In China, Korea, Japan and even Taiwan, the term “Nationalist” describes people defined as such in the traditional sense of the word. In Western mainstream media, totally dominated by the Left, it always has negative connotations of violence, backwardness, xenophobia and the rejection of multiculturalism.
In Spain, its use after the death of Generalissimo Francisco Franco on November 20th, 1975 can only be called confusing. Neighboring Portugal represents a totally different case, as the independence movements on the Azores and Madeira, two Portuguese archipelagos in the Atlantic Ocean, were rather short-lived.
Interestingly, in Spain Nationalists aren’t those proud of being Spaniards, considering their country superior to others or defending a united Spanish nation. On the contrary, nowadays you better watch out when you walk around with a national flag or other suspicious objects.
Ironically, it’s used for all those who want to destroy the current political system, based on the Constitution overwhelmingly approved by popular referendum in 1978, and abolish the monarchy.
These separatists are in the same boat with republican, Church-bashing and self-hating Socialists and Communists, which are taking advantage of the fact that former king Juan Carlos I has unexpectedly left for the United Arab Emirates after being investigated for corruption.
Nationalists in Catalonia, including their growing fifth columns in the Autonomous Communities of Valencia and the Balearic Islands, the Basque Country and increasingly in Galicia, are openly challenging the notion that all Spaniards should live in what they often contemptuously call the “Spanish State”.
Due to decades of indoctrination, their numbers are increasing fast among younger generations. As the present government has allied itself with the heirs of the murderous Basque terrorist organization ETA and depends on the votes of radical Catalonians that completely rewrite history in their favor, the future of Spain appears to be more and more in danger.
While it seems perfectly right to be proud of your region in an intolerant, excluding and often violent way, most of the Spanish press demonizes those opposed to Spain’s slow dismemberment as “Fascists, Francoists and Nazis”, though never as “Nationalists”. In progressively Orwellian societies, the meaning of certain words can be manipulated to the extent that at the end they mean the exact opposite. War is peace?