Can you think of examples of Spanish repression of the separatist movements that compares to the French ban on religious face coverings and the UK's campaign against Palestinian solidarity activists? I ask because my main frame of reference for evaluating these countries is the geopolitical context; Spain is essentially a semi-periphery country nowadays while the UK and France maintain a claim to their previous imperial hegemony through neo-colonialism. Spain's era has come and gone almost entirely so they only wish to retain their own state's stability, these campaigns would not extend to the level of racial hatred that you see in neo-colonialist states. With that framing in mind, Spain's repression of separatist movements has a similar character to Russia silencing dissenters or South Korea banning pro-DPRK speech. They are not commendable actions and should be understood as elements of Fascism (capitalism in crisis), yet do not have the historical character that would bring about the crushing forces of imperialism to a larger group of people, like what the UK and France attempt to do both with their domestic policies and their imperialist foreign policy.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago

spanish repression has been much more violent and much larger scale than either of the episodes you've shared; Islamophobia is less common due to the virtue of spain having large muslim populations its entire existence and being dominated by them in the distant past.

spain does the same things the french and the british do, it's just out of the spotlight of the anglosphere and smaller in impact due it not being a world super power anymore; as you've demonstrated & explained here.