Guest post by Peter Tchir.

But Quebec Isn’t a Country? Exactly.

The Catalonian elections are interesting and shouldn’t surprise anyone.  In stressful economic times people look for alternatives.  They want someone to blame (“the other guy”) and like to be told how great they themselves are.  If that wasn’t the case, it is unlikely that an angry megalomaniac with a toothbrush moustache would ever have ruled Germany.

At this stage, the elections and referendum movement remind me a lot of Quebec in Canada.  Economic decline coupled with an identity lead to the belief that separation was a good way to go.  For many of us outside of Spain it is hard to realize how long Catalonians have held a belief that they are different.  I remember back in the 1980’s being corrected by a soccer player when I said he was Spanish, and he replied, with a bit of anger, that no, he was Catalonian.

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