The question of identity in Catalonia and Spain is contentious and reflects the polarised political climate between Madrid and Barcelona. Jordi Mas writes on the notion that support for the Spanish national football team in Catalonia demonstrates that Catalan and Spanish identities are not necessarily incompatible. He argues that mere support for a football team does not constitute identity, and that the dynamics would shift if Catalonia had its own international side.
A recent opinion poll in Catalonia showed that, in a referendum on independence, 54.7 per cent of people would vote in favour and 22.1 per cent would vote against. Voting projections also suggest that national moderate parties will lose political support in the Catalan Parliament at the next elections. One might think that such a landscape does not fit with Alejandro Quiroga’s analysis in a recent article on the ‘dual’ Catalan and Spanish identities in Catalonia.
Quiroga’s perspective, drawing on anecdotal evidence, is that support for the Spanish national football team in Catalonia illustrates this dual identity, but can the current centrifugal forces in the political arena make their way into symbols in this way? Despite the fact that for some people Catalan and Spanish identities are not incompatible, his argument is nevertheless based on an ecological fallacy.
He argues that the Euro 2012 final attracted a 75 per cent audience share in Catalonia and thousands of supporters went to the streets to celebrate the Spanish victory. As he writes: “street parties, a profuse display of Spanish emblems, patriotic chants and balconies adorned with Spanish and Catalan flags made it clear that many Catalans strongly identified with the Spanish selección”. In this context, it is important to note that the Catalan flag (four red stripes and yellow background) is used both for regional identity and for independence movements, while the Catalan independence flag (which includes a white/red star in a blue/yellow triangle) is only used for independence movements.
Instead, one might consider a long list of alternative and possibly more meaningful explanations for Catalans watching the match. They could have been supporting Italy, simply watching an important football match or even (most likely half-heartedly) supporting the Spanish national team as a second best (since the Catalan team is explicitly forbidden from playing in international competitions). In this last scenario, Catalans would have been taking a pragmatic and strategic attitude towards Spain, which if anything reveals their lack of Spanish patriotism.
Quiroga discounts Catalan diversity and, as shown below, this point cannot be generalised. Indeed, if we look at evidence from other countries, we can see that drawing such conclusions leads to false results. In Germany, ZDF’s broadcast of the final achieved record ratings for a non-German match: 20.31 million, accounting for 56.2 per cent of the audience share. If Quiroga’s assertion were correct, we could conclude that more than half of all Germans feel a dual identity. However, it would be inaccurate for us to say that all the bars in Berlin were full of Italian supporters.
Alternative explanations include: some viewers in Germany were actually Italian and others only supported Italy because they had some sympathy for them. Others still merely liked football or even others simply did not have an interest in football, but were watching the game anyway because their alternative would have been to stay at home alone. Moreover, if one saw Germans wearing Spanish shirts, one would not be able to determine their actual connection to Spain or presume that they had a double identity.
Let us now turn to Quiroga’s other argument. Indeed, it is true that after the final whistle thousands of people in Catalonia went to the streets to celebrate the great victory. That day, I was watching the game in Munich, where bars were full and many people had Italian and Spanish flags, and where a not insignificant number of Spain supporters (not necessarily Spanish) were celebrating the success of their team in the streets.
At that time, I was living in Prague, where I could watch most of the Euro games, some of them on the big screen installed in Staroměstské náměstí (Old Town Square). Every evening the square was crowded with supporters, especially when the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, England or Italy were playing. It would have been unusual if any social scientist had come up with the idea of a quintuple identity of Czech society.
In Andorra, the Portuguese community accounts for 16.3 per cent of the population. Every time Portugal wins a game in an important competition, the streets of the Andorran capital are a place for celebration. The enormous and relative presence of supporters celebrating Portugal victories in the streets alone cannot be used as evidence that Andorrans feel an affinity for Portugal. The Andorran population is diverse, as is the Catalan population. Nearly 20 per cent of people living in Catalonia were born in the rest of Spain, and approximately half of the population has a mother or father who was born in the rest of Spain.
Although I admit that some Catalans share the dual identity that Quiroga describes, assertions such as “many Catalans strongly identified with the Spanish selección” or “popular support showed in Catalonia for the Spanish national team” cannot be accurately determined by audience figures or celebrations of Spanish supporters in the street.
We can shed some light on the matter with two surveys done in Catalonia in 2008 and 2012. These surveys do not capture the last political events in Catalonia, like the human chain, the massive demonstration of September 2012, or the political shift towards a separatist process. However, they do reflect Spanish success in football competitions, as the last survey was conducted after Spain won its second Euro.
According to these surveys, around 65 per cent of people in Catalonia support a Catalan national team, while around 20 per cent are opposed. At the same time, around 65 per cent of people said they support the Spanish team when it plays in a major competition and around 25 per cent said they do not. Assuming that both variables may overlap into two extremes of a continuum, around 25 per cent would not support the Catalan team, around 30 per cent would not support the Spanish team and around 5-10 percent would not know or would not answer. This would leave less than 40 percent remaining. According to this approach, 30-40 per cent of the Catalan population holds this dual identity.
