"Visca Catalunya Lliure!"

On the way to Ikea yesterday afternoon with my parents, I was listening to an episode of La Competència, my favorite radio program ever which airs on RAC1 in Catalunya (it is in Catalan), which I get through podcasts.  It was from last Tuesday,  and featured a discussion on an article written by Catalan journalist Quim Monzó for La Vanguardia, a Barcelona-based newspaper which publishes in Spanish (it's going to start publishing in Catalan in May).  It's an article about the coach for the Girona football team, Raül Agné, who walked out on a post-match press conference he was giving because he was told to answer a question in Spanish instead of Catalan, when the question had been asked in Catalan (something done all the time by journalists and coaches in press conference; if the coach speaks the language a question is asked in, he responds in that language).


The argument is, it is more acceptable in Spain (and the Spanish press in general) to speak English, or Italian, or French, or German, or any other major European/world language, than it is to speak Catalan, or Basque, or Galician, languages that are official languages to Spain.  The rationale behind this thinking is that since everyone who speaks Catalan, Basque and Galician can also speak Spanish, then it is no problem to speak Spanish and therefore everyone should always speak it.  There has been a recent controversy in the Spanish senate about this very same issue: about requiring translators for the sessions when every single one of the senators can speak Spanish, but chooses to speak in his "native" tongue instead of Castilian.

This kind of dichotomy and hypocrisy is what drives more and more Catalans to strive and fight for independence from Spain.  It's not just about their separate culture and history anymore, it's about their language and the right to speak it.  It's the political aspect that's making Catalans realize that they are actually in support of independence, where before they may not have been.  The status quo is changing.  With all the votes for independence going on right now around the world (most recently in Southern Sudan, it's also occurring in the region of South Tirol in Italy), Spain is realizing that it's not going to be able to keep its most economically profitable regions anymore.  They're going to split.  I'm convinced that within the next two years we'll see Catalunya officially declare independence, especially once the capital votes in March in their referendum and the overwhelming majority decide that they do in fact want an independence referendum to appear on the ballot of the next general election (which occurs next March).  Catalunya is going to split from Spain.  And soon after that, the Basque Country will follow suit.

I think it's idiotic to object to someone speaking Catalan in Spain.  I disagree when people in Spain say things like "Catalan's only a co-official language, so they don't have a right to not speak Spanish, since they all speak it anyway."  One of my favorite scenes in the 2001 French movie L'Auberge Espagnole ("The Spanish Hostel") is where a group of Erasmus students complain about the fact that their global economics professor teaches in Catalan, so one of them stands up to ask if he could give the class in Spanish, which he declines.  The student insists that it's not a problem for him to speak Spanish, to which he responds "Look, Miss, I understand what you're saying.  But you have to understand what I'm saying too.  Here in Catalunya we have Catalan as an official language.  If you want to speak Spanish, you can go to Madrid or you can go to South America."  After a cut, the same student is shown, with the main character, with a group of Catalan students explaining that Catalan is a part of their culture, that it's a part of their identity, and a student with African roots defends that Catalan and the Catalan culture is part of who he is, as well as his African roots; it's not contradictory to defend Catalan while defending the greater Europe (as one of the Erasmus students defended).  Another student finalized by explaining that Spain is not just "flamenco and olé", that's a part of Spain but it's a lot more than that.  This scene perfectly depicts what is for me what Spain is, what Catalunya is.

Catalan may only share officiality as a language with Spanish, Basque, and Galician, but Catalans do have a right to speak their language, as do people who speak the other two languages.  Sure, everyone born in the current borders of Spain may all speak Spanish, but does that give those who only speak Spanish the right to require that everyone who speaks Spanish to speak it at all times?  In another example, in November before a friendly with the Spanish national team, a journalist asked player Gerard Piqué a question in Catalan, and Piqué then asked if he could respond in the language, which he was affirmed.  Sergio Ramos, from Sevilla, protested after Piqué finished speaking and demanded that he be allowed to respond in "andaluz", the dialect from Andalucía, if Piqué was allowed to respond in Catalan.  The player later apologized on his Twitter, claiming that Piqué wasn't offended by it and that they're still good friends, but the damage was done.  The Catalan-speaking population in Spain was offended.

Spain, get over yourself.