The Catalan Republic

I admit it: I like a map. Books with maps, family trees, lists of characters and all their connections - all magic stuff to me. So I wasn't surprised when I stumbled across a map entitled 'Greater Europe.'

I love the Gothic script here, not to mention the lands of the heathens, heretics and godless. I notice on this map Spain is the same shade as Africa: land of the godless.

Intrigued, I googled the reference and came up with a wiki page where I saw the following description: 

Greater Europe refers to the idea of an extended or developed Europe. This generally implies a Europe which transcends traditional boundaries, including trans-Eurasian countries,^[1] or those in close proximity with a strong European heritage.^[2]

The wiki page has a map too. I won't trouble you with that - you can google it for yourself. Suffice to say, that map has large grey areas which are excluded from Greater Europe. As far as I can see, these grey areas are Muslim. Definitely not classed as places 'with a strong European heritage.'

The western world is riven with fear of the rest of the world. After centuries of oppressing the poor of other continents, it's as if our chickens are coming home to roost in Europe and we're clinging together for dear life before we're overrun by the people we overran before. We don't want to share - not a damn thing. We want to keep what we have, even if we weren't entitled to have it to begin with.

The fear of change has made us fearful of everything. The EU, the US and the UK are deeply frightened places. It's inhibiting our sense of democracy which we, ironically, keep trying to force other countries to adopt.

I think I've read all there is to read about independence for Catalunya. I've watched the government in Madrid behave for weeks as if Franco is still alive and the Falangists still in power, fail to negotiate and make one horrible mistake after another in dealing with the government and people of Catalunya.

I've certainly heard as much as I need to of the fake indignation of the EU and the leaders of Germany, France and the UK faced with the Catalan declaration of a republic. I'm told the USA will not support 'freedom movements' in the EU because you can't compare Catalunya - or Scotland - with what happened in the American Revolution - after all, that was 200 years ago and the situations are different. I'm not sure how.

I would like answers to the following questions.

Just how does a country or a region that feels it is a country get independence? In Spain, it seems there is no mechanism: you signed up to the constitution in 1976 and you're stuck with it forever. In the case of Scotland, we need the permission of the UK even to ask the population the question. That breeds at best festering resentment and at worst civil war.

This strikes me as deeply undemocratic.

If the EU was doing its job properly, there would be a legal statute in place that allowed various levels of autonomy, self-government and independence to emerging states. And member states of the EU would have to sign up to it. Self-government should never be in the gift of the state. It should be a right.

The idea that nothing ever changes or can ever change is a pretty sad position for the EU to adopt, especially when you look at how the map of greater Europe has changed since the EU came into being.

And yet...I keep coming back to it: the EU is the best we have. It was set up by people with high moral principles. Sadly, it's now being let down by people with very small minds.