The silence that defines them

New Year, same old story. Spanish nationalist violence in Valencia is part of the landscape like the orange trees of the countryside or the palm trees in Alicante.

These incidents are widespread, pervasive and common-place. Spanish police (Policia Nacional or Cuerpo Nacional de Policia) treats Catalan-speakers with contempt at best; normally is threats and violence against anybody who does not yield to their proto-Francoist ideology.

Far-right Spanish nationalist groups operate in Valencia (and in Mallorca) not only with total impunity but with the complicit blind eye of the Spanish State and the operational cover granted by the Spanish Policia Nacional and Guardia Civil.

Picture the scene.

A member of the public on his bike is stopped by Police.

Said member of the public co-operates with Police enquiries and replies in Catalan language initially.

Spanish police then take offence and treat the former member of the public as a criminal and a suspect. Apparently speaking one’s language is a political act (if it is not Spanish). The policemen then threaten him to be careful what he write as they will be reading it.

This happens time and time again in Valencia and the Balearic Islands with total impunity. A few weeks ago, a guy was beaten up in the airport for daring to speak Catalan to the Guardia Civil. If this happened against any other social group, there would be international comdemnation for such incidents. It would no be tolerated in any other normal, democratic country. Can we imagine a Canadian policeman treating someone like a criminal for speaking in French in Quebec? Unfortunately, not much has changed since the Franco era for Catalan speakers outside the Principality of Catalonia.

The Spanish State allows this discrimination to be socially acceptable and legally enforceable. The Spanish media complicitly turns a blind eye. Thus, these incidents which occur regularly across the Catalan speaking areas of Spain go unreported by the mass media.

Where are now the advocates of individual rights? Where are those who shout loudest proclaiming the virtues of bilingualism? They make a lot of noise about language policy in Catalonia but their silence about the treatment of Catalan speakers in Valencia is conspicuous.

They remain silent because their concern is not about individual rights of any citizens or any concern about any Catalan children not being bilingual (the only ones that are not bilingual are Spanish-speaking pupils that do not speak Catalan for every Catalan-speaking child also speaks Spanish). Their only concern, their only true objective is to obliterate Catalan language from the territories where it has been historically spoken until recently. They have almost succeeded in Valencia (the language is all but gone in Alicante) and as I wrote about before, they will succeed in the Catalan-speaking counties of Aragon and the Balearic Islands before focusing on Catalonia.

In the meantime, anyone who is a Valencian-speaker is a second-class citizen in their own country –unless they accept they must switch to Spanish at any opportunity.

Pseudo-bilingualism only enshrines the supremacy of Spanish in law, and ensures the social decline of the indigenous language of the Catalan Countries. Linguistic genocide by any other name is taking place in Valencia but this never gets reported by the mass media or the "intelectual" lobby. Their silence reveals their twisted agenda of allowing the Spanish state to do the job that Franco, and others before him, could not finish. The Spanish state may be a democracy of sorts, but the same old agenda is still in place.

Links:

Racó Catalá [cat] – chronicle of the incident

L'informatiu [cat] - the victim himself

Fascist impunity, and more of the same.

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)

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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!

Fading nation

I have not posted about Catalan politics for a while. To be honest, it is disheartening.

To compound the misery, we had local and regional elections on Sunday 27 May.
There were local council elections for the whole of the Spanish state and regional parliament elections for a few “comunidades autonomas”, the official name of Spanish autonomous regions and their devolved parliaments.

There are hardly any positives to take from the elections. Some of the highlights are:

- Record low turnover in Catalonia, the lowest in Spain.
- Record blank votes in Catalonia, about 3%, compared to the Spanish average of about 1%.
- The status quo pretty much unchanged except that absolute majorities are becoming a scarce luxury for the mainstream political parties.

Then we have the really bad news from Valencia: the PP (Spanish nationalists – Conservatives) have increased their absolute majority in the Valencia region, País Valencià, or Comunitat Valenciana, the sterile official name for the country that comprises the provinces of Castelló, Valencia and Alacant. The Wikipedia has a decent article explaining the complexity of the naming of Valencia, here.

The results from Valencia have been a surprise and a big upset to many Valencian folk. Valencian people, whether by residency or by birth, have voted in massive numbers for the continuation of the PP government in the region. Many commentators have written this is akin to blacks voting for the KKK. But it is simpler than that.

After 40 years of Fascist dictatorship by Franco, the language and any sense of identity was already dying. To compound the problem, massive demographic changes and migration from other areas of Spain have diluted the native population to a level where the Valencian/Catalan language is all but an anecdote. Add to that a self-hating, staunchly pro-Spanish press and media and you get the picture: Valencia never stood a chance.

After about 30 years of Spanish democracy (and I use the term loosely), the native language of Valencia has all but disappeared. Spain has won the Battle of Valencia, and now the region is just like any other province of Spain, just like Toledo or Guadalajara, a Spanish-speaking territory and a population that has rejected the notion of being anything other than a Spanish province. Catalan language is deemed a folkloric annoyance, a distraction. Thus, in this historical and demographic context, the PP has increased its absolute majority in the regional Parliament. To keep the comparison going, there are few blacks left in Valencia.

