A rally as a metaphor

Watching from afar, via the Catalan news channel www.3cat24.cat, the massive civic demonstration in Barcelona against the ruling by the Spanish Constitutional Court on the Catalan Estatut, I could not help but draw a parallel between the organisation of the rally and the current political situation.  

This political rally was called under the banner of “We are a nation – we decide” (Som una nació; nosaltres decidim). The local police, never one for inflating numbers for pro-Catalan civic demonstrations, has estimated attendance at over 1.1m people. After watching TV, I would say that is an overly prudent lower bound by a police force mostly staffed by people who would never support anything other that Catalonia being a region of Spain.

The demonstration has been a massive, unprecedented, historic success. There were more people in attendance that it was ever anticipated or expected even by the most optimist. In fact, the rally did not advance for one hour because there were just too many people. Overwhelming popular support against an attack by the unelected high priests of Spanish nationalism against the settled wish of the Catalan people as expressed in a referendum and the Catalan Parliament. If there was any question about people being not interested, surely this settles the issue.

However, anyone has been to a few rallies and knows the city a little bit, could tell you that the design of this rally  was a mistake. It was meant to start in Pg Gracia / Diagonal, walk down and turn left at Gran Via until Pl Tetuan.

This is an inefficient way for people to congregate and make their way.

This particular rally should have started at Pl Espanya and terminate at Pl Catalunya/Pg Gracia.

Not only because this is a better alternative from a logistical point of view, and would have accommodated the hundreds of thousands of  people in attendance, but also because this would be a poignant way to symbolise the political cul-de-sac Catalonia has now arrived at.

In a way, the overwhelming success of this political demonstration in favour of Catalonia’s nationhood, is representative of the current state of affairs. People, most people, regardless of their background and national preference are fed up with being treated as second class citizens. People are fed up with the constant insults from most of the Spanish press against Catalonia. However, the political divisions, the lack of leadership and vision amongst the Catalan political class, and more than anything the lack of cojones, are holding Catalonia back. Undoubtedly, there is popular will to change the status quo, but there seems to be no political agent willing to implement this message.

Against this, there are those luminaries who claim that the “nationalists” are only a few, that this issue does not interest the majority of people, and that this is a distraction from the real issues that matter to real people. Those who say these things are, have been and will always be nothing more than duplicitous, manipulative and resentful little people, unable or unwilling to understand, to accept that Catalonia is a nation, a stateless nation, that should be allowed to choose its own future without interference and threats from the Spanish state.

Let it never be said again that “people in the street” are not interested in the Estatut, that it is only political anoraks who worry about these things. It is because the Estatut is the vehicle that enables Catalonia to look after its interests, after its hospitals, schools and public services, and it is because of this, because people are worried about things that matter, that Barcelona has witnessed today the biggest civic demonstration in living memory if not ever.

But.

Will this historical, massive civic demonstration of national strength achieve anything?

I am afraid it won’t.

Sorry I don’t have the time to translate the article below:

http://www.victoralexandre.cat/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1176&Itemid=1

Mr Alexandre, one of the brightest minds in Catalonia, nails it again.

A political problem is resolved via political decision making and policy implementation.

Civic demonstrations and rallies are noise. A cry for attention given everything else seems to have failed.

After all, this Estatut that has been decimated by the Spanish CC is an already cut-down version of the Estatut approved by the Catalan Parliament in 2005 by all parties except the Spanish PP. In a matter of days, that Estatut was watered down by CiU and PSC-PSOE in closed-door negotiations.

Therein lies one of the conundrums of Catalan politics: support for independence, overt or subtle is ever higher, growing almost by the month. Today’s rally was a rally in favour of independence. However, none of the mainstream parties, not even ERC, let alone CiU, do try to implement the policies they carry in their manifestos.

PSC-PSOE, the party in government in Catalonia and in Madrid, claims to be a federalist party. However, after being in power in Spain for many years, in the 80s and now, Spain is far from a federal state. In fact, the judges appointed by the PSOE voted jointly with the PP-appointed judges in watering down the Catalan Estatut. This ruling by the Spanish CC has killed off the idea of a federal Spain. The federalist door has been slammed down in the face of the PSC by their own Spanish colleagues of the PSOE.

CiU claims to be a moderate nationalist party but in fact they are scared of challenging the status quo. For them, steady-as-you-go of the status quo is a happy state of affairs –as long as they are in power.

ERC, the party that is, on paper, pro-independence, is propping up a coalition government in the Catalan parliament jointly with the PSC-PSOE. Against the wishes of its electorate, ERC has renewed the coalition government a second time, achieving very little in terms of safeguarding Catalonia’s interests in terms of finances, cultural development, public services delivery or economic growth.

IC-V are the PSC-PSOE poodle and they will slavishly follow whatever direction is set by PSC.

On the sidelines, a number of pro-independence parties and movements appear to carry more support than ever but have yet to make an impact on the political scene.

The political cul-de-sac, this end-of-the-road moment in Catalan/Spanish relations can only be unblocked by elected politicians choosing two courses of action.

1)      Management of the current devolution framework as set out in the Spanish Constitution.

2)      Exercise of the right to self-determination via  referendum bill approved in the Catalan Parliament.

The problem is that most political parties in Catalonia want a third, unviable option: a high level of self-government in a federal Spain. Despite the clear-cut ruling by the Spanish CC, PSC-PSOE and CiU will try to pursue this non-option.

