[Linganth] Update on Catalonia: recent reports in English

[Woolard, Kathryn]

 Dear colleagues,

As Bonnie Urciuoli put it, I’m updating you on events in Catalonia since they involve issues of human rights that are tied to linguistic human rights. This is just for anyone interested, with my apologies to others. Here are some recent sources that give, in English, views that we rarely get in the standard U.S. media reports, including the liberal ones (NYT, NPR).

Two from American public radio PRI’s “The World”:  The first a first-hand account of police action against voters:

https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-10-02/chronicle-crackdown-catalonias-independence-vote

 The second is an unusual (in the media) questioning of the arbitrariness of the Westphalian nation-state framework, by a political scientist (who also writes post-nation-state fiction, so she’s coming from left field, but makes important points).  The oral interview said more than the text, re the arbitrariness of the “legal/illegal”  argument when there are no legal means at all available for addressing problems. She compared the Spanish use of that framework to the shortcoming of arguments against “illegal immigrants” in the U.S., and contrasted it to the legality of the same procedures for Scotland, Quebec, etc. Worth listening to as well as reading:

https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-10-04/why-im-pro-secession-anyone-who-wants-it

From ARA in English, 2 translated articles:

An analysis by Canadian journalist Tom Harrington (in back translation, I assume) of the vagaries of European & US stances on the need for “procedural regularity,” depending on whether emerging nations are ripe new markets & military allies (post-Soviet cases), or already commodified and well fenced into the West’s backyard:
http://www.ara.cat/en/Disingenuousness-Procedural-Irregularities-Against-Independence_0_1882011972.html

Finally another first-person account, this one of being beaten and reviled by Spanish national police while trying to vote:
http://www.ara.cat/en/antoni-vives-letter-to-policeman-and-felipe-VI_0_1882611851.html

As before, you can find other English-version updates  of events on Ara in English:   http://www.ara.cat/en/

Best wishes,
Kit Woolard






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