Oh Catalonia!

What you're looking at right now is the flag of Catalonia, Barcelona.  This is actually considered a nationality, and a autonomous community of Spain.  It is divided into four parts being:  Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona.  The Catalan culture didn't actually start really developing until the Middle Ages.

Catalonia achieved more autonomy (or self-governance) in 1979.  It has always been some part of Spain, but it is such a large economic part of the country of Spain.  However, a large population of Catalan support the idea of Catalanism in which promotes its independency from Spain and is a separate nation.  But just until recently (about 2007), the rise of Catalan independence has been highly promoted by these independents.  As a matter of fact, according to sources, about two thirds of Catalans believe that Catalonia should have a higher level of autonomy, but only a mere 16% want full independence from Spain itself (Yes, this is a little confusing but I'm trying).

If you haven't been keeping up-to-date with European news, let me give you a brief detail of something that has happened very recently.  Actually, on September 11th of this year (2012), the people of Catalan pulled together a march of about 1.5 million people that supported the separation from Spain as a whole.  Unbelievable.  The reasons of this was because of:

• Spain's Court decision to declare the Autonomy of Catalonia being unconstitutional
• Catalonia contributes almost 20% of the government's tax revenue, and only receives 14% of federal spending.  Source

These marches are NOT violent, nor are they out to hurt anyone.  They just want to be heard.  For example, the first day I was in Barcelona, there was actually a movement outside of Cameron's school where people came together screaming, chanting, blowing horns, and setting off fireworks.  These sounded like gunshots, yet people still just walked by as nothing was happening...but why?  Well, even before the recent movements, Catalonia has been attempting this for years and it's just normal every-day activity.  Nobody thinks of it anymore.  However, if you were a tourist (like ourselves), you would immediately think to yourself (gunshot...run)...but nobody seemed to really care.

The Catalan people actually have their own language.  So could you imagine what it must be like for the students studying abroad?  Not only do they need to understand Spanish, but they need to know the and be able to distinguish the difference between Spanish and Catalan!  It actually wasn't until about 2005 where it was distinguished as a major language and websites needed to serve the needs of the Catalan language.