Mont Sain-Michel

This beautiful place at the southern end of the Normandie or the northern end of the Bretagne in France is an island when the tide comes in. It is, to say it simple, a rock with a church on it and very famous for it's spectacular uniqueness. And so, when I was arriving there from Paris, I was just one of more than 3 millions of tourists a year who almost step on each others feet. 

I post it here because I once said, I will tell you about my last journey. But actually I was looking for an image to illustrate my wish to be somewhere else than in Barcelona right now.

Barcelona will suffer this weekend (and who knows for how much time after...) the outgrowth of a local government that has gone nuts. An extremely narcissistic local president and his terribly ugly, anarchistic vice rapidly made some new laws according to their personal taste and in spite of being contradictory to Spain's constitution - and therefor clearly illegal - they want to claim a new, independent country, shouting out loud "democracy" and "basic rights", although what they are doing is far from democratic - leaving the opposition completely out of the game, changing constitutional laws without asking and without the necessary majority, running down at least half of the residents and calling them fascists for not having the same ideas as they do.

On the other side there is a Spanish right-wing president who literally commits every error he can. Not only that he laid the basics for this conflict some years ago when he canceled an agreement that was accepted by the Spain parliament and by votes in Catalonia, but since then he did not enter in any of the (often very legitimate) wishes and demands from Catalonia. Now that the crisis gets hot, he only knows to talk about laws - and using violence, arresting people, transferring thousands of police men to Catalonia - instead of trying to find political answers.

So the situation is that there are two little boys trying to convince the other about who has the bigger one. It is ridiculous and it would be something to laugh about, if those two wouldn't be in positions that allow to destroy a lot.

Although the basic error for sure lays in the bad management of Spain's central government, what happens now is clearly the fault of Catalonia's regional president and his party. In a completely irresponsible manner he tries to provoke harsh and violent reactions of Spain's government, he jeopardizes social peace and drives a deep wedge in the society of Catalonia, creating wounds that - no matter how the things end up - will need many years to heal, if ever.

While he is able to mobilize hundreds of thousands and talks about "we are the people of Catalonia" he completely ignores that even if he mobilizes two millions they are still a clear minority in a total of more than 7 millions. When 16'000 students (out of more than 200'000) protest, he sees a majority and only proves that mathematics is not his main capacity. When his home secretary said a few days ago "It is important to obey the laws, but there are things that are more important", they revealed their view of their new authoritarian country in which - according to their new laws - there will exist no separation of powers and the president - the narcissistic, irresponsible Mr. MeMeAndMe - will place the judges.

Politically he is a looser. His only possibility is to arrange massive demonstrations to provoke a violent reaction from Spain and with that fueling the anti-spanish emotions of many. It is to fear that Spain's president is stupid enough - or even grateful - to accept the disastrous offer.

So, we will see what happens this weekend and the following days. It is a nervous, tense situation, and that's why I'd rather be somewhere else right now.