Oops, that should have read Seborga–and do read it! Separatism as a mimosa-fuelled spare-time fantasy exercise is infinitely preferible to the real life version, which is designed to, and will surely end in, the shedding of the blood (as well as the customary mediocre music and dancing) of those who wank to a 9- but not a 3-striped flag: for the Catalan dragon, likes its Muslim cousin, requires martyrs, and no one here appears to have mastered General Patton’s precept, that “The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his.”
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Yesterday I met a neighbour (Argentinian by origin with Basque family connections). Since I last chatted to her six months ago she has gone totally for Catalan independence.
I wondered about the Vall d’Aran becoming independent from Catalonia. Well that needs a bit of thought.
I asked whether the Catalan intelligence service and the Catalan military military would really be up to dealing with kidnapped citizens in West Africa. She fell quiet.
I suggested that a Basque Navy might not be able to deal speedily and effectively with a hijacked fishing boat in the Indian Ocean — after all it would take even Basque he-men six months to row there. She changed the subject.
If she’d had her wits about her she might have riposted with the dictator who pooh-poohed the notion that a far-away country would, without the assistance of its principal allies, send a fleet to retake several islands inhabited by penguins and sheep. But then even Ibarretxe wasn’t really in the Thatcher mould.
Which would you rather take on — the Basque or Catalan military or the British military?
Ouch. I’ve seen the Mossos d’Esquadra’s armoury and I think they’ll last about 2 hours against the Guardia Civil when Laporta crowns himself king and instals Simona Ventura in the regal harem. Although it has to be said that they’re better equipped now than when they ran out of plastic bullets against the gipsies and had to send an officer in a car with cash to Bilbao to buy some more off the Ertzaintza.
BTW, glad to hear the referenda were just a scam on the part of the mayor of Arenys de Whatever to get sufficient PR to enable him to become yet another independent warlord in the nationalist alphabet soup and thus extract a more sizeable pot of public cash. If these people had guns and knew how to fire them it would feel like the Congo.
Funny you should mention the Congo. Not long before I went to live in Zambia (1980) some Belgians were kidnapped just over the border from where I was living. The paratroops were sent to get them out. French paratroops, that is.
When we had an unexplained 6-week curfew, and later when the Falklands War happened, we thought kindly of the British military.
If you look at how poorly Catalans manage to do in barfights, I don’t think we have to worry too much about the Congo scenario. One of the funniest sights you can come across is two spaniards attempting to fight and failing miserably.
Though I reckon Spaniards’ horror at violence against persons is one of their more endearing characteristics.