Choosing option 1 would be an admission of failure, whilst option 2 requires a level of courage and dignity than anyone in CiU or ERC, let alone PSC or IC-V, can only dream of.

For over 100 years, Catalonia has tried to change Spain, make it a federal, multi-national state. The Spanish have decisively rejected such possibility.

Yet some Catalans still insist on trying to achieve a chimera.

The stage is set for either a massive climb down and humiliation or a paradigm shift in Catalan/Spanish relations the consequences of which are unpredictable.

Let’s hope that the Spanish state does not resort to military threats and intimidation as has been historically the norm. History is not on the side of the Catalans.

Links:
English: BBC News, CNN, 
Catalan: Vilaweb,
Spanish: Publico,
Videos: CNN, Vilaweb,

The resentful immigrant

And now to the topic that triggered my previous post.

Over the last few years I have noticed how there has been a proliferation of blogs about Catalonia or Spain in English. That so many people from around the world move to Catalonia for whatever reason speaks volumes of what a welcoming country Catalonia is.

In every society, there is always a percentage of immigrants who are not happy with some aspect or another of their host country. I have seen it with Poles in Germany; with Asians in the UK, with Englishmen in Scotland, with Scots in London, with North Africans in France or Spain… and with many a Spanish person who emigrated to Catalonia.

Resentment towards the host community in an immigrant is a terrible thing.

I have seen it with some relatives, who after 40 years living in Catalonia still refuse to be grateful for the chance at a new life and the vast improvement in living standards and wealth they have achieved. Their resentment takes many forms: they refuse to learn the language or watch certain TV channels, or they speak in disparaging terms about their country of adoption. I have seen it also with some Spanish people (and it tends to be Spanish more than Catalan) in the UK. They resent the food, the drinking culture, the weather, the crumbling NHS. Without prompting, they will remind you that things in Spain are better (apart from jobs, obviously) and that British people are cold, smug, drunkards, unhealthy, illiterate, or whatever is the rant of the day.

I feel very sorry for people like that.

Fast forward to the start of the 21^st century and globalisation of trade and labour.

Since the late 90s, a huge number of immigrants from the Americas and Europe have settled in Catalonia. Many of them have done so successfully and they are a great asset:

Tom, George, Matthew, and many others I have not heard about (more here, here and here) are valuable members of Catalan society, nouvinguts, and they have adopted their new homeland as much as their new homeland has adopted them. Everyone is a winner.

However, there is a minority of Anglo-Saxon and other northern Europeans, not to mention a few people from South America, whose new life in Catalonia does not bring them all the joy they would have hoped.

Whereas in the UK most immigrants complaint about the weather or food, in Catalonia some of these newly arrived wealthy immigrants take exception to the educational policy of the devolved Catalan administration.

They particularly object to the teaching of Catalan in schools and the use of Catalan as the vehicular language of education in Catalonia. I recommend you read my earlier entry here.

This new type of immigrant finds the fact that Catalan language is not actually dead an unpleasant discovery. The indigenous language of the host community becomes thus a little nuisance, and inconvenience. Over time, their resentment grows into something more powerful, a deep-seated prejudice against the host community.

These immigrants, albeit nominally living in Catalonia, have adopted the discursive message of the most nationalist Spanish media. In a way, they have settled in the wrong place, but this is not something new: there are many first, second and even third generation immigrant families from other areas of Spain which harbour the same narrow-minded prejudice. These blue-eyed newcomers have just joined the ranks.

There are many crackpots in the blogosphere, if you do a few searches you will find them easily.

There are the more belligerent ones who refer to the democratically elected government of Catalonia as “nationalist-socialist”. That this government coalition between an unionist party (fiercely opposed to independence) and a (nominally) pro-independence party and a federalist eco-socialist grouping is described with that slur says more about the utter ignorance and comptempt for democracy of the poster than anything else. This kind of language is used by the Spanish far-right and some elements of the Madrid-based press. That some of our supposedly intelligent immigrants have adopted this narrative reveals that under the pretence of “detachment” and objectivity (“I am a foreigner after all, no axe to grind”, etc, etc), these people are nothing more than cheer-leaders for the most repulsive side of Spanish nationalism, directly feeding from the ideology of post-Francoist Spanish nationalism.

Examples of such hatred against anything Catalan can be found in the revisionist pseudo-historicism and false intellectualism of Kalebeul (aka TerrorBoy. I call him TerrorBoy because his posts rewriting Spanish history and fake intellectualism cause me terror). The same type of material, often just without any subtlety can be found here in Life in Catalonia. Be careful with the latter because this despicable racist bastard will also edit your comments and post comments pretending to be you or someone else.

Recently, I have noted a few additions to the English language Cat-osphere.

This is a pattern we have seen before. The newly arrived claim that they were open-minded about the “issue” and that they take no sides, although they always “dislike nationalism”.

However, given time, we find out that what they mean is that they object to Catalan nationalism’ attempts to preserve and seek legal and social equivalence between Spanish and Catalan languages in Catalonia. They do not object very strongly however when Catalan speakers in Aragon are not even recognised officially and their language has absolutely no legal status. And they do not complain that the Spanish Constitution enforced the obligation on everybody to speak Spanish. That is the status quo, however unfair, and they don't mind that. Enforcement of language policy done by the Spanish State is alright, but if the Catalan administration tries to do anything remotely similar, than that is a breach of human rights, interventionist or some other nonsense.

They also don’t mind taking sides when it comes to supporting the current crusade coming from Spanish nationalism against the Catalan educational system.

