New Year's Address from Catalan President Artur Mas:
Fellow Catalans:
It is my pleasure to address you this holiday season, as I do
traditionally every year, to send you a message of encouragement and
confidence in our country and to wish you happy holidays. These are
pleasant days, when we get to spend time with loved ones and friends in
celebration together. These are days for community, for memories, and
for good proposals for the future. These are also days in which we
particularly note the loss of family and friends who have left us or who
are far away.
To all those families who find themselves in these circumstances, or who
are facing difficult and adverse situations, of suffering or sickness, I
would like to especially send words of encouragement as well as the
commitment that we are working as hard as we can so that all of the
people in our country can lead a life of dignity.
The year we are about to begin, 2014, will be a year filled with
symbolism. We will mark the three hundredth anniversary of the end of
the War of Succession, the moment when Catalonia lost its privileges,
its Constitutions, its institutions, and its liberties. Three centuries
later, we celebrate almost a miracle: a people who might just as easily
have disappeared not only continues to exist but is planning more
forcefully than ever to win a great democratic and completely peaceful
battle: that of freely deciding its future as a country, as a nation,
and as a people.
Catalonia is a diverse and multicultural country, because of the origin
of the people who live here, because of the languages that are spoken
here, because of the myriad ways of thinking, because of the multitude
of political and ideological options.
A diverse and multicultural country, which at the same time is capable
of weaving great consensus like that which was demonstrated just a few
weeks ago with the widely supported agreement on the referendum to be
celebrated on November 9th of this coming new year.
I know that there will not be unanimity around this great challenge.
There are political forces who are opposed and above all, people, our
fellow citizens, who look on the process with worry, fear, and, indeed,
opposition.
These are legitimate and respectable positions, as legitimate and
respectable as those that see in this whole process the best way to
construct a country worth having: for its modernity, its wellbeing, its
sense of social justice, its civic responsibility, and its democratic
quality.
Each and every position must be defended with respect and in a spirit of
getting along together. To the extent that that depends on me, that
will be so.
And beyond the individual position of each of us, it will be the votes
at the polls that will have to decide and determine the proportions and
the magnitude of the country's majorities and minorities.
There is nothing more democratic than doing it this way. Catalonia is a
country with a long and deep democratic vocation, and therefore we must
do it this way. Resolving big issues at the polls should provoke neither
consternation nor fear, and it is obvious that our future and the
relationship that we should have with Spain and with Europe is the very
biggest of issues.
I want to take advantage of this New Year's message to ask the Spanish
State to let us vote. That they listen to the voice of the Catalan
People, and that they don't erect walls in order to silence us. That
they let decide those who feel the need to decide.
Every nation implicitly has the right to decide its future. But for
those who reject even this obvious fact, I will say that Catalonia has
earned its right to decide. Catalans from yesterday and today have
earned the right to decide their future because they have known how to
maintain their identity, their culture, their language, and their rights
alive, very often in the face of unjust laws and norms; they have
earned the right to decide because they have known how to welcome and
integrate millions of people from other territories of Spain and from
farther off countries, demonstrating that Catalonia is a land where what
is really important is the destiny that one seeks and not the origin
from which one comes; and above all, that Catalans have earned the right
to decide their future because they have known how to and indeed have
insisted on keeping alive their will to govern themselves, in the face
of all of the historical circumstances that tried to stop them and that
now try to limit or lessen them.
In a word, the Catalan People prefers to govern itself and not be
governed. And it wants to do so in a stronger, more united, more federal
Europe.
We ask, therefore, that we be allowed to vote. And that the Spanish
State doesn't see us as an adversary, and much less an enemy. We have
been when we've been able, and we want to be now and in the future an
ally, a good ally. But from a stance of freedom. Of our own free will.
By being able to answer the question to which we have agreed on the date
that we have agreed upon.
2014 will be, therefore, a year to remember history, people, and roots;
but it will also be a year to decide the future and expand horizons.
The year that is now closing was the sixth of an economic recession that
has caused real havoc. At the same time, it seems like we are finally
on the come back. I trust that it will be so, and we will do all we can
and all that we know in order to take advantage of the positive trend
that we have gotten a glimpse of. The wounds created by the recession
are very deep and therefore we cannot hope for instant miraculous cures.
We will need time, perseverance, talent, and courage to recover and
especially to look toward the future with a more solid foundation. The
crisis has revealed many supposed truths by showing them to be mistakes,
and even falsehoods, and much behavior from before is now rightly
criticized and recriminated.
Many things are changing for the better. And many others must still
change. I am confident that between us all, we will find the way to
amend the errors that have been committed and to transform what we've
learned into collective strengths and successes. Successes that should
be shared as they occur with all of those people, fellow citizens, who
have suffered from the blows and injustices of these last years.
We can't ever forget that the State that many demand for Catalonia, like
any other State, is nothing more than an instrument at the service of
the people and the country. That is, of the citizens.
I raise a toast symbolically to all of you for a 2014 full of light, opportunities, and hope.
Long live Catalonia!
http://www.newscatalonia.com/
