Jumping over the gatekeepers with 140 characters

lizcastro Catalonia, Technology 0 Comments

(This is the translation of an article I wrote for a Catalan audience, in DiariAra, on January 23.) The two weeks before the agreement on the new Catalan president were some of the most depressing and nasty on Catalan social media that I’ve seen in a long time. There were moments when I wondered if this is how wars start. We are entering a new period of maturity on social media. It only took a few incidents to happen for people to realize that Twitter is no joke, no simple reporter of breakfast banalities, and no messenger app. What goes on …

Catalonia’s debt to Twitter

lizcastro Catalonia, Technology 0 Comments

How do you change the world peacefully and democratically in the 21st century? By connecting, educating, and getting the outside world to listen. Catalans have spent the last six years determined to have their say in a country that neither listens to them nor respects them, and they have done so in the most exemplary fashion: with five massive peaceful, smilingdemonstrations, with debates, conferences, and canvassing, with citizen-led and government-supported though non-binding referenda, and by simply and steadfastly demanding the most basic of democratic rights which Spain refuses to grant: to vote on their political future. At this moment when people are questioning Twitter’s future, I love …

Spain doesn’t understand democracy so is it any wonder Catalans want out?

lizcastro Catalonia 0 Comments

Originally published in International Business Times This week in Portugal, right-wing president Pedro Passos Coelho has decided to overrule the decision of the people and decline to invite the left-wing majority to form a government. Meanwhile Greece’s ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is travelling across Europe, trying to explain how 60% of the Greek people voted no to the EU’s austerity plan yet were ignored by the government who accepted it anyway. And every week in Catalonia, the Spanish government tells us that we have no right to peacefully, democratically, decide our own political future. When did Europe become so afraid …

The Need for Necessity

lizcastro Catalonia, Diari ARA 0 Comments

 Originally published in ARA, May 8, 2015 Often, when people find out I’m American, they say “Wow, I’d love to learn how to speak English, I’ve been taking classes for years but I still can’t get by.” They look at me and my kids with envy since we learned English naturally, without classes. I always give the same answer: to learn a language, you have go where it’s spoken so that you NEED to speak it. There’s nothing like having someone right in front of you hanging on your every word. It’s the only way. Time and necessity. And it’s …

When can Catalans stop apologizing for being Catalan?

lizcastro Catalonia 0 Comments

It was a terrible accident. My daughter was in an exchange program with kids from Dusseldorf last year, like the group that lost its life on Flight #4U9525 from Barcelona to Dusseldorf yesterday. My son is on a school trip this week. A friend lost his wife. I have flown dozens if not hundreds of times. The flight left from my home city’s airport. It’s way too close to home. I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s so sad. I confess I didn’t think quite so much about the Malaysia accidents. A little, but not as much. It’s true that …

5 Reasons Catalonia Should be on your Radar

lizcastro Catalonia 0 Comments

Update: The Catalan Government has called the Catalan people to voice their opinion on their political future on Sunday, November 9th. Because the Spanish Congress refused to allow Catalonia to hold a binding referendum, Catalonia passed a Law of non-referendum ‘consultations’ to hold a non-binding one, which nonetheless was suspended by the Spanish Constitutional Court in record time on September 29. After negotiations fell apart with the other pro-referendum political parties, the President announced a new formulation for the vote. Yesterday, November 4, the Court also “suspended” this new system for Sunday’s event. The Catalan Government, Catalan community organizations like the ANC and Òmnium, and individuals have all said they are maintaining course …