Of course, everybody has the right to express an opinion about policy issues, including immigrants who are unlikely to become long-term residents. After all, millions of words are written about the whole Israel/Palestine conflict by people who have not ever been there and probably do not have a clue what they are talking about.

But when these new arrivals in Catalonia express an opinion on the whole issue of Catalan education system and language, they need to accept they are taking sides.

And in this debate, there seems to be only two sides.

Those in favour of the current system, the vast majority of people in Catalonia and all the political parties except two: the Spanish branch of the PP and the fringe party (soon to be extinct) Ciudadanos. These two groups barely attained 15% of the vote at the last Catalan elections, despite being given extraordinary media presence by the Spanish media.

The reasons for why the current system is as it is were outlined in my previous entry.

And I content that tinkering with that system only serves a purpose: to pander to Spanish nationalism and to create divisions in Catalan society based on language and family background. Given the fragile demographic profile of Catalonia, where around 50% of citizens, including myself, can trace our family origins (one or two generations) to Spanish-speaking areas of Spain, it is wholly irresponsible to pursue a policy of division rather than to support a policy that aims to achieve bilingualism for everybody, or at least as many people as possible, and not just for some.

Catalan language has its own word for immigrant. “Nouvingut”, literally ‘newly arrived’ is often use to describe immigrants. It is a word that does not have the negative connotation of the word immigrant. As I wrote about in my previous entry, Catalonia must be one of the countries in the world where it is easiest to integrate and feel part of the community: speak the indigenous language and you are one of us, whether your are from Almeria, Alabama or Africa.

These new immigrants have the right to challenge the Catalan educational system, like others did before them.

However, here is a novel thought: if you don’t want your children to be taught in Catalan in Catalonia, if you don’t want to learn Catalan yourself even if you are living in Catalonia, why do you live in Catalonia and not somewhere else where Catalan is not spoken?

It has always mystified me why some people put themselves through the pain of settling in Catalonia and then resenting the fact that Catalan language exists at all and is not dead in the water. The fact is there are over 160 other sovereign states in the world, covering about 99.9% of the habitable land, with all sorts of climate and job opportunities where Catalan is not spoken.

The world is huge. Enjoy it while you can.

PS: please do not bother posting a comment accusing me of being xenophobic or racist. My parents are immigrants themselves, I am an immigrant now in the UK myself, and I work with people (and often hire) from all ethnic backgrounds. I am just giving out free life counselling and advice.

Language policy in Catalonia

If you read newspaper articles or blogs in English about Catalonia, I am sure you will have come across the issue of language policy in Catalan schools.

Sadly, there is a lot of mis-information and urban myth around and the vast majority of these blogs have no credibility whatsoever, blinded as they are by their own cultural bias and narrow-minded prejudice.

Obviously, there are a few honourable exceptions out there, like Tom, George, Matthew and probably a few others I have missed.

For centuries, due to its geographical position, Catalonia has been a country where many people have come and settled. Being Catalan does not depend on your family origin or surname, let alone ethnic or cultural background. Everyone can be a Catalan, regardless of where you are from. The only unwritten rule, the only "requirement" is that you “care about” Catalonia, that you integrate socially and basically try to fit in and look for the common good. I think this is a pretty basic notion: everyone is welcome but please try to be one of us too.

We even have our own word for “immigrants”, which is a term rarely used. Instead in Catalan language we use “nouvinguts”, literally “newly arrived”. This word does not have the negative connotations of the word ‘immigrant’. I have travelled extensively around Europe and I don’t know many societies where joining in, becoming part of the host community, is so easy. Perhaps the US is the only similar society where becoming a native is so easy.

However, since the early 20^th century, a significant percentage of immigrants into Catalonia have failed or refused to “join in”. This problem was exacerbated during the fascist dictatorship of General Franco between 1939 and 1975. First, there was a huge number of immigrants from other areas of Spain settling into Catalonia. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people, materially changing the demographic profile of Catalonia for ever. The issue was compounded by the fact that Catalan language has never had any legal parity with Spanish in Catalonia, and has been actively persecuted since 1715 until very recently. Due to historical and political reasons, the Spanish state has always sought to impose Spanish language in Catalonia, to the detriment of the legal and social status of Catalan. Over the centuries, this has resulted in Catalan culture being relegated to a second-class status, often aggressively persecuted, tolerated at best, in its own homeland.

The result is that the citizenry of Catalonia is made up of a nearly 50% of people whose family origins can be traced to other areas of Spain (mostly Andalucia and Extremadura) within one or two generations. Of these group, a significant number, mainly first generation immigrants arrived in the 1950s and 1960s, do not speak Catalan, particularly those living in the suburbs of Barcelona and sometimes even their children and grandchildren are still monolingual Spanish speakers. However, those immigrants that settled in less populated areas (Tortosa, Girona, Manresa, etc) were able to integrate more successfully than those who settled in Santa Coloma de Gramenet or in the Barcelona suburbs.

After the end of the dictatorship, the prohibition of Catalan language in official documents, media, education, public use, etc, was lifted. With the advent of the 1978 Constitution and the Estatut d’Autonomia 1979 (Estatut is the legal framework that sets out Catalan partially devolved self-government), Catalan language became co-official.

But becoming co-official does not mean that Catalan and Spanish have equivalent legal status. The Spanish 1978 Constitution states that “everyone has the obligation to know Spanish”. This “obligation” does not extend to the other cooficial languages. Instead, speakers of Catalan (Valencian), Basque and Galician have the “right” to use it.

