Separatism in Spain: A Nation of Nations

Separatism in Spain: A Nation of Nations

 by: Franz Lawrence Acaylar

     Spain, one of the earliest and most powerful imperial countries that the world has known. It has created an empire stretching out from the Americas to the vast Asia-Pacific region. It was the country that started the age of discovery. The country that had the will to circumnavigate the world. It was the empire where the sun never sets. The empire that started it all.

    Many people think of Spain as one unified country, but in some ways, it may be considered as many. Hard as it may be to imagine, with the country’s power and achievements, Spain is actually a very decentralized country. The reason of the country’s decentralized state is because it is made up of different regions with diverse historical, political, and cultural traditions. Spain is made up of regions with varying economic and social structures, as well as different languages. So why did these differently speaking regions decide to join together to form one country? Well, this wasn’t really the case as the decision was not by the people but by the few monarchs who ruled the region. In 1496, Isabella of Castile, the largest of the Spanish kingdoms, married Ferdinand of Aragon, which was the next largest kingdom. The unification of the crowns laid the basis for modern Spain and the Spanish Empire. Although the crowns were unified, the kingdoms were not. The constituent territories of both kingdoms retained much of their former institutional existence. These territories also exhibited a variety of customs, laws, languages and currencies. It wasn’t until the 18^th century when efforts were made to centralize the country. However, unlike other European countries where a single regional language were spoken everywhere, Spain spoke two different languages in some of the most industrialized areas. This gave rise to the Peripheral Nationalism along with the Spanish Nationalism.

    To solve this problem, in 1931 constitution envisaged a territorial division for all Spain in autonomous region. But this was never fully attained because the Spanish civil war that broke out in 1936 with the victory of the rebel national forces under Francisco Franco. And to make things worse, Franco’s dictatorial regime enforced forcefully centralism. He returned to Spanish as the only official language of the State and education and illegalized the use of other languages. The severe suppression of language and regional identities backfired and now the people demanded for democracy.

    After the death of Franco in 1975, Spain entered into a phase of transition towards democracy. The challenge with this newly democratically elected officials was to strike a balance between the opposing views of Spain on centralistic view inherited from Franco’s regime, and a pluralistic view of Spain as a “nation of nations”. In the end, the 1978 constitution of Spain found balance by recognizing the existence of “nationalities and regions” within the “indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation”. With this, Spain has asymmetrically devolved power to the communities, which in turn exercise their right to self-government but within the limits set forth in the constitution and their autonomous statutes.

    The case of Spain is a very interesting topic to study. The importance is more highlighted when we juxtapose the State evolution of both Spain and the Philippines. Like Spain, Philippines is a country made up of different regions/islands with varying political and cultural traditions, as well as different languages. Philippines has been forcefully homogenized, ironically by Spain. Spain’s actions in the Philippines has resulted to an amalgamated but divided country. This division can be seen in the country’s national language which is clearly biased towards the people of Luzon. And more so, the division can clearly be seen in Mindanao where certain groups are fighting for their autonomy and for others, even their own sovereignty.

    There may be more to Spain than just the Philippine’s colonizer. There may have more similarities than differences between both countries. Right now, with the ongoing process drafting a Bangsamoro Basic Law, maybe it is time to look back to our colonizer. And with this maybe we could solve the greatest problem of our country, nationalism.

References:

http://www.theglobalist.com/history-spanish-autonomy/

http://www.eyeonspain.com/spain-magazine/autonomous-communities.aspx

Villar, Fernando P. (June 1998). "Nationalism in Spain: Is It a Danger to National Integrity?". Storming Media, Pentagon Reports.

Conversi, Daniele (2002). "The Smooth Transition: Spain’s 1978 Constitution and the Nationalities Question" (PDF). National Identities, Vol 4, No. 3. Carfax Publishing, Inc.

Colomer, Josep M. (1 October 1998). "The Spanish 'state of autonomies': non-institutional federalism.(Special Issue on Politics and Policy in Democratic Spain: No Longer Different?)". West European Politics.