To:
Barack H. Obama
President
United States of America
Mister President,
as the TIME magazine
cover of September 10th put it: What Obama knows now, reaching the
end of your term as president of your great country, you may have been
acquainted with the Catalonia growing cry for independence in these recent
years.
An ancient country with a
long and glorious history, with a vast cultural background and a rich language,
Catalonia has been striving to find a place in the concert of the free nations
of the world.
The struggle to emerge as
a single entity, as a country, has not always been a peaceful one. Lost our
ancient rights and laws in fierce battles some 300 years ago, and lost again
more recently during the Spanish Civil war that led to a very long 38 years of
Franco's dictatorship, had cost us dearly in blood and suffering.
The advent of democracy
and the writing of a new constitution for the Spanish State in the 1970's opened a new era of peace
and development and growth to Spain and also to Catalonia. Spain is now a
modern state of law-abiding citizens integrated in the European Union and
cooperating with a wide variety of international endeavors for peace and
wellbeing around the world.
This however, and for the
past thirty years, has come about to an unfair cost to the people who live and
toils in Catalonia up to a point to make it unbearable.
Not only our economic
situation has been set back, worsened further by the worldwide economic crisis
of these past few years, but some of our widely accepted initiatives within our
community to modernize and put forward a better way of managing it, such as the
2006 Statute of Autonomy originally granted by the Spanish state, have been
trampled, despised and utterly rejected by the Spanish central government.
For years, through
effort, hard work and entrepreneurship, Catalonia has been the powerhouse for
the Spanish state economy. But the unfair taxation system is strangled us and
tampered our efforts so no longer we see our future as prosperous as we should
allow to dream.
As you well know, the
American colonies went into the path for independence initially for a matter of
taxes. To us is not just the tea, but rather a sizable chunk of our resources
that go to Spain and are not fairly returned as services and investments.
Catalonia understands that the contribution in terms of solidarity to other
parts of Spain is right, but not to the point to render us poorer than the
regions we are helping. And worst, with no end in sight to this lopsided
drainage.
All this has brought us
to the point of considering that a future not dependent of the decisions and
policies, made 400 miles away in Madrid that do not respect our reasoned wishes
in terms of administering our lives, is a desirable endeavor.
On September 11th, a date
of dire remembrances to both your country and ours, 1 and a half million of us
took the streets of Barcelona to show our will for a change in our relation
with the Spanish State. That rally was organized by the civil society,
political parties and politicians joining in afterwards.
From there on, our
collective will is to pursue the constitution of an independent state that
suits our needs and dreams for the future. And to do so in a peaceful and reasoned
way within the concert of all the nations of the world and the European Union
as well.
This is what we want to
bring to your attention and, as the head of the most powerful nation in the
world, ask for your support to the will of a people that strives for its own
laws, its rights and its independent free will in the path of liberty and
peace.
With our best wishes for
your renewal in office, should that be the wish of the American people in the
incoming elections,
Yours sincerely
Xavier Allué
Citizen of Catalonia
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