This legal asymmetry (Spanish obligation for all, Catalan right for some) causes a problem.

A monolingual Spanish-speaker can live in a nominally bilingual region of Spain but does not have to learn the indigenous language of the area, ie: Catalan language. The reason is that the Spanish speaker can always use the argument that since “everybody has the obligation to know Spanish”, the Catalan-speaker should switch to Spanish if he does not speak Catalan. Remember: Spanish is mandatory for everybody, so all Catalan-speakers are bilingual. Thus, the Spanish speaker does not have any incentive to learn the co-official language.

You would be forgiven for thinking that the best way to resolve the problem would be to change the law so that there is absolutely the same legal equivalence between the two languages. Alas, this has never happened in Spain and I don’t think it ever will. Even now in 2010, Catalan members of Parliament are banned from speaking their own language in the Spanish parliament and the Spanish state refuses to make Catalan language an official working language in the EU, despite being the 12^th most spoken language.

To correct and remedy this legal and social inequality, and unable to change the Spanish Constitution to implement legal parity between the two languages, a consensus was formed in 1980 amongst all Catalan parties (except the Catalan branch of the Partido Popular) that education policy will be used to ensure that every child in Catalonia has the best chance possible of becoming bilingual in both Spanish and Catalan.

This was implemented by making Catalan the “vehicular language” in Catalan schools.

There are two objectives with this policy:

1) to correct the social imbalance of language use and knowledge caused by Franco’s dictatorship and mass migration, on top of centuries of persecution;

2) to prevent the formation of separate educational systems based on language and ensuring all children, regardless of background, studied and played together. Catalan society should not be divided because of language and family background.

The latter point is paramount to understand why all the mainstream parties, even the Catalan branch of the Spanish PSOE, support this policy, and why opponents of the policy can’t attain any significant electoral support. (Even the PP is stuck at c15% in Catalan elections).

Many immigrants from other areas of Spain do not speak Catalan, But this is not always because they don’t want to, but because they never had the opportunity to learn it and the chance to use it socially. When they started a new life in Barcelona, Catalan was banned from public and official use. Public usage could lead to problems with the authorities and it often did for thousands of people who dared to confront the regime and ended up beaten up in prison or worse. On top of that, many immigrants were manual labourers with a very basic education in any case. Most of these families settled in the Barcelona area.

It was the mass vote of these families for the PSC-PSOE in the 1980s and 90s, and not for the more Spanish nationalistic PP, that made this Catalan-first educational policy possible in the early ‘80s.

Most people in their 30s whose parents are originally from outside Catalonia will recognise this picture:

Both my parents’ families are originally from outside Catalonia. My father’s family are from Fuencaliente, in the province of Ciudad Real. My mother’s side of the family are from Cadiz. Both arrived to Catalonia in their late teens, in the ‘60s, in abject poverty and with no education. They could hardly read and write and they had nothing to their name.

The majority of immigrants from other areas of Spain, particularly from the south, arrived in similar circumstances.

When this generation of parents (those arrived in the 50s and 60s) were able to choose how they wanted their children (those born in the 70s) to be educated, (when they had a chance to vote in democratic elections in the early 80s) they agreed on one thing:

+ They did not want their children and their neighbour’s (ie Catalan) children to be taught separately in different schools.

The overwhelming consensus was that children born in Catalonia, whether from a Catalan-speaking family or a Spanish-speaking family, should study together and play together. The idea of having an educational system divided along language lines was anathema to the vast majority of my parents’ generation: they wanted their children to have equality of opportunity. And they have voted accordingly ever since until today.

Having seen the impact of a dual educational system in Scotland, I can safely say that the social problems caused by such a divisive framework is hugely detrimental to social cohesion.

Of course, the consensus was not total –it never is. There has always been people in Catalonia who object to their children being taught in Catalan. This has always been the case and is not a recent event. But they, as the electoral results evidence, are in the minority and their argumentative logic is unsustainable as I will expose below.

So we know that educational policy in Catalonia is that the vehicular language for tuition is Catalan. Although this is the official policy, it is not always the case –law adherence is a funny business in Spain. Schools often apply a flexible interpretation depending on the teacher’s fluency in Catalan language and the social mix of the school intake. Moreover, schools run a system of personalised support for those pupils who require further help, for example newly arrived immigrants’ children, are given specialised support.

Since the 1980s until today, the consensus amongst the mainstream Catalan parties and wider society is that this is the best system to ensure that as many pupils as possible become bilingual by the time they leave school. And the consensus is also that any other system in which Catalan language is not given prominence would result in even more children leaving school as monolingual Spanish speakers, just like their parents.

This not only would hinder their employment prospects, like it did for their parents who could not work in the professions or join the civil service once Catalan language was no longer banned from public use; but it would also cripple Catalan society with a mass of school-leavers unable to master the indigenous language of Catalonia.

The economic impact would be undesirable. It would result in a two-tier workforce: those who are bilingual and those who are not, in a region/country/nation (call it what you like) that is, at least officially, bilingual.

Obviously, ceteris paribus, employers will tend to hire the bilingual speaker, which will result in wages for bilingual speakers being higher. This applies more so in the public sector: taxpayer money would be wasted by recruiting monolingual speakers when there are plenty of bilingual speakers available to serve customers that could be monolingual or bilingual. However, more worrying would be the social consequences of such a development. Not only in terms of careers prospects, but in wealth and income inequality. And more importantly, in inequality of opportunity and social cohesion.

