READING Kenny MacAskill's timorous wee article about Catalonia (“Why Scotland will not get involved in Catalonia’s fight”, The Herald, July 13) brought back a memory of once walking down the Ramblas in Barcelona and seeing Scottish banners flying over a stall. The people were collecting signatures to request some authority, not necessarily sporting, to recognise Catalonia's status as a nation by allowing it to have its own national football team, like Scotland.
It may be that Mr MacAskill is right when he says that considerations of realpolitik mean that the Scottish Government cannot make any statement of support for Catalan independence in its forthcoming referendum, although the basis of his argument is somewhat undermined by the statements he notes being made by other statesmen from Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to EU President José Manuel Barroso in the course of the independence referendum in Scotland. Nothing he says prevents the SNP as a party from declaring support, or individuals here from distancing themselves from the narrow, Lilliputian isolationism which has bedevilled Scottish political debate. Relations between the two nations should be warm and mutually supportive, with each learning from the other as they face comparable dilemmas.
Scotland and Catalonia are the twin nations of Europe, with similar aspirations and similar, but not identical, histories. Catalonia has endured persecution, most recently under Franco, on a scale unknown to Scotland, and, again unlike Scotland, has a language of its own. A Catalan writer once told me “my nationalism is my language”.
That said, the most idealistic thinkers and writers in both countries have always been internationalist in their outlook and know that independence has to be balanced by inter-independence, primarily in Europe but also beyond. Both nations have a comparable sense of identity, an awareness of their own culture, a desire to develop policies suitable for their own countries, a problem with a more powerful neighbour and a refusal to accept a stance of hostility to others. Both are engaged on a quest to redefine their own nationhood in a changing Europe, and it is to be hoped that Scotland will look to Catalonia, not fearful that any support for it will weaken Scotland, but in a spirit of solidarity.
(Professor) Joe Farrell,
7 Endfield Avenue, Glasgow.
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