0:02

George Bernard Shaw's Ninety know for

0:04

play John Bowls of the Island

0:07

was are you waspish comedy reflecting

0:09

on the eternally vexed relationship between

0:11

the country where he was born,

0:13

Ireland and the country in which

0:16

he lived, the United Kingdom. This

0:19

explainer is well aware before

0:21

we crack on too much

0:23

further, that any analogy comparing

0:25

tensions between Ireland and the

0:27

Uk and those between Catalonia

0:29

and Spain is necessarily imperfect.

0:31

However, in the preface to

0:33

a ninety know Six edition

0:36

of John, Bowls of an

0:38

Ireland sure made an observation

0:40

which has pretty universal applications.

0:42

A Heavy nation is as unconscious

0:44

of it's nationality as a happy

0:46

man of his bones. But

0:48

if he break and nations nationality. It

0:51

will think of nothing else but getting it's that again.

0:54

It will listen to know or former

0:56

to know philosopher, to know preacher until

0:58

the demand of the national is granted.

1:01

It. Will attend to no business however vice

1:03

of them. Except. The Business

1:05

of Unification and liberation. This.

1:09

Paragraph has been see really

1:11

embraced by nationalists of all

1:13

kinds as evidence of the

1:15

overwhelming urgency of their cause.

1:18

When. Your correspondent interviewed shouldn't finds then

1:20

President Gerry Adams in Belfast in

1:22

two thousand and four. There was,

1:24

at one point a brief delay

1:26

while Adams for sucked in his

1:28

wallet for the scrap of paper

1:30

upon which the quote was written.

1:33

However, Those nationalists who have

1:36

cited Shore in defense of

1:38

their struggle have through ignorance or

1:40

opportunism, omitted the first sentence.

1:42

Nobody have any intelligence likes nationalism

1:44

any more than a man with

1:47

a broken arm likes having

1:49

it set. And they

1:51

definitely leave out the earlier.

1:53

it requires neither knowledge, character,

1:56

conscience, diligence in public affairs,

1:58

nor any virtue price. or

2:00

communal to thump the nationalist

2:02

cub. It

2:04

does look, maybe a bit, like

2:07

the voters of Catalonia may be

2:09

coming around to the bleaker interpretation

2:11

of Shaw's willfully ambiguous musings. The

2:13

message is not for Romania, it's

2:15

a very good question, but I'm

2:18

very happy to be able to give the

2:20

right to present it to the Catholic people.

2:25

In a snap regional election

2:27

after weekend, Catalonia's voters drifted

2:29

away from pro-independence parties and

2:32

principally towards the Socialist Party,

2:34

the comrades of Pedro Sánchez,

2:36

Prime Minister of Spain. Indeed,

2:40

it is just about arguable that

2:42

the more fervently pro-Catalan independence a

2:44

party is, the worse they did.

2:47

The Republican left of now apparently

2:49

outgoing Catalan President, Péra Aragones, went

2:51

into Sunday's vote with 33 of

2:53

the 135 seats in Catalonia's parliament.

2:59

They now have 20. The further

3:01

left Popular Unity candidacy got mown

3:03

down from 9 seats to 4.

3:07

Minor gains were made by the Together

3:09

for Catalonia party of Carlos Pujdemont, of

3:11

whom more shortly, but all in all,

3:13

for the first time since 1984, pro-independence

3:16

parties will

3:19

probably no longer control Catalonia's

3:21

government. We

3:29

should now do an amount of

3:32

backstory to illustrate the hypothesis that

3:34

if the Catalonian independence bubble has

3:36

not exactly popped, it does

3:38

appear to be punctured and deflating.

3:42

Carlos Pujdemont in particular may be

3:44

struggling to decide whether he was

3:46

a winner or a loser in

3:48

this election. In

3:50

some respects, Sunday's result represents

3:52

quite the triumphant comeback for

3:54

Pijdemont. He

4:00

was the former president of Catalonia who in 2017

4:02

called a referendum on independence for

4:10

Catalonia, seceding from Spain and setting

4:12

up under its own name. While

4:15

this did return a 92% yes vote,

4:18

that was on a 43% turnout

4:21

and at any rate the whole

4:23

thing had been ruled illegal by

4:25

Spain's constitutional court. The resolution

4:27

against identification of the

4:30

Parliament that brings five

4:32

Cham Pet Walter

4:41

portrait's Boulton

4:50

to Belgium and eventually won a

4:52

seat in the European Parliament. Nine

4:55

among his senior separatist compadres who

4:57

stayed in Spain to face the

4:59

music ended up in prison. They

5:02

were pardoned in 2021 as

5:04

Pedro Sanchez sought to affect

5:06

some sort of reconciliation. Pardons

5:10

are a small thing. The

5:12

truth is that they've taken our freedom of

5:14

speech at all levels. We have

5:17

our legitimate government in prison or

5:19

exile and this is a very

5:21

serious thing in a democracy. Quijo

5:24

de Montt still hasn't returned to

5:26

Spain. He was able to negotiate

5:28

from exile and amnesty for hundreds

5:30

of Catalan separatists still potentially on

5:32

the hook over the events of

5:34

2017 as

5:37

part of a deal to support Pedro

5:39

Sanchez as socialists in the National Congress

5:41

of Deputies following an inconclusive Spanish election

5:43

in 2023. But the bill is yet

5:45

to become law if and when it

5:51

does Quijo de Montt should be able to

5:53

come home. Nevertheless He

5:55

did undeniably well at the weekend

5:57

for a fugitive from Justice who

5:59

could. The Campaign: any closer to

6:01

Barcelona than flipping young indeed. As

6:03

of this broadcast, Bridge Demand is

6:06

clinging to ambitions of cobbling together

6:08

some sort of minority coalition which

6:10

would restore him to travel on

6:12

his presidency to see lots of

6:14

air force of elements that independent

6:17

discern. If the order parliamentary force

6:19

supporting dependence is kinda republican or

6:21

is willing to reviewed Bridges and

6:23

Engaging does reflection on the effects

6:25

of disunity and a lack of

6:27

a shared strategists effect and so

6:30

are We have a satirical but

6:32

Athena was August and biggest on

6:34

his them. However,

6:37

Even if breeds to month does come home

6:39

and even in the unlikely outcome the Prince

6:41

de Monte is returned to the main stage

6:44

Steam I discovered that the greatest hits are

6:46

not packing them in like for used to.

6:49

Polls suggest a slow but

6:51

steady ebbing of support for

6:53

Catalan independence, and perhaps for

6:55

the hustle and headache of

6:57

accomplishing it. Support. For

6:59

secession is now generally reckon

7:01

somewhere around forty percent, with

7:04

perhaps fifty percent against. Far.

7:06

Right parties in Catalonia have recently

7:09

perceived greater mileage in beating up

7:11

on migrants from beating up on

7:13

Madrid and if there was one

7:16

on arguable winner in Sunday's election,

7:18

it was the conservative Unionist People's

7:20

Party who surged from free sites

7:23

to fifteen. To. Return

7:25

to George Bernard Shaw's analogy may

7:27

be an atavistic yearning for sovereignty

7:29

is in some instances less like

7:31

a broken limb and more like

7:33

a my old twins in the

7:35

need Something you can probably learn

7:37

to live with, especially if you're

7:39

living with us in one of

7:41

the richest parts of a pleasant

7:43

and orderly country and certainly no

7:45

reason to saw your own like

7:47

off. For. Monocle

7:49

Radio. I'm Andrew Miller.