so had no merchant bourgeoisie or skilled tradesmen. It was initially a city populated by courtiers and government officials and its business life was dependent on its role as a centre of government. This favoured the aversion of the Castilian nobility to work and money-making mentioned in an earlier chapter. To this day, Madrid businesses depend as much on government contracts as they do on competing for international markets giving them an unfair advantage over provincial capitals such as Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao or Seville.

Another cause for Catalan concern was the consolidation of the Spanish Inquisition and Felipe's general religious intolerance against not only Jews and Muslims but also Protestants. This not only had a detrimental effect on Catalan trade but also is a cornerstone of the Black Legend. For Northern European historians, it was the violence with which the military campaign was conducted against Dutch Protestants that sealed the Spanish reputation for cruelty. To this day, Spain's military commander in the Dutch campaign, the Duke of Alba, is the bogeyman that haunts children's nightmares in Holland.

Felipe II is famously quoted as saying "Before suffering the slightest damage to religion in the service of God, I would lose all of my estates and a hundred lives, if I had them, because I do not wish nor do I desire to be the ruler of heretics," and the violence with which the Spanish conquistadors evangelised, but also raped and tortured, the indigenous population of the Americas adds further fuel to the Black Legend.

As he strived to enforce Catholic orthodoxy through an intensification of the Inquisition, students were barred from studying elsewhere and books printed by Spaniards outside the kingdom were banned. This brought an early introduction of censorship and propaganda, which I hinted at in the Columbus chapter but was used for many other purposes.

Admittedly, the School of Salamanca flourished but none of this benefitted Catalonia, in general. or Barcelona, in particular, which being a sea port has long been an entry point for new and unconventional ideas to the peninsula. The city's prosperity has always been based on the fact that it's a difficult to control melting pot, which contrasts sharply with the closed mentality of land-locked Central Spain.

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This excerpt is taken from the Chapter 12 of my forthcoming book 'Catalonia Is Not Spain: A Historical Perspective'

You can find out more on My Blog

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At the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession, the Catalans actually pledged allegiance to the Bourbon pretender Philip of Anjou, future Felipe V.

They changed sides and began to support the Austrian Archduke Charles after the Pact of Genoa of 1705, which was signed with the English, who promised them military support and to guarantee the Catalan laws and constitutions.

Archduke Charles became Holy Roman Emperor and the English were not so keen on supporting him and also there was a change of government from Whigs to Tories. England pulled out of the war in 1713 after signing the Treaty of Utrecht, from which they got Gibraltar and Menorca.

The Catalans continued fighting but the attrocities committed by the Franco-Castilian troops of Felipe V against the Catalans during the Siege of Barcelona in 1714 preyed on the minds of many liberal Whigs. The case was brought up in Parliament and a number of books were published.

I particularly like the subtitle of 'The Case of the Catalans Consider'd' - 'You gain your Ends and Damn them when you're done'.

That's exactly what the English did to the Catalans!

There's been a lot of talk about how the result of the Scottish referendum might affect the Catalan independence movement but to be perfectly honest I always thought it was irrelevant.

Perhaps a YES would have created a precedent and opened up the way for recognition of Catalonia and acceptance by the EU but equally it might have increased fear that more nation-states would break apart and so countries like France, Italy and Begium would have been even keener to block a Catalan referendum.

What is very clear is that the right-wing Spanish nationalist press in Madrid will have field day claiming that this is the end of independence movements for the forseeable future. This is also completely false. There is a strong grassroots movement here, the majority of political parties are in favour of a referendum and a date's been set. Even if Catalans don't manage to vote on November 9th, the Catalan people's desire to control their own future won't go away.

No, I'm disappointed because I really believe that the age of big unresponsive and aggressive nation states is over. The EU is an opportunity for greater regionalisation, call it autonomy, call it devolution, call it independence, call it what you will.

I'm sad for the people of Scotland because they have less chance of creating a nuclear-free, more socially just and economically viable Scotland on their own terms according to their own Scottish priorities.

Bad luck, folks! Keep trying! .... What was it that Robert the Bruce said?

Una abraçada from Catalonia and I hope you'll be with us and standing alongside us in our own struggle for greater independence and justice.

It is not surprising that many Spaniards consider the reign of the Catholic Kings as the beginning of modern Spain, and commentators of the time were aware of the historic importance of the union. When Fernando the Catholic inherited the Crown of Aragon in 1479, some members of the Royal Council even suggested that Fernando and Isabel adopted the title of Kings of Spain. They refused because both were concerned with consolidating their own power base and were jealous of external interference, even from a spouse.

Castilian writer Diego de Valera is quoted as addressing Fernando and Isabella with these words. "You have the monarchy of all the Spains and you reform the imperial throne with the blood of the Goths from which you descend and which for so long has been spilled and spread." Catalan humanists such as Cardinal of Girona, Joan Margarit i Pau, said "Hispaniam restaurate et recuperate" and in the dedication of his Paraliponenom Hispaniae wrote, "In coming to the throne of your fathers and progenitors you have returned with your matrimonial bond to the Hispanias Citerior and Ulterior the unity which since the time of the Romans and the Visigoths had been lost".

However, all contemporary commentators refer to the plural Spains, embodied in the Roman concept of separate provinces of Hispania, rather than a singular Spain of the modern state we know today. As J.H.Elliot states in his excellent Imperial Spain "The union itself was purely dynastic: a union not of two peoples but of two royal houses. Other than the fact that henceforth Castile and Aragon would share the same monarch, there would, in theory, be no change either in their status or in the form of government. It was true that, in the person of Fernando, their foreign policies were likely to be fused, but in other respects they would continue to lead the lives they had led before the Union."

Just like the Reconquista mentioned in an earlier chapter, the idea of a united Spain under the Catholic Kings is a much later, probably 19th century concept, when the nation-states and national consciousness was developing in most modern European countries. I return to the analogy with the union of England and Scotland. When James VI of Scotland became James I of England in 1603, the two countries remained separate under a single monarch until the Act of Union in 1707. Fernando and Isabel were husband and wife but ruled their respective realms separately.

Furthermore, the citizens of the two kingdoms had sense that they were part of a unified whole, either politically or culturally. The Crowns of Aragon and Castile had different laws, tax systems, political institutions, coinages, cultural traditions and languages.

It is difficult to appreciate from a modern perspective but for a Catalan, Castile was as much if not more a foreign country than much of what is now Italy. Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and Naples had been part of the Crown of Aragon for centuries. For a Castilian, Catalonia was at least as foreign as Portugal. In the time of horse travel, Portugal was much more accessible from Castile and there were no natural borders such as the mighty Pyrenees to divide the two territories.

The reasons why Castile began to attain ascendancy were two-fold. The political model that Castile had developed was much more favourable to autocratic rule than that developed by the constituent parts of the Crown of Aragon. In Castile, the monarch had much more legislative and fiscal power than the kings of Aragon, who had to make pacts with the various parliamentary bodies before taking any decision.

Furthermore, the dynastic union of the Crown of Aragon and the Crown of Castile wasn't a union of equals. The Catholic Kings made Castile into the political pivot of the new monarchy because it was bigger, more centrally positioned in the peninsula, had a much larger population and was also going through an economic boom. The Crown of Aragon, in general, and Catalonia, in particular, had fallen on hard times due to war, plague and failed harvests. In fact, by the late 15th century Valencia was a more prosperous Mediterranean port than Barcelona.

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This excerpt is taken from the Chapter 8 of my forthcoming book 'Catalonia Is Not Spain: A Historical Perspective'

You can find out more on My Blog

Or help me get the book published by contributing to my Crowdfunding Project on Verkami