by Delia Forrest
At that time, I worked for CCMA, the Catalan state TV and radio corporation. I worked with producers, directors and those close to the top: I couldn’t have been closer to events. One Tuesday morning in a classroom in the renovated building of Fabra I Coats, Sant Andreu, Catalunya (which I’ve previously written about in this very publication), I reflected on the fact that in our multicultural class of 25 students, only two people came from countries that hadn’t managed to get independence: me and my teacher, Marga, a staunch independista, who continually ran out the classroom with each new event on her phone. The rest came from south American, north American and African countries. All had managed to get independence from their colonial overseers. But neither Scotland nor Catalunya.
Despite both our countries having had mandates, for a few years, to declare, neither of us have independence and both are in very messy situations, Scotland with May’s Mayhem and Catalunya with the Catalan government, with the mandates and having falsely declared more than once, in prison or in exile.