Doctor Doctor

There was a protest in Palma yesterday. Protests take different forms. They are for different reasons. Here, in Mallorca, you can add the use of language as to why people take to the streets. History tells us that we should not decry protest in support of language, especially on the streets of Mallorca where the local tongue has been proscribed, banned and rendered dormant. In the past. Not now. And the current protest is not spoken or chanted with that same voice. It is shouted with a Spanish, a Castilian force.

This was a protest against the imposition of Catalan. There is an irony and not some sadness that popular opposition should rise against the language that was denied during the Franco era. How things have changed. How they have turned. If this were not so idiotic, so politically-linguistically-medically driven, you might believe that it had all been a first of April joke.

It's now the second of April, and there was no joke. What this protest was about was the use of Catalan by health workers. If you want to work in the public health service, you have to speak Catalan. If you don't, you won't have a job. If you don't have the right certificate that says you have acquired the necessary level of Catalan, you won't have a job, even if you understand the language perfectly. It doesn't matter if you are skilled, medically qualified, competent. What does, is what you speak. And this in a country in which the national language is Castilian, a country that does of course recognise its other main language, Catalan, and gives it joint status in certain regions, such as the Balearics, but does not give it - Catalan - precedence. Unless you are a health worker in Mallorca. But not if you are a health worker in the private health sector. Only in the national health service.

When I was in hospital over Christmas, there was a Portuguese nurse at Muro hospital, Muro hospital that is private. I asked him about this Catalan provision. It didn't affect him, but it was a reason why he preferred to work in a private hospital. He was, however, learning Catalan. I could hear him, replying to the CDs on his PC that he played as he passed the time during the late evenings. He had no wish to work in the national health, but he was still willing to learn the local language. Maybe he was hedging his bets, maybe he was making provision in case he needed to go into the public service, or maybe he was just wanting to learn the local language. And if it were the latter, he was doing so because that is where he is. It was his choice, a choice without being coerced.

However, health workers are now being coerced, and you have to ask why. It's not a straightforward issue about communication. Both languages are understood by Mallorcans. Catalan is of course the local language, but so is Castilian. What is more important? Language or competence? What you speak or what you are capable of professionally? They are tough questions. But only if you are insistent on making a politically-linguistically but not medically-driven point. Right now, it's coming down to a test of language versus a protest. Whither the patients?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Linger", The Cranberries (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPLXJAWUnwI). Today's title - just depends which language; comes from some blog regulars.

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