In a nutshell, this is the very same scenario that our parents generation wanted to avoid and that is why there is no real support whatsoever (apart from fringe groups) for a tiered educational system based on language. It would lead to social division and inequality of opportunity later in life.

Our parents’ generation understood this point a long time ago –and they did not have to travel to Scotland to see how damaging separate schooling networks, based on cultural markers, are to community’s cohesion.

Even with the current system, there is an alarming number of monolingual Spanish-speaking children in Catalonia who are not fluent in Catalan. However, there are hardly any children in Catalonia, if any at all I dare say, who are monolingual Catalan speakers.

This happens for two reasons:

Firstly, Catalan-speaking parents are always bilingual as we know that knowledge of Spanish is mandatory according to the Constitución. The social and legal presence of Spanish language in all areas of life means that by the time a child reaches adulthood, even in the most remote area of the Catalan countryside, the mix of education policy, social and legal pressure ensures that fluency in Spanish is achieved.

Secondly, however, the same cannot be said of some monolingual Spanish speakers.

Since the highest law in the land (the 1978 Constitución) does not force them to learn Catalan even if they live in Catalonia, some chose not to –and more worryingly object to their children being given the best chance possible of becoming bilingual.

So now it is time to pose a few questions:

1) Should the educational system be tinkered with to please a small percentage of the population who object to their children being given the best chance possible of becoming bilingual in a bilingual region?

The answer has to be no. If anything, I would question the suitability of parents who want their children to remain monolingual in a bilingual region. Are these parents looking after their best interest of their children by preventing their gaining fluency in the indigenous language of Catalonia? Or are the channellig their political frustrations, their cultural predudice through their children?

Additionally, if a concession is made on language policy, who is to say that creationism won’t be next? Or physical education or history lessons?

And a further question is:

2) Should migration flows change or dictate language and educational policy in a self-governing adminstration?

And before you answer, think carefully because if this principle is accepted, then surely it applies not only to Catalonia but to any other society in Europe where there has been massive migration flows from people from othoutise the host community.

Once you have thought about these issues, and considered the different options, there is only one question left:

3) Why would then these people object to current Catalan educational policy?

And the answer can only be anti-Catalan prejudice for most, particularly for the most strident Spanish nationalist groups. For others, and in this group one has to include the growing number of anglo-saxon immigrants, monolingual narrow-mindedness and ignorance about Catalonia play a significant part. Those who question the current consensual policy but are emotionally detached from the whole Spain/Catalonia settlement, should be aware that ultimately the sole objective of many Spaniards attacking the current framework is to erode further the social usage of Catalan language in Catalonia and set corrosive divisions in Catalan society based along language and cultural lines.

The legacy of Fascism in Spain (II)

It is official: the current Spanish political framework is a half-baked democracy hardly worthy of the name. I have written about it many times before, but today four unrelated events point to the same conclusion.

A few days ago, I wrote how a number of community-based associations in a small town near Barcelona had organised a popular vote so that people could express their view on whether Catalonia should be an independent state in Europe or not. The referendum does not aim to be a binding vote or claim any legal status or anything. It is just a local initiative, something they have done before for other issues with great success. It is just an opportunity to give people a voice and a chance to engage in politics.

However, a Spanish Fascist party, Falange, a party that is still operating legally, (unlike the radical Basque parties who are routinely banned) called for a demonstration to prevent the vote from taking place.

There are two issues with this:

1) That Falange is still a legal party in Spain is evidence of the asymmetric application of the infamous Ley de Partidos. If you are a radical Basque nationalist party, you get banned. But if you are a radical Spanish nationalist party, a self-declared Fascist party, you are within the law.

2) That the Fascist rally was allowed in the first place to coincide on the same date as a means to intimidate the local population into not voting.

But today, the nature of Spanish democracy was made clear when the Procurator Fiscal started proceedings so that the popular vote does not take place. This, let’s not forget, is a private initiative set up by a local community-based association.

Why does the Spanish judiciary have to get involved? Are there not more important matters for the Spanish state to worry about like the financial crisis and the rocketing unemployment?

So here we have it. Falange doing the dirty work for the Spanish state in intimidating the local community into not having a popular vote, and the Spanish state coinciding with Falange in not wanting the vote to take place. Two different ways, same objective: to prevent people from expressing their view.

Links: Avui (cat), Público (cas), VilaWeb (cat).

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In a completely unrelated event, today it was made public another example of how Catalan-speakers are routinely treated as second-class citizens. It happened in Mallorca. A transcript of the events can be found here. (cat)

This is the situation. Passport control, the couple hand in their passports, but the Guardia Civil took exemption to the couple’s use of Catalan language. The guy is taken to the room and given a black eye and fined for breach of the peace.

This is a regular event in the Balearic Islands, where the Guardia Civil and Policia Nacional refuse to allow the public to use their own language (Catalan). Not for the first time, they react with violence. Will something happen to the Guardia Civil? No, he will be protected by his superiors and by the State. Spain in 2009: beaten up by the Guardia Civil for daring to speak in Catalan. Apparently, one of the Guardia Civils said to another: "the guy spoke in Catalan and he (the Guardia Civil) lost the plot". Disciplinary action? Investigation? Enquiry? Dream on.

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In another separate event that occurred earlier in the week, once again Catalan parliamentarians were prohibited from using their language in the Spanish parliament. In the Canadian, Belgian or Swiss parliaments, representatives can use their own native language. In the Basque or Catalan parliament, some parliamentarians use Spanish and there is not issue. But in the Spanish parliament only one language is allowed to be used by our political representatives: Spanish.

