Catalan supremacists, fanatics who believe themselves to be the victims of their victims

A common denominator of all totalitarians is that they foster a false sense of victimhood to justify violence against others.

The similarities between the linguistic regime of Apartheid South Africa and that of Catalonia
Linguistic diversity according to separatism: a Catalan is insulted for not speaking Catalan

In this way, the communists believe themselves to be victims of the "bourgeoisie" (an expression that covers all sorts of things, such as being a Christian, owning a business, having a house bigger than a communist's, or simply wearing glasses, as happened in Cambodia) and the Nazis believe themselves to be victims of a Jewish conspiracy to control the world (the absurd conspiracy theory that led them to perpetrate a colossal antisemitic genocide). The same can be said of Catalan separatism.

Like other secessionist movements in Spain, the false narrative of Catalan separatism consists of always believing themselves to be victims of something or someone, a victimhood that can generate monsters because it makes false victims believe they have the right to exercise violence against others. The most recent example of this totalitarian behavior has reached the Argentine media: An Argentine ice cream shop in Barcelona has been the victim of a separatist attack on its premises simply because a waitress did not understand a customer who spoke to her in Catalan, whereupon the customer - a Catalan nationalist - insulted the waitress, an attitude that is now typical of separatists against those who normally speak Spanish (who are the majority of Catalans, by the way).

This unhealthy obsession with language stems from the fact that Catalan separatism is a supremacist movement. The Royal Spanish Academy defines supremacism this way: "Ideology that defends the preeminence of one social sector over the rest, generally for reasons of race, sex, origin or nationality." Catalan separatism (like Galician and Basque) has fueled the myth that the Spanish language was imposed in Catalonia, so anyone who speaks it is an oppressor for separatism.

Based on this myth, the separatists have developed a series of rules typical of a fascist dictatorship, a process in which they have had the support of the Catalan socialists of the PSC. These rules include the exclusion of the Spanish language from schools (as I pointed out here in 2021, this is a discriminatory model similar to that imposed by South African Apartheid) and fines for merchants who label their stores in Spanish (fines that are not imposed if the sign is in Catalan, English, Chinese or any other language).

These anti-democratic rules ignore the fact that Catalonia has two official languages, Spanish and Catalan (in addition to Aranese, in this case only in the Aran Valley). For years, the goal of Catalan separatism has been clear: to eradicate the Spanish language in Catalonia and achieve a monolingual region where no one dares to use Spanish unless they want to face reprisals.

The paradox is that this nazi-like mentality is defended by people who claim to be "anti-fascist" and who label as "fascist" all those who defend something as logically democratic as bilingualism and freedom of language. This is the supremacist mentality that promotes attacks like the one suffered by the Argentine ice cream shop, which is yet another example that Catalan separatism is a radically anti-democratic movement and should be denounced as such.

Of course, these fanatics aren't the only ones guilty of acting like nazis with impunity: for years they've had the complicity of Spain's two major parties, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and the Popular Party (PP), which have a persistent habit of wanting to appease Catalan supremacists, believing that in doing so the fanatics will cease to be so. So far, as has always happened throughout history when people try to appease thugs, this has only served to make the supremacists feel more and more arrogant. How long will they continue to fuel this intolerant and violent movement?

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Photo: Efe. A torch-bearing march by Catalan separatists, in true nazi style, on September 11, 2014.