I find it wild that our trip is coming to an end. I am excited to enjoy my last few days in Barcelona, while I am sad to end my fun weekend trips; Portugal has by far been my favorite side quest. One of the benefits of studying abroad is this freedom and access, to travel to neighboring countries and cities. Our program also has had many tours and company visits. While these have felt overbearing and initially felt like robbing of this freedom to explore, looking back at the tours, lectures, and activities, I believe it has set us up to feel less like tourists and more like temporary residents.
Multiple lectures were on the Catalan movement towards independence. I find this “fight” to be a battle already lost. Seeing as the physical size and economic dependance the Catalan region has on the EU, it feels slightly impossible for Catalan to become independent at this time. And for us to have had so many lectures and strong opinions on Catalan’s independence, it was interesting to hear that the ratio is only slightly over 50:50 in support of independence. With such a low ratio, I feel these statistics add to my argument that independence is not in the near future for Catalans. While I don’t entirely understand the dramatic nature of this independence fight for the reasons stated above, it has been interesting to learn and hear from multiple different Catalans on their political stance.
On the topic of politics, it has been almost humorous the political events that have been occuring in America the one month I travel to Spain. Thankfully, social media kept me in the loop; between the former presidential assaination attempt and President Biden stepping down from candidacy, every American I know has been publishing and reposting their opinions. What I found interesting about one post I came across while enjoying my European coffee was one that depicted some of candidate President Trump’s stances, one really intriguing me: “nationalism instead of globalism”. This made me start thinking about globalization’s relationship with politics and vice versa. Similar to the chicken and the egg debate of which came first, what incited the other: did globalism versus nationalism spark a political divide, or did the political divide claim one of these stances, making this argument something political?
While it is difficult to find research on what may have come first, there is heavy correlation between nationalism and republicans, and globalization and democrats. Republican candidates typically reach Americans who are for unilateral action/decoupling, meaning minimal reliance on other countries, and democrats typically vouch for economic power being more equally dispersed among major economies such as the US, Europe, and Japan. I have naturally leaned towards national independence; however, after studying globalization and living in a different country for a month, I understand that interdependence cannot really be reversed whether that is favored or not. With that, I find this heavy correlation to be very dangerous for America, because support/management of globalization is needed in order for our country’s economy to thrive. Our economy being in jeopardy because of politics is a clear problem.
This has really had me testing my political views as we approach an election in November. Additionally, I find the reliance of globalization that Americans need to be something some Catalonians have understood they need as well. While independence sounds nice, Catalans interdependence on other nations is so far irreversible that, like America, they need to lean into globalization.