However, further data from the surveys might lead us to believe that the percentage of dual supporters is even lower. When people in Catalonia were asked in Periodico’s 2008 survey about the reasons for supporting the Spanish team, 33.5 per cent said it was because of their beautiful way of playing, 26.3 per cent because of the players themselves, 18.9 per cent because of the Catalan players and only 10 per cent because the team represents their country.
In the 2012 survey, 33.7 per cent of people in Catalonia said they supported Spain because of the Catalan players and 10.8 per cent because there is no Catalan team, but if there was one they would support Catalonia. On this basis, one might conclude that there is little evidence that supporting the Spanish team symbolises the dual identity of Catalans. If anything, survey data suggests that, if Catalonia had its own international team, support for Spain would be minimal.
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Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics.
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Jordi Mas
Jordi Mas holds a BSc in Journalism and a BSc in Political Science and Public Management from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is currently in the MSc of Political Economy of Europe at the European Institute at the LSE.
The only ‘factual’ information is coming from the very Generalitat government that has now officially endorsed the move for independence and there is no discussion whatever of real opposition to independence. Nor is there mention of the polls carrried out by independent sources that point out that catalan support for independence is much less than a majority (about 1/3) when it is made clear that Catalonia would need to leave the EU in the first instance.
Finally, the important sporting point – again unmentioned- is that if Catalonia had its own team, then arguably Spain would not be World Champions, but then certainly neither would Catalonia. Most Catalans know that, and it is of course the basis for the genuine support of the national Spanish team.
Although Jordi Mas may be right in pointing out the problems of the Catalan support to the Spanish national football team as a proxy variable of national identities in Catalonia, his arguments are so spurious that fail to refute Alejandro Quiroga’s position. And they may hide a worrying prejudice over national identity amongst Catalan citizens:
1/ He tries to make a political inference on national identities based on data that only refer to football evidence: the reasons mentioned by Jordi Mas are not really useful to infer the political reasons behind. And this forces him to make a very weak interpretation of this data. If not every one supporting the Spanish team in Catalonia must be labelled as a ‘proud Spaniard’, most of them -following the data given by Jordi Mas- seem not to have major problems wit it.
2/ Jordi Mas seem not to know that the dual national identity is still today the main and predominant position of most Catalans. That may be changing, but Spanish national identity is far more important (following all the empirical evidence) that suggests by this text.
3/ I don’t really understand the comparison between Spain and the examples given by the author when he seem to suggest that most of the people supporting the Spanish football team in Catalonia may be considered as those Italian in Germany, Portuguese in Andorre or Polish in Prague. Maybe does Jordi Mas belong to those Catalan opinion-makers (very frequent nowadays) trying to suggest that those individuals in Catalonia who were born (or whose parents were born) in the rest of Spain and feel Spaniards (and of course are at odds with Catalan independence), are foreigners in their own country?
Please provide data and sources for this, I think you are relying on quite old data here,..
Data on national identity from 2013 poll made by the Institute of Political Science & Sociology (October 2013):
Question: How do you feel…
Only Spanish (6,8%)
More Spanish than Catalan (5,2%)
As Spanish as Catalan (35%)
More Catalan as Spanish (26,7%)
Only Catalan (24,3%)
From this we can affirm than, although the big change during the last two years in this dimension (where the ‘only Catalans’ have doubled’), the dual positions still represent the majority of people.
Other institutions with reliable data deliver similar figures.
Link: http://www.icps.cat/repositorio/archivos/sondeigs/sc2013nacespcat.pdf
So the majority of Catalans feels either only Catalan or more Catalan than Spanish, no dual identity here,….
Sorry, but all the studies on political identities consider this category as a ‘dual identity’ (where people give more emphasis on one side but accepting the other).
Please, let’s be serious and play politics elsewhere. This is a rigorous, respectable blog on European politics.
And next time, Josojs, try to give your opinion with your real name, not hiding behind nonsense labels.
All the best.
Clearly then there is no dual identity, the majority of Catalan or more Catalan than Spanish,….so likely to support a Catalan team if it the Spanish sports authorities would not boycott the numerous attempts of a direct participation. In many sports such as hockey all the Spanish team would be Catalan,…
Nico, see my reply to Josojs above. It fits perfectly to yours. Best,
The survey measurement of identity in political and social science is at such an infancy that honestly, it doe snot means anything that three three chaps have agreed upon the meaning of something,…
But seriously, unless the meanings of Spanish ‘state’ and ‘cultural’ identify are differentiated in the wording of the questions, the results form these surveys are useless to claim they prove anything,…it would be like asking someone whether ‘they are more British than citizens of the world’ or only ‘citizens of the world’.
You say, ‘since the Catalan team is explicitly forbidden from playing in international competitions.’