How can Spain claim to be an advanced democracy when Parliament, where our elected representatives meet, imposes the use of one language and discriminates against the others?

Where are now those supporters of bilingualism?

Link: Avui (cat), Público (cas)

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And finally, an old topic.

I have written before how the Partido Popular is the ideological legacy party of the Movimiento.

The party is the continuation of Alianza Popular, which was founded by Manuel Fraga, a Minister during the Franco era, and other former Franco ministers. Partido Popular are a nationalist Spanish party and they do not hesitate to advocate the intervention by the Spanish Army to prevent the Basque Country or Catalonia from seceeding from Spain by legal means.

Not very democratic, is it?

Well, Manuel Fraga gave a speech in his local village in which he praised dictator Francisco Franco.

In Germany, this would be punished with a prison sentence. In Germany Fraga would have faced justice for his crimes during the dictatorship, for he signed off various death penalty sentences. But this is Spain: nobody has faced any justice for the crimes of the Fascist dictatorship.

Today, the PP can still laud the figure of Franco and nothing, absolutely nothing is done by the Spanish Prosecution Service (Fiscalía).

But, some political parties, only Basque radical nationalist parties mind, are banned under the pretence of a Ley de Partidos, which is only applied to one particular group of people.

Link: Público (cas)

= = = = = = = = = = =

Once again, the Spanish state, by its inaction or complicit action, provides evidence that it is an asymmetric democracy, where the rights of some minorities are continuously derided. Spanish democracy, far from being a model transition, is the legacy of a generation of politicians coerced by the military into a false new start. A generation too coward and too frightened to push for real democracy and a change of the status quo. In practice, Franco's dogma of a united Spain regardless of the will of its constituent parts still remains the central tenet of the legal and political system in Spain.

In effect, the means have changed, and there is certainly more freedom than during Franco’s era. Of course. It could not be any other way. But nobody should be grateful for having a second-rate democracy for there is something that has not changed. There is something that still today drives the Spanish state, something that is embedded into the Spanish legal and political framework as if it was its DNA: the mission to suppress the political and cultural identity of some of the nations and regions in order to achieve the complete unification and homogenization of Spain into a monolingual, single nation state based on the enforced use of Spanish language and the adherence to the dogmatic principle of the territorial integrity and unity of Spain under the terms set out by its dominant group, which include the use of the Army to enforce such terms (Article 8 of the 1978 Spanish Constitution).

This is not a 21^st century democracy: it is just a cosmetic improvement on a rotten system which distills the same substance under a different flavour.

Update 07/09/2009: Well, you could not make it up. The solicitor representing the Spanish state (in effect acting for the procurator fiscal) is a former militant of Fascist party Falange. Público (cas) and Avui (cat). I told you so!

The Decadence of Catalonia

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will have noticed that I have not been writing about Catalan/Spanish politics for a while. Frankly, it is quite depressing.

After a few years in government, we can safely say that ERC has not made much of a difference. If anything, because expectations were high, because the need for change is so desperate, the disappointment has been greater. ERC, a party I have voted for many years has been a huge flop. Finally, we have what we always aspired to: a “pro-independence” party that is as incompetent and inept as the others, part of the establishment. It is no surprise that their vote is decreasing. People with a well-defined political ethos and fighting what it is an uphill battle do not like being taken for mugs. Now, those who support independence, if they can be bothered to vote at all, will have to vote ERC but without pride, averting the gaze, ignoring the mediocrity that permeates at all levels of the party machine. Some people always saw this as the panacea of the pro-independence movement: a party that is like the rest. For most of us though, it is a slap in the face.

I never thought I would ever write this but here it goes: at least with Pujol in charge there was a measure of respect, an intention to try to improve things, even if it was in cowardly small steps. At least there was a vision, a purpose. With the current lot in charge of the capital’s council and the government in Catalonia, there seems to be no higher purpose, other than self-preservation of political careers and perks (particularly for ERC and IC-V), and the pursuit of pro-Spanish policies and the consequent lowering of cultural, business, social and political clout of Catalonia (this last point is the PSC-PSOE's job, and they are having a good crack at it).

The asphyxiating control of the mass media by the PSOE in Catalonia is overwhelming: TVE, Radio 4, TV3, El Periodico, El Pais, Cadena SER, COM Radio. Other media that they do not control are overtly unionist and pro-Spanish: La Vanguardia, El Mundo, the private TV channels, COPE radio network.

The de-Catalanisation and lowering of standards inTV3 and Catalunya Radio, audience leaders a few years ago, is a well documented fact and part of PSOE’s plan to discredit what are pillar institutions in the (Catalan) national conscience. ERC is being complicit in all of this and their influence in government is nowhere to be seen or felt.

These days, I mainly read the Diàleg pages in Avui, which should be translated into English in a summary weekly edition, VilaWeb and a few isolated articles here and there. The rest is an intellectual and journalistic desert.

Sadly, what I wrote in a previous post is happening quicker than I imagined. Catalonia is a fading nation, a nation that is less so every day, overwhelmed by the power mechanisms and tactics of the Spanish state, yes; but also victim of its own cowardice, insecurity, collaborationism and self-hate. Victim of history through centuries of political and cultural repression, defeated in war several times, and subjected to a demographic reversal unparalleled in post-war Europe -except for Stalin’s madness in eastern Europe. But above all, a nation whose establishment is complicitly silent in its own subordination. A nation ruled by sepoys who will never face up to those who keep them as second-class citizens.

