For What It's Wert: Education law

Education, education, education. In the five co-official languages of Spain, there are three translations of education. Educación, educació, hezkuntza. As ever, it is only the Basques who are in a total linguistic other world. Castellano and Galician are in agreement and so, in a slightly different way, are Catalan and Aranese.

The Galicians having the same word for education as the one in the language the rest of the world finds easier to refer to as Spanish is fortuitous. The Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, is Galician. The Galician people, those who bothered to vote recently anyway, favour Rajoy and his party. The Galicians are a conservative people. They can also number among their most famous sons one Francisco Franco.

José Ignacio Wert isn't Galician. He comes from Madrid, the centre of government and very firmly a centre of Castellano. Sr. Wert is the national minister for education (educación, educació, hezkuntza), culture and sport. He is currently attempting, and succeeding handsomely, in antagonising everyone who has an interest in education, culture and sport, save for those who are educated in Castellano (or Galician), have a culture which is "high" Spanish (which excludes the Catalans most obviously) and who follow football teams rooted near to the seat of national government. Well, follow a football team.

So aware of education and culture is Sr. Wert that he wishes to establish a Spanish mono-culture. And Spanish it most definitely would be. His reform of education envisages far greater amounts of teaching being undertaken in Spanish and not in co-offical languages such as Catalan. Among the various opponents of Wert's Law are FC Barcelona, the Catalonian footballing anti-Christ forever in conflict with the regal, the very Spanish Real Madrid, Rajoy's football team, as it was also Franco's. Barça, more than a club, is living up to its motto. It is fully in favour of Catalan "immersion" in Catalonia's schools and so dead against Wert. (I wonder how good Messi's Catalan is.)

A couple of months ago, Sr. Wert signalled the direction in which he was heading when he announced that it was his government's intention to "castellanize" Catalan students so that they would feel greater national pride. He didn't actually say that he didn't want the students to not feel pride in being Catalan as well, but this of course was how it was interpreted. It was an easy mistake to make because anti-Wert forces had been alerted to an earlier example of Wertism. This was his decision to revive a grant (of almost 200,000 euros) for the Spanish biographical dictionary. It had been withdrawn by the previous government until certain "errors" were corrected, which still haven't been. Specifically, these are that Franco isn't referred to as a dictator and that a large part of the repression under Franco is overlooked.

As always, the spectre of Franco looms whenever Catalan appears threatened. The secretary-general of the CiU in Catalonia, Josep Duran Lleida, has called for Wert's resignation and has described his law as "the worst attack" on Catalan since Franco's death. The CiU may have lost ground after the recent election, but there are more fanatically separatist elements which have gained ground in Catalonia that will take great delight in using Wert's Law as a means to their end of independence.

You do have to wonder why the national government is so intent in pushing Castellano to the detriment of other languages. It knows it will have a fight and it seems happy to pick one. So much, therefore, for trying to create a spirit of unity in the country as a whole in order to tackle rather more pressing matters.

But it could have been predicted that the fight would come, as one only had to look at the Balearics, the test-bed, the experiment for some of what the PP nationally had in mind. However, the desire to push Castellano in the Balearics has been a flop. For the Balearics education minister, Rafael Bosch, who has overseen the failure to achieve a greater degree of teaching in Castellano, Wert's Law is a Godsend. He can blame it when its imposition falters. Or he can use it to reinforce the Balearic Government's own stance on Catalan, though he is prone to coming out with seemingly contrary statements, his latest being that he will "work to the last moment so that Catalan is an official language".

While Bosch is working to the last moment, Sr. Wert will be busy in a different way. Faced with criticism of his law, he has said that he is "a fighting bull that grows stronger when provoked." He really should choose his descriptions more carefully. The Catalonians have banned bullfighting.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.