Every morning I watch Spanish television as I sip my cafe con leche. I can only understand a tenth of what’s being said, but I fear my Catalonian neighbors are making a very big mistake in calling for independence from Spain. It’s one thing to protest bad taxes and oppression from the government, and quite another to try to create your own state. Who do you protest to then: yourself? This mini nationalist urge feels good, but the cure is often worse than the disease. The south of Sudan was right to protest the treatment, amounting to genocide, on the part of Khartoum. But the new country of South Sudan is a horror of poverty, corruption and endless civil war.
jundanu 