I thought about all this and I was trying to put it into words for this blog but, predictably as ever, more intelligent minds than mine have already done it. I share their article with you in a quick translation.

Victor Alexandre is one of the very few intellectuals who has the courage and the vision to chronicle Catalonia’s demise, but also offers ways to get out of the moral cesspit the country is immersed in these days.
Alas, there are few like him. Self-protection is the main driver of the Catalan establishment, and few dare to speak out so as not to upset their master.

Victor Alexandre uses an analogy with the opera Antigona, and equates Ismene’s silence to that of most Catalan politicians and intellectuals.

There are versions of this article in Catalan, Spanish and Basque.

For a review of Catalan theatre, read this monograph from the Anglo Catalan Society.

Antigona by Jordi Coca can be purchased here.

(any errors please let me know and I will edit the translated text)

The Decadence of Catalonia by Victor Alexandre

It is hard to admit it, but it is true: Catalonia is in decadence. Politically handcuffed, economically asphyxiated and culturally subordinated, Catalonia is a Pirandellian nation, awaiting an author who will take care of the existential shipwreck it suffers. We have come to a point where we don’t know who we are, and whoever doesn’t have conscience of their own identity does not have conscience of their rights.

We believed that there was some wisdom in our old idiom (“Qui dia passa any empeny”) but there is only individualism and abdication of responsibility. It was Batista i Roca who said that Catalans are egoists, with domestic ideals, and lacking in spirit of command. One would say that we have so little faith in ourselves, and so much fear to lose our little share of material wealth which we enjoy that the smallest gesture of affirmation on the part of one of ours seems to us a reprievable provocation. That’s why it is inadvertent to us the lethal candidness which implies constructing an axiom of the old idiom “carrying on” (“anar passant)” when we remain captive.

Catalonia, like Tebes under the reign of Creon a Antígona, is gripped by fear, and the fear makes her vulnerable and submissive. Here, likewise, power also buys the silence of grateful thinkers and pushes us to make us believe that conformism, meekness and resignation are genuinely Catalan values that are worth keeping. Here, like in the play, Tiresias-like people excel as the paradigm of prestigious intellectual defeated by cowardice, and there are also some Ismenes-like folk, fearful and dutiful model citizens.

The first one, who could exert his influence against oppression, ends up keeping out from it; and the second one, who could rebel against it, asks for prudence, measure and moderation.

“Beg”, suggests Ismene, “we shall look for the path that is easier for us”. Ismene, like many Catalans, believes that it is necessary to make pedagogy with the tyrant, believing that that it is necessary to explain oneself to him so that the kind words soften his attitude like syrup softens the throat. He says that he loves Anígona, indeed, but he abandons her, and through his prudence becomes a traitor. He doesn’t want to listen to his sister when she says:

“Don’t you see the fearful eyes of those who are closest to him? If you beg
in front of him, you will make him still harder, stronger, and you present to
him the chance to show to the city that he, Creont, does not stop for anything
and anybody. He wants to demonstrate his power in front of us, he wants us to be
docile like the dogs he caresses when he likes. If you and I do not speak out,
nobody will”.

Exquisite, this Antígona of Jordi Coca who, shortly before dying, addresses herself to Tiresias reproaching:

"You have also kept silence. […] What’s up, are you also fearful?[…] Those like
you who could help us, soon become little and coward. You keep telling us
that
no change is possible because things are as they are… So many lies in
what you
say and what you don’t…!”

And finishes:

“Now he, Creont, believes he himself is the city. And you believe yourself that
you are a wise man because in front of him you measure more than necessary what you say… I am killed by his decree and by your silence”.

Alas, Catalonia is rich in Tiresias and scarce of Antígones, because dignity is a word that the managers of the day-to-day –those to whom Lluís Llach asked not to kill off the dream- have changed its meaning upside down until making it a fault.

In their hands, dignity has become an imbecile’s pathology. But Catalonia’s decadence is mostly due to their work, because it is them whom with their silence, with their fear masquerading as prudence and with their submission concealed as realism, have left this country in a cul-de-sac. Lluís Llach sang “they will tell us we need to wait” in 1978 without expecting that some of those who applauded him would make of this waiting game their profession. And it is ironic, and pretty sad, that thirty years later we still need to sing “it is not like this, friends, not like this” and lament the “commerce that is being done with our rights, rights that we have, that cannot be done and undone, new cellbars under the guise of law”.

You have to be quite insensitive not to realise the decadence of Catalonia. It is enough to witness the progressive degradation of the language in the media which with the collaboration or the acquiescence of some linguists is being transformed into a patois named “Catanyol”. Thus, almost without realising, we will have to admit that Catalan language, like energy, has not disappeared but has been transformed into a dialect of Spanish. But Catalonia’s decadence is not only linguistic. Our decadence is also political, economical and social. Catalan politics has been turned into Spanish politics, our income per capita continues to decrease spectacularly to the level of Melilla and our infrastructures are obsolete because of the fiscal robbery. And the worst of it all is the psychological impact that this state of affairs has over ourselves. There is a great feeling of frustration and people look around confused asking where are the leaders that were going to return its dignity to this old European nation. But there are no leaders.

Antígona at least faced up to Creont telling him:

“I accuse you of turning this city into a dead city, without voice or will”.

Catalonia, alas, can’t accuse anybody because the Creonts that are in charge are more canny than Sofocle’s Creont.

