Where The Air Is Rarefied

A story that has been rumbling here with the sound of an airplane's engines in the background has been that involving the German airline, Air Berlin, and the Balearic Government. This has entailed an apparent "invitation" to the airline to use Catalan as the first business language of the islands. To which one might well ask, what on Earth is a regional government, or indeed any government come to that, doing attempting to dictate language policy to a business, a business - in the case of Air Berlin - which is one of the more important airlines operating into and out of Mallorca. It's a nonsense, or it would be were it not for the "sense" that trails in the jet-stream of this whole story; that of populism.

Public consumption may have tempered the reporting, but behind the scenes one suspects that Air Berlin told the Government to get stuffed or "Sie können mich mal". President Antich is reported (in "The Bulletin") as saying that the airline had "misinterpreted" the "invitation". This smacks of euphemistic spin. But in an act of PR, Air Berlin is going to get together with the Government's lingo directorate. So face saved for the Government whose high-minded and idealistic language policy is as rarefied as the air where they would like to have it used.

Behind so many of the language diktats is the opportunism of populism. The promotion of Catalan is a perfectly honourable political goal, but in seeking to impose its use, current-day politicians are wandering dangerously close to the same pit of linguistic dogma that saw the language proscribed under Franco. And oh that it was as simple as there just being Catalan to be promoted without the complications of Mallorquín and the Balearic language.

For all this though, language is a simple issue for local politicians; simple in that by raising the political profile of language it disguises more important issues. Language is a convenience of Mallorcan politics, and yet the populism that is suggested by attempts to impose Catalan (or its variants) is of questionable popular support, not least among those who have their children's education and futures in mind and among those children themselves.

This populism has now crossed the political divide into the conservative Partido Popular, a party normally associated with the primacy of castellano (Castilian Spanish). The mayor of Calvia, who fancies a pop at the leadership of the PP in the Balearics, seems hell-bent on making the Balearic language the language, especially of education. Why? Language preservation is one thing, but pragmatism is quite another. I may have mentioned this before on this blog, but it bears repetition. Some years ago, I worked on a marketing project with the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. I once asked one of my contacts there why Dutch people spoke such good English. "Because we have to. No one else speaks Dutch." Pragmatism is a trait that has long informed Dutch politics and educational policy.

And so it is that pragmatism, rather than populism, should be the guiding principle of language policy. Personally, I am in favour of the teaching of Catalan (or Mallorquín) and of its promotion generally, but not at the expense of a pragmatic outlook which would allow those local children to have a wider choice of university were they receiving a castellano-biased education. The consequence of a Catalan-angled policy is that university education becomes more limited, largely to Palma, something that merely reinforces an insularity that a university education should seek to eliminate. All education is about broadening the mind, and none more so than higher education.

Last year, the Government made great play of a "plan" for innovation and development in Mallorca. Quite what this is I am unsure, and I'm not wholly sure the Government's sure either. But what I am sure of is that, if there is a desire to create a more diverse economy, one that would function within a global market, then there are two languages that matter - English and Spanish. Catalan is, in a respect, like Dutch. European language it may be, but international it most certainly is not save for the odd small outpost here and there. Spanish may be a less-important international language than English, but important and useful it still is. It is a linguistic advantage that exists within Mallorca's boundaries, and yet some politicians would seek to deny it.

The Government is saying that there is not an intention to make 100% of teaching in Catalan, yet there are some who might try and force the issue. The Government also says that plans to have English used as a third language for teaching have not been effected because of a lack of qualified staff, which is a kind of Catch 22. That lack of staff is partly down to a lack of English teaching in the past; a cycle that is still being repeated. And then there is the inherent contradiction of apparently seeking to internationalise education by introducing English as a teaching language (albeit the commitment to this may just be open to doubt) while at the same time trying to insist that an international airline conducts its business in Catalan. Where is the pragmatism?


QUIZ
Chain - Maggie Bell had a hit with "Hold Me" (together with B.A. Robertson) which had been a hit for P.J. Proby. And what connects P.J. Proby to Van Morrison? Yesterday's title - Belinda Carlisle (see this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDcC9bnRciQ). Today's title - where's this from?

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