Recently, a survey by the Center for Sociological Research (CIS) has been published on various issues related to the Autonomous Communities or Cities of the State, which included a study ...
Recently, a survey by the Center for Sociological Research (CIS) has been published on various issues related to the Autonomous Communities or Cities of the State, which included a comparative study on self-sentiment or self-identity in each of them, comparing the feeling of Spanishness and the connection to their Nationality or Region. Specifically, they were asked about one of these five variables:
Variable 1. Feels only Spanish. Variable 2. Feels more Spanish than from their community. Variable 3. Feels as Spanish as from their community. Variable 4. Feels more from their community than Spanish. Variable 5. Feels only from their community
With the percentage data provided by the study, some relevant conclusions can be drawn to determine the self-identity of each territory. I propose to make some comparisons of the results, respecting those evaluated by the CIS, but seen in another way: What I intend is to add the data from the answers V1 and V2 (only Spanish or more Spanish) and from V4 and V5 (more from the Community or only from the Community) and confront those results with each other (since V3 is neutral, I give it a value of 0). The result will be positive or negative depending on the greater or lesser affinity - what I have called the Self-Identity Index (IA) - to the State as a whole or to its respective Community. It will be positive if the feeling of Spanishness is greater than that of their Community or negative if it is the other way around. The mathematical formula would be as follows: Self-Identity Index (IA) = (V1 + V2) + V3·0 - (V4 + V5).
Let's take an example using the first Community in alphabetical order, Andalusia, whose results are: V1= 3.7%; V2=6.6%; V3= 0; V4= 20%; and V5= 1.3%. If we perform the arithmetic sum, it turns out that IA = (3.7 + 6.6) ? (20 + 1.3) = (10.3) ? (21.3) = -11. The final result of the operation is that the Self-Identity Index is equal to -11. That is, there are 11% more respondents in Andalusia whose feeling is greater towards the Community than towards the State.
Applying this formula to the rest of the autonomous communities, the result - that is, from greater Spanish sentiment to greater territorial sentiment - is as follows:
Madrid: +39; Castilla y León: +36; Castilla-La Mancha: +29; Ceuta: +27; Valencia: + 21; La Rioja: +12; Cantabria +12; Extremadura: + 11; Murcia: + 11; Melilla: + 8; Asturias: +1; Aragón 0; Andalusia: -11; Galicia: -19; Balearic Islands: -21; Navarra: -31; CANARY ISLANDS: -37.5; Catalonia: -39; Basque Country: -42.
These data provide many reflections, but above all they illuminate the specific political characteristics of each Autonomous Community, with a clear parallelism between the feeling of self-identity and the presence of political parties of a nationalist nature. In this case, the Communities with the lowest index of Spanishness (and consequently, the highest of self-identity) would be the Basque Country, Catalonia and the Canary Islands, while Madrid and the two Castillas would be the ones with the most Spanishness (and the least of self-identity). It is worth noting the interesting fact that the average for the entire State is -2, which may express, in general, a certain uprooting of Spanish citizens.
In recent times, the meaning of the word nationalist has undergone an evolution in its understanding for the average citizen. During the first decades of the last century, and until the end of World War II, nationalism was synonymous with independentism, while today, with what is known as Modern Nationalism, the aspiration of nationalism is not necessarily the achievement of a totally independent State, but the fullness of self-government, such as full internal autonomy, which does not conflict with independentism, since it could even be interpreted as a prior situation, although not obligatory, to the creation of its own State, and which is included in various pronouncements of the UN General Assembly.
The above is intended to explain the differences that exist between the variables of the CIS survey on the feeling of identity. Indeed, variable 5, "only feeling from the Community" can be interpreted as a separatist tendency, and is often confused and even erroneously identified with the autonomist sentiment, which I believe is embodied in variable 4, "feeling more from the Community than Spanish" (in the case of the Canary Islands, variable 4 is 37%, while variable 5 is 6.0%).
The Spanish State is currently in a deep political crisis, independent and superimposed on the economic one, resulting from the exhaustion of the transitional pact embodied in the Constitution of 1978, which left the open commitment of an unresolved Autonomous State, and whose greatest interpreter, the Constitutional Court, clings to the letter and not to the spirit that animated the Spanish people at that time regarding an evolution of the model that would allow a deep self-government in which the different territorial identities and the differential facts that precisely singularize those territories would be manifested.
In the future, this type of CIS survey should continue to serve to evaluate the different political indices of the Autonomous Communities, and to warn of possible parallels between these indices and the political reality that is manifested in each electoral process. It should even serve to foresee changes in trend, such as, for example, the case of nationalism in Galicia, which may be in a certain regression, or that of the Balearic Islands and Navarra, which on the contrary seems to be on the rise.
As for the Canary Islands, the self-identity indices confirm that Canarian nationalism enjoys good health and it is foreseeable, if there is unity among the various trends, an increase in political activity in that sense, since it is currently in third place after the historical nationalisms of the Basque Country and Catalonia.
In any case, these data - and many citizens - highlight the need to address a new great constitutional pact that addresses the reality revealed by the survey we are analyzing today, a historical reality confirmed by present facts and by those that are intuited for the future; that is, that Spain is a Plurinational State and that certain nationalities demand full self-government, especially those that fly historical flags and unquestionable geographical realities.
Let each one draw their own conclusions and act accordingly.
*By Victoriano Ríos, member of Coalición Canaria .
