This year, September 11, our national day of remembrance, is a good date for us to reflect upon some of the things that have brought Catalonia down today's dead-end street. It's an ideal date to recall that Catalonia is not a unique case in history; there have been many other cases just like it. Precisely during the 20th century, and in the first few years of the 21st, several nations have achieved their independence, and right this very minute, being their own sovereign state, they are now respected, and have a voice and a vote in the United Nations: Norway, Iceland, Malta, Montenegro and Kosova, for example. In 1905 it was Norway, in 1918 Iceland. Malta in 1964, Montenegro in 2003, and Kosova in 2008. And not a single one of these became a sovereign nation out of the goodness of the heart of the states that granted them the right to decide what they could and couldn't do. They became sovereign nations because of their own convictions, and because of their desire to hold the reigns of their destinies in their own hands.

Additionally, more than 50% of the member states of the Council of Europe have become independent since the start of the 20th century. This fact alone should be enough to make us think that a nation's independence, free from protectorates or guardianships, is an unalienable right of all adult peoples--and it is these nations in whose reflection we should be seeing ourselves. Understanding this makes all the more exquisite the message with which Scotland, with a view to the referendum it will hold in 2014, advances toward its own independence:

"I'll vote YES, not because I see Scotland as superior to other nations, but because I refuse to accept that we are inferior."

Only two years from now, Catalonia will see the three-hundredth anniversary of her subordination to Spain. We should never be forgiven if the date comes and goes without us becoming aware that a nation not only has the right to be independent: a truly adult and mature nation has the moral obligation to be independent.

English translation by Heather Hayes
Racó Català (Catalan), Sep 5, 2012