One feels sorry for the handful of Valencians who still put up some kind of resistance to this cultural genocide. But their attempts are futile, like trying to stop a tsunami: no bloody chance mate. Hence why there are so many Valencians in high-profile positions in Barcelona: their language and culture is being obliterated in their native land so they emigrate north, where it is still alive.

Spain has a well thought out plan and will implement it. The objective is to eliminate Catalan language and culture in order to assimilate all Catalan speaking territories, the Catalan Countries, into a homogenised, unified, and, crucially, Spanish-speaking only Kingdom of Spain.

First it was the outlying counties of El Carxe (in the Region of Murcia) and the Franja, in Aragon. No legal recognition or even any kind of acknowledgment exists for Catalan language in these areas. Nothing whatsoever after 30 years of Spanish democracy.

The French have managed quite successfully in the Rosselló counties, Northern Catalonia. Spain hates Catalonia so much that even ceded Catalan territories to the French. Divide and Rule indeed.

Then it has been the Valencia region. Spreading from south to north, from Alicante to Castelló, Spanish has eroded Catalan usage over the last century to the point that Valencian has disappeared from Alicante and Elx, the main towns in the southern-most province. Then it has been the city of Valencia itself, where violent assaults against libraries who dare to sell books written in Valencia/Catalan continue to this day. Notice the Spanish press just ignores the issue completely. Next it will be in the Castelló province, south of Tarragona and the Ebro river.

In this fashion, slowly but surely, Catalan has been eliminated from the Valencia Country, and with it any sense of pride in the common bond that unites Valencians and Catalans. Valencian identity has been morphed into a folkloric pastiche, designed to fit into the Spanish nationhood without providing any challenge or any notion of self-confidence or self-belief, reneging of its own past and cultural roots. The process is almost complete and this latest electoral result will only accelerate its foregone conclusion. As the official Valencian anthem imposed after democracy, Valencians are meant to “ofrenar noves glories a Espanya” (“offer new glories to Spain”).

At a less advanced stage in this process of Spanish-ation, (and by implication de-Catalanisation) are the Balearic Islands. The language is still spoken in the towns and villages, although not much in Palma and the tourist hotspots. Being an island maybe has helped to prevent the cultural decline but where Valencia led, Mallorca and the other islands will surely follow. The PP may have lost their absolute majority in the regional government after the last elections but they are still the biggest party by far. They too will take a lead from their Valencian colleagues. Catalan will be made an irrelevant language and their local accents, beautiful and unique, will be lost, deemed another historical anecdote.

And then, the big prize: once the Spanish state has managed to completely assimilate Valencia and the Balearics, even more than they are now, it will be the turn of central Catalonia. The process is well underway. It is taking Spain about three centuries to finally kill off our culture and national identity but we just cannot cope anymore with the political, economical and cultural onslaught being inflicted upon us.
Three hundred years after this edict was issued by the victorious Spanish king after the Wars of Succession, the Catalan Countries are on their knees. Catalonia, understood as the present administrative region, may be still holding on, but it will not be for long.

The same social and cultural changes that have happened in Valencia and the Balearics will also lead to the end of Catalan nationhood in the old stronghold. To be honest, it is a miracle that we have survived for so long given the circumstances we have been in for the last three centuries.

ERC, the only mainstream party that wants to challenge and change the constitutional relationship between Spain and Catalonia has suffered losses at the last local elections, mainly in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, where the majority of the immigrant population from southern Spain reside. It is still the third biggest party across Catalonia and it has not been a total collapse but it has been a warning sign of the times ahead.

The only positives one can take from the election is the appearance of the CUP, a radical left, pro-independence party, even if they have arguably taken a share of the vote from the now mainstream ERC. While I have no time for pseudo-communists and their silly views on the economy and the world, at least this party has gained much more support than the pro-Spanish and anti-Catalan Ciudadanos, the darling of the pro-Spanish media. Or much better than the populist, quasi-xenophobic (muslims and blacks not, Spanish-speaking south Americans are ok though) Plataforma por Catalunya (PxC), a party led by a former member of Falange, the historical Spanish fascist party. Yet, the electoral success of the CUP is ignored and blanked out by the mainstream media while Ciudadanos, despite their electoral failure, are given plenty of airtime to air their lies, manipulations and anti-Catalan diatribes. This is the way the Spanish media fight their battle: permanent hostility or blank coverage towards pro-Catalan parties like ERC and CUP, but generous airtime to those who seek to undermine Catalan nationhood, like Ciudadanos and others. Concepts like fairness and proportional airtime to political parties are just unheard of.

They are winning, and stretching their lead. For the last few decades, if not centuries, Catalans have been too coward and too weak and it is only due to Spain’s incompetence that we have not been completely defeated long ago.

So here we are. Watching from afar how the homeland is fading out, how Catalonia follows the path of the Balearics, which follows the path of Valencia, which follows the path of La Franja. Catalonia was once a nation, and it still is for many of us, but I wonder for how long Catalonia will survive as a unique cultural identity until it becomes part of a Spain that is Una, Grande y Libre.

What the fascists wanted but failed to get, it is being achieved in this so-called democracy.