Nevertheless, I am an optimist and agree with Jaume Vicens i Vives when he said that Catalonia’s life is an act of continuous reaffirmation and that its motive is its wish to exist. I accept that the current confusion seems to contradict this statement, but it is necessary to understand that the country is going through a process of political growing-up and this confusion is part of it. After that, luckly, there will be no way back and our subordination to Spain will be just a sad memory. We should not then lose sight of our youth, happyly free from the pathological fear of their parents, as it will be them who will teach us that the only way to change an adverse reality is to thing about a better one.

Antígona dies, yes, but it is a young man who tries to save her, and his presence symbolises hope. Thus she declares to Creont when she utters:

“Man also dies when ceases to be a man and does everything because of fear.
[…] I disobeyed you, I have opposed your edict […] and I declare it here,
before this now silent man, that he will live longer than you or I, so that
what has been said lives beyond us”.

Then if we want that this process of political growing-up goes quick, we have to ensure that our media delivers a message within a Catalan-focused framework, because the message impacts the thinking, the thinking deliniates the actions, and actions define history.

It is official: Spanish state condones Fascism

Rab is back with a scoop: the Spanish state in its present form is the legacy of Franco’s regime and it condones Fascism.

OK, if you have read this blog before, you will know it is not a scoop. I have written before about how Spain is a half-baked democracy.

- Banning of political parties: March-07, Sept-08
- Media censorship: July-07
- How to kill off a language: Jan-08
- Francoist roots of the Partido Popular: March-08, July-08
- Defective democracy: Jan-06, Feb-07, July-08, Dec-08
- Catalanophobia: Oct-05,Aug-06, Nov-08

But this time is just so blatant: the Spanish Ministry of Defence argues that it is perfectly normal to have a portrait of General Franco in one of the military residences in Barcelona.

Can anyone imagine a similar situation in Germany or Italy with Hitler or Mussolini?
Of course not, but Spain is different!

http://www.publico.es/espana/220544/defensa/alega/cuadro/franco/exalta/figura

If this had happened in Germany, the outcry would have been extraordinary. But in Spain the state is fully supportive.

Franco’s legacy indeed.

Spanish democracy revisited

Well, let’s not get the collapse of the financial system distract us from what the Spanish state does to those who challenge their (Spanish) nationalistic dogma.

In the last few days, the Tribunal Supremo, a legacy high court inherited from Franco’s regime has outlawed two political parties.

Yes, it is not a mistake. In a member state of the EU, political parties are banned. Particularly if they tend to be Basque pro-independence parties.

This is a strategy that successive Spanish governments have pursued for years. Outlawing political parties so support for independence, for a change of the status quo cannot be measured in the polls. By banning all political parties representing the pro-independence socialists, Spanish officials attempt to rig the electoral process, prohibiting a significant section of the Basque people to vote for the party of their choosing.

This is democracy, Spanish style.

I have written about it before.

February 2004
March 07 and again
July 07


For as long as Basque voters are denied to vote for a socialist pro-independence party, Spain is a half-baked democracy unfit to be a member of the European Union.

Yet, as I have written many times, fascist and neo-nazi parties are allowed to participate in the electoral process. What a fallacy: Spanish democracy.


Links:
Avui and Vilaweb (Catalan)
Publico (Spanish), again.

Fallacy No 2: Partido Popular is a democratic party

In the last few days, we have had another example, as if we needed more evidence, that the Spanish Partido Popular is not your run of the mill, right-wing, democratic party. In fact, the PP is a neo-Francoist, Spanish nationalist party.

Get this. After the Spanish Civil War and the overthrow of the democratically-elected Republican government, the Fascists took power. In many council halls, the new fascists administration awarded General Francisco Franco, Hitler’s ally, a medal known as “hijo adoptivo predilecto”. In the UK, a similar award would be the freedom of a city for example.

Since the end of Franco’s rule, in most Spanish councils, particularly in the Basque Country and Catalonia, but also in Andalucia and other areas where the PP is not in power, councils have been passing motions withdrawing such awards to the hero of Spanish Fascism.

Bizarrely, this medal-award is still in place in many cities and towns across Spain. One of these councils is the city of Alacant (Alicante in Spanish). A few days ago, the PSOE (Spanish Labour party) submitted a motion in a council meeting asking for this medal-award to the Fascist leader to be withdrawn. But the Partido Popular opposes the bill, and thus General Franco, Hitler’s ally, lest not forget, is still the “favourite adoptive son” of the city of Alicante.

So there you have it. The Spanish Partido Popular opposes withdrawing a city award to the man that led a coup d’etat against a democratically elected government, and imposed a fascist one-party state rule for 40 years, enforcing the use of Spanish and banning Catalan language from schools, universities, media, administration, etc. The PP refuses to condemn a regime that sent thousands of volunteer troops (División Azul) to help Hitler’s Nazi army.

Can you imagine something similar in Germany?

With this latest gesture, the Partido Popular has shown that it lacks the democratic credentials it so loudly claims to defend. If I was a MEP from a normal, democratic centre-right party, I would be ashamed and very concerned that these apologists of Fascism are in the same parliamentary grouping.

As I have written before, the PP is a threat to democracy and to social cohesion and cultural diversity within Spain.

If pro-independence Basque parties can be barred from the electoral process because of their refusal to condemn ETA’s violence, why is the PP allowed to participate in the electoral process when they refuse to condemn the fascist violence and repression of the Franco regime?

Links:
What the Financial Times thinks of the Partido Popular [here]
Articles in Público and Avui (use this translator is you can’t read Spanish or Catalan)