A Hunger For Language: Catalan

You might have been wondering what Alcúdia town hall was making of all the kerfuffle to do with Catalan, as it had been notably silent on the matter. Actually, you probably weren't wondering, but I was. Are you indifferent to the subject? Does it matter not a jot, or even a jota (as in the Mallorcan dance)?

Alcúdia's apparent reticence to declare was made conspicuous by the public debates on the issue emanating from neighbours Pollensa and the heartland of Catalan in a Mallorcan style, Sa Pobla. It has now shed its silence. The "turncoat" Carme Garcia has put her old Mallorcan socialist duffle coat back on and sided with the Convergència and PSOE in outvoting the Partido Popular and issuing the town's defence of Catalan in matters of its use in the public sector, something that the PP regional government would prefer went away.

Your indifference or attitudes may be determined by the pragmatism argument, i.e. that Castellano, a world language, is of far more use than Catalan, and that it is the predominant language of Spain. It is a not unreasonable argument, but it ignores much, most obviously the cultural aspect of Catalan. Language is culture. Culture is language. The two are indivisible.

Language and culture, you might hope, would be separate from politics, but of course they are not. It is nonsensical to suggest that the language issue in Mallorca is being politicised, as it has long been so, as it has long been politicised in Spain as a whole. The politics of repression have required that Catalan be proscribed, and proscription was imposed not only by Franco.

It was said to me recently that fears were being expressed locally that a new Civil War could engulf Spain. It is an extreme view and one that probably owes much to the actual Civil War and its aftermath residing in the collective, living memory. Less dramatic than the almost total impossibility of a repeat of 1936 are the practicalities of this memory, one of them being attitudes towards Catalan. History can repeat itself, not in exactly the same ways but in similar ways, and this is what underpins the resistance to the regional government's language policy.

Pensioners going on hunger strike to defend the language seems like an over-reaction, but then how can you or I truly appreciate the reasons why? The language is not ours, the culture is not ours, the living memory is one of some foreigners who experienced the Franco era at first hand, but it is one unshared by most. Resort to the pragmatism argument is one of social and psychological distance, of simplification. It is one of a typically pragmatic, unromantic northern European perspective and mentality.

The emergence of the Moviment per la Llengua, driven by current Partido Popular dissenters such as Antoni Pastor, the mayor of Manacor, and ex-PP dissenters who abandoned the party for reasons that included language policy, demonstrates the strength of feeling against the Balearic Government's downgrading of Catalan. But there is a confusion for many of us. A question I have posed before is - which Catalan is being defended?

The government, and certainly President Bauzá, have made it clear that they are in favour of the Catalan languages of the Balearics, the dialects. The Círculo Balear, the organisation that holds up imaginary crosses at the mere mention of the devil of Catalan, has expressed its opposition to the government's recent announcement of a grant (a small one of 50,000 euros) for publishing textbooks which reflect the islands' languages. Is this the act of a government that has no time for Catalan or at least its dialects? Well no, but the defence of Catalan is more abstract than simply the language (or languages).

The Bauzá position is one that is shared by organisations further to the right than the Partido Popular. It is one that respects localism in the form of dialects but that grants supremacy to the national language, i.e. Castellano. But the politics of language and culture are less to do with the language (Catalan) per se; they are more to do with geopolitics. In other words, the ambitions of the anti-Spain: Catalonia.

The Catalan imposition, as it has been styled, is what the regional government is seeking to un-impose. It has been an imposition nuanced as regional imperialism on behalf of Catalonia, with the language in the vanguard, and the advancement of the largely mythical concept of the Catalan lands, which include the Balearics.

Against romanticism, mythology, history and culture, what chance does pragmatism have? It is too simplistic, and if you don't agree, then try talking to a hunger striker.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.