"But when El Caudillo died in 1975, Spain miraculously left her troubled past behind her, embarking on a rare, successful transition to democracy that was sealed by a landmark referendum in 1978."
Not that miraculously. More like the CIA financed and trained in France a terrorist attract to kill the person that Franco has selected as successor, Carrero Blanco and then appointing the most stupid person in the regime, Arias Navarro.
The "successful" transition to democracy was initiated by stupid decisions like giving the Sahara territories to Morroco so they can slaughter the native population and occupy it with Morrocan(It should have been given independence instead) and creating the State of Autonomias.
The State of Autonomias was the transition from a highly centralized State, to one of the more decentralized countries on Earth.
It was done this way in order to appease the Independentist that were a minority at the time,(In Catalunia a 6-12%) and now in places like Catalunia and Vasque country are becoming near to a majority(50%).
The electoral system in Spain(chosen in the "succesful" transition to democracy, favored minorities over majorities giving way more representation than they should have.
They made the effective eradication of the use of Spanish, even in places like Basque country(the Spanish language comes from the territory between it and Cantabria) in education and brainwashing of kids propagating hatred against anything spanish.
That was also helped by the terrorist organization ETA that just killed and ostracized those that were not secessionist in Basque country.
In Catalunia kids were taught that Catalonia were a kingdom in the past(never happened), the myth of the Segadors as independentist when they were a movement against the rich or that the war for Sucesion(succession) was a war for Secession in Catalunia.
BTW, this lie is the the linked article.
This is all false and very easy for anyone to check, because Truth doesn't matter because when repeating a lie a thousand times it becomes a truth. And they controlled local TV and education for 40 years.
They even meet each year in front of a guy called Rafael Casanovas as a secession leader when every time he talked always finished with a "Viva España"(long live Spain).
Spanish history is no more violent than that of the rest of European countries, or the UK and US(that have fought or invaded most of the countries on the rest of the world).
I agree with most of what you say, even the alledged CIA plot that has been documented enough to be taken seriously. ETA didn't have the needed infrastructure at the time for such an assasination.
I disagree in one point: Sahara war (it was a war, never declared) was not a decision of transition leaders. Franco was still alive, but in the ICU... Hassan II, father of current Morocco's King, was very clever choosing the time to invade Western Sahara: nobody was really in charge. When Juan Carlos I took over, it was too late to do anything.
The article is the usual junk. Spain was the enemy to defeat for the Anglo-Saxon world for centuries, and it's still is in their collective unconcious, helped of course by the media cliches.
It is attacking Spain; it's treating Spanish people as mere children, incapable of making their own decisions because local TV told them what to think. While conveniently not applying the same reasoning to their opinion in 1975, despite all the media and education having been controlled by the same guy for the previous 40 years.
As someone who was predisposed to think the push for independence was foolish, there's nothing like reading a bit of anti-independence propaganda to get one to think that maybe the independentists have a point.
>"The "successful" transition to democracy was initiated by stupid decisions like giving the Sahara territories to Morroco so they can slaughter the native population and occupy it with Morrocan(It should have been given independence instead)..."
How much say did Spain have in this though since the Spanish Protectorate was granted to them by France and France had decided to grant Morocco independence?
Well, is your opinion that people does not vote thinking in their best interest.
In all democracies people speak freely about what they want with their vote. Enquiries don't count. Theaters with rigged ballots should not count. Real elections is how people choose freely, and the most accurate data that we can have. Everything else is propaganda and brag about your millions of follobots in twitter.
If you vote parties against independence you don't support independence. Point. A referendum will not change that. Four legal elections in five years are more than enough to make this point clear.
If you vote PACMA, the animalist party that don't even consider independence in their program, you want stopping animal cruelty and don't support independence either. Podemos don't even know if they should be called "Unidos Podemos" or "Unidas igual Podrían".
Maybe tomorrow everybody will vote independence, but this is not data currently. Is possible also that nobody will do.
And we should not forget that not all people that participated in separatist acts are separatists. "Some people just want to see the world burning". A 13% of the people detained in warcelona were european foreigners with a past interest in anarchy and trained in urban war. They couldn't care less about Cuckooloonian nation, and came for the thrills, food and free TVs.
Spain is much more than that, and is easy to find lots of perfectly nice places with great people that will not act as holier than thou all the time.
> is your opinion that people does not vote thinking in their best interest.
No, that's the (in my view, paternalistic) view of the people who claim the independentist Catalonians are all just puppets in the hands of a few evil leaders.
Tactical voting means they are, in their own best interest, choosing either the least bad option, or an option that will get them one step towards their ultimate goal, and voting for Autonomy in 1977 is consistent with that.
> If you vote parties against independence you don't support independence. Point.
Maybe. Which parties stated they were openly against independence in 1977, and how many votes did they get?
The rest of your post seems to be about the current situation, which is not what I asked about. If I want opinions on that by Spanish people, I can just ask half of my family.
> Which parties stated they were openly against independence in 1977, and how many votes did they get?
I don't know. I don't live in the past, but take in mind that is a different world in 2019.
In 1977 Jordi Pujol was a well respected citizen and everybody and their dog loved it. Today we know that was also a criminal, judged for bribery, influence peddling, tax crime, money laundering, prevarication, embezzlement and falsehood.
Their sucessor, Arthur Mas was "da bomb" in 2002. Now has also a criminal record, burned millions of euro in many doubtful adventures, and is inhabilited by disobedience.
The sucessor of Mas, Puigdemont, is a walking joke that pushed catalonian people to the clift border and declared the republic, just to suspend it two seconds later. (Surprise! I was just joking all this time!). He escaped to Belgium with his tail between his legs, and has an euroarrest warrant aiming to judge him for several non-trivial crimes
The sucessor of Puigemont, Torra is a mess that has encouraged people to disobey the same government that represents. He blocks roads in the morning and send the police against the people that block roads in the evening.
Under the excuse of being opressed by Franco, youngsters had caused damages by 2.5 million euro in Barcelona, and now Torra is disperately searching how to gracefully stop the situation that he has purposely created.
Times had changed and this emperor is looking uglier and more naked each minute. Is always nice to talk with the family, but everybody can benefit from an external and wider point of view
> I don't know. I don't live in the past, but take in mind that is a different world in 2019.
Yes, but this thread started with a claim about the past, which I asked what it was based on. It's not nice to derail it to push your own opinions.
> Is always nice to talk with the family, but everybody can benefit from an external and wider point of view
I was just making the point that I'm not some foreigner reading about Catalonia on a couple of Salon articles. I get plenty of points of view from Spanish newspapers, TV, books, friends, coworkers, and random people I meet during my annual stay in my family home.
I can’t tell if you mean to be dismissive, but if you are you should know that the south of Spain was under Islamic rule for good deal of time, so the Islamic history degree provides a lot of insight into modern Spain.
Actually, not that much. Recent genetical studies have shown that almost nobody got left behind after the fall of Granada. We that were born in the South were said to be half Moors. But historical records, and now genetics, said that muslim inhabitants of Al Andalus fled in mass in 1492 to North Africa. South Andalusia was mostly repopulated with people from nothern kingdoms.
Of course there's much cultural osmosis and there was muslim population left behind, just not in Andalusia.
Pretty sure he knows about that already. This is integral part of our history, they were there for about a thousand years, and particularly Granada was the last place to be freed and its main touristic landmark, the Alhambra, is an islamic palace.
