The Tom and Gerry Show

Subject: The Tom and Gerry Show.

What I don't understand is the virtual silence from the 27 governments in Europe surrounding the imprisonment of the leaders of Catalan. There but for the grace of god go I should be on their minds since these parliamentarians of Catalan were elected just like them, by popular vote to represent the people who voted for them. The fact that the Catalans had a referendum in which a majority voted to leave Spain's parliamentary oversee was conducted in a prescribed manner through the ballot box, not the force of arms. 
The men who languish in jail are representatives of the Catalan people, not criminals. They sit in jail amongst the real criminals and no one seems to have the power or the inclination to speak on their behalf.
Of course Spain has a violent history of unrest and a willingness within its ruling class to turn on society with force. The Spanish Civil War was a bloody event carried out by hot headed parliamentarians and leaders of factions of fascism such as Franco, which were prevalent in Europe before the Second World War. The horror of the 'Inquisition' again brought out the worst in the Spanish character, or was that just the authority of the church and today we have the no nonsense sight of the iron fist again being used to flatten opposition.
Imagine if the leaders of the Scottish Nationalist Party were now lounging in jail because of their claim to independence.
A people's temperament, the German willingness to accept authority, the French, completely the opposite, their unwillingness to accept authority. Each society, the Greek, the Italian, the Rumanian, the Bosnian, and of course the Russian, all different, as if each genetic pool were different. 
We, isolated from the mainland, observers in some ways of what goes on "over there" have become prejudiced. Our inclination towards sarcasm leads us to presume we are better more able to win approval of our citizen by parliamentary means. Our class structure ensures a continuity of leadership largely from the same school as if the country was a club with its organising members not only incestuously joined at the hip but with a gift for deceiving even themselves. Of course, hand in hand with this goes a population who's  character is largely benign when it comes to matters of state and so the very acceptance of the status quo allows what ever is dictated by the parliamentary system to be swallowed hook line and sinker.
In some ways, we seek to compartmentalise our lives away from the issues of state. It provides a buffer where we are allowed even encouraged to think little of what goes on behind the walls of The Palace of Westminster. We think it has no relevance and we are lulled into an amorphous, shapeless, hedonistic culture which is as shallow as the result of the next football result.
The Catalans came out on the street in search of their identity. They believe that their history and their lineage is important and sufficiently different from their neighbours to demand independence. 
Of course one has to ask, different in what way. You wouldn't see any difference in the people as you would between a Londoner and someone from Beijing. A thousand years of culture have denoted different physical, dietary and philosophical differences which would be hard to determine between Barcelona, in the province of Catalan and Milan the capitol of Spain. There is no difference other than a type of tribal inference, a part of the historical propaganda perpetrated between the tribes who are then willing to fight like feline Toms. 
Perhaps related to Tom and Gerry, their ongoing squabble, with bully boy Tom unable to come to some sort of agreement with Gerry and Gerry, always having to be on the lookout, is a simple metaphor for our own lives.