This is not true. It is not ‘forbidden’. It simply does not qualify. Being ‘forbidden’ suggests it is in the category of those eligible but is excluded for a peculiar reason. This is not the case. It is not in the category of the eligible. Therefore it is no more forbidden than the local team in my home town is forbidden.
Catalonia Is not allowed to participate in the Olympics and in world cups, not even allowed to qualify,….in a few sports where the Catalan team was a founding team of international federations the Spanish team has managed to lobby the international sports federations to pulls out if the Catalan team in the event of the Catalan team is allowed in,…your town team would not participate in founding any sports internationally,..
you’ve entirely misunderstood ebclyne14’s comment. S/he is saying that the catalan team does not legally qualify for those tournaments, just as the team from the Federation of Castilla y León, or Flanders, or Lombardia, or Bavaria, or … etc, etc, does not legally qualify. And of course s/he is entirely right – to say that the Catalan team is “forbidden” is to play dirty rhetorical tricks with the facts to your advantage, since it portrays arbitrary injustice where there is none.
What hilarious is that all that someone can spot from such a well framed post is the difference between forbidden and ‘not legally allowed to participate’,….:)
You do not see the difference between legal disqualification and discrimination or arbitrary injustice? Given the present legal status, if Catalonia is allowed to play then any of the 17 autonomous communities would by exactly the same legal precept ‘legally qualify’. So would Corsica, or Bavaria.
The laws are what they are, and we are all bound by them, irrespective of your nationality, gender, religious or sexual orientation, and, of course, irrespective of your beliefs regarding whether or not Catalonia should become a separate nation-state.
Alphonse, your reply equaling Catalonia with any of the other Spanish regions is really telling of your ideology. It would be like equaling Scottish identity with that of Hertfordshire. Perfect expression of Spanish establishment views….
Jose is right, discussing this questions is just a waist of time.
Fully agree with Jordi, please ignore the Spanaish nationalist crowd above,no point discussing with the so called “cavern” who insist to deny the Catalan question,….
This comment so well exemplifies the wonderful attitude from those who say they want to “peacefully separate from the rest of Spain” to then join them in a friendly manner within the EU afterwards.
To Simona: yes, Catalonia is exactly like Hertfordshire and not Scotland from the legal point of view. And it has always been. This is not a matter of ideology, it is a matter of fact. The UK was created as a federation of ancient independent nations in the Union act but not so Spain which precedes any of the ‘nationalist’ institutions of its regions (including the ancient kingdoms of Asturias or León, neither of which had any nation status). Why is it so difficult for independentists to acknowledge that they want to change the status quo, destroy Spain as it is and we ever have known it, in order to create a new Catalan state ab initio? At least this would be honest, and we could have an honest discussion. But you seem to have been brainwashed into believing that facts are ‘ideology’, so it is impossible to even discuss things.
You clearly ignore here the basics of modern state formation here and the fact than nationalism is a XIX century ideology, of course given that nationalistic nature of Spanish education I am not surprised…..
The UK is a unitary state as Spain. If there is difference to highlight is not a historical one, but a legal one. Catalans were nudged after coming out form a dictatorship to subscribe a constitution that proved against them , and not its time to break free,…
Spain does not need to be broken as it is already in shambles, it is a failed project economic and political grounds……
Thank you, Simona, for your modesty, your kindness and your unlimited knowledge about about Spanish politics & history in your two comments. We are too ignorants to reply your messages.
I’ve come to this rather late in the day, but unlike Alphonse Redoutable’s perspective, it seems to me that the parallels between Scotland and Catalonia are very persuasive. I find the emphasis on the historical context alone quite misplaced. Yes, the fact that Great Britain was established from a Union may be of some (limited) relevance, whereas Spain was not. But look at the example of Ireland. Apparently created from a similar such union with Great Britain, but yet when independence was achieved in the early 20th century, very modern principles of self-determination were applied (albeit in a very contested fashion in Northern Ireland). The point, however, is that historical context alone, was not determinative.
I fail to understand why the Spanish Establishment is unwilling to facilitate an expression of self-determination by Catalonia. Canada with respect to Quebec has facilitated it. The UK with respect to Scotland is facilitating it. If, indeed, the Spanish Establishment is confident of its argument, confident of the unity of Spain as being preferred by Spain’s constituent parts, then give the people of Catalonia a vote (monitored by European/international observers) and let all sides respect the vote. Sabre-rattling about “not permitting it” or otherwise attempting to use the institutions of the EU for narrow nationalist means (ie preserving the Spanish State as currently constituted) is quite contemptible and beneath the dignity of modern democractic discourse. Spain and its institutions should know better: if the Spanish State is to survive it will not last long on threats or pressure, it will only last based on the common consent of its people.
But I am not talking about history but law, which often is rooted in history, and the history needs to be understood if the laws are to be changed. For example, unlike what is the case with the rest of the UK were Scotland to leave, there is no legal entity that would remain if Catalonia leaves. The rest of Spain would no longer be in any recognizable form “Spain”. Secession of Catalonia is the effective destruction of Spain. This is just not true in the Scottish case.