On the face it seems to be just some more bitching about the growing use of Spanish to the detriment of Catalan. Pick your favourite fallacy, they're all there: that Catalonia was monolingual a hundred years ago, that then came Franco and Catalan became "a forbidden language and reduced to the private sphere", that then came the immigrants, first from the rest of Spain, later from abroad, and that as a result you cannot even order a coffee in Catalonia's own language.
The little nice new detail is that Pilar Rahola has been hearing almost only Spanish Christmas songs being played in the shops where she was buying presents for her family. Hardly any Catalan nadala.
And that all over Catalonia, not only in Barcelona, "which one already knows is very contaminated".
But this shall not be about the racism here revealed. Let this be about La Vanguardia. Catalonia's biggest daily has historically been quite comfy under any form of government. In fact, it was always the mouthpiece of the Catalan oligarchy. When democracy came it speedily took to defending Catalanism, as this was now the ruling ideology. This year, the heavily subsidised outlet finally came out with a Catalan edition. That earned it great praise and a "national" prize from the oligarchy, while having little effect on the sales.
So this is the newspaper in which Pilar Rahola complains about shopkeepers chosing the music they play in their establishments. To complete the picture, Rahola most probably wrote her piece in Spanish, because that's the usual procedure among those Catalan newspapers that publish both a Spanish and a Catalan edition. I know so for sure regarding other cases, as to La Vanguardia I can conclude as much from the Leo Messi incident, when La Vanguardia in Catalan translated the name of the Barça football player into "Llegeixo Messi". I read Messi.
Once more we witness a show of hypocrisy that earns La Vaguardia and Pilar Rahola, the dog barking to the sound of its master's voice, a full five Godós.
And now it's about those "contaminating" immigrants, who are again on the receiving end. Now it is about the racism not behind, but right there in the words. A racism that has never ceased to exist. And the smokescreen: This is no down-to-earth KKK attitude, they don't really mean it. Well, I'm sure Pujol did, but La Vanguardia and the whole of the Catalan oligarchy are smarter than that.
They just use nationalism to control the masses. Even in its worst form. Worst Person(s) in the World. Totally.
The problem with using racist arguments is that it ultimately boosts the real fascists. No wonder that Catalonia is the Spanish Autonomous Community where the far right has got strong in the form of Plataforma per Catalunya (PxC); and then there's also Solidaritat per la Independència (SI). In a feedback loop, when extremist parties rise some traditional parties move their way to keep the voters, which is how we came to have a Badalona mayor called Albiol, who rode in on anti-immigration rhetoric. We haven't seen the end of it yet.
Coda: And you know what? As you can read in the comments on today's first entry, two people have tried to make the point that La Vanguardia has itself been publishing in Spanish since it exists. La Vanguardia's censors won't have such "contaminating" comments on its pages. Say no more.
Excellent reply, Candide, my man! (in a non-gay fashion, of course). Your articles should be more widely read than Rahola's, but the fact that they (probably) are not shows the world is run by morons.
ReplyDeleteI will like to add just one peace of information to your Coda.
ReplyDeleteNot only La Vanguardia. The first spanish newspaper was catalan. born in 1792. Called "Diario de Barcelona". And yes, it was printed... in SPANISH. Also, it had some poetry in catalan language. But mainly it was in spanish language.
And you have read it correctly: in 1792. No dictatorship, no fascism, no nationalism... no nothing was in that time.
Rahola is just a linguistic-fascist. A person who would love a linguistic apartheid situation just like the afrikaans south-africa in the past.
Perdona por mi inglés, pero como puedes ver la historia y los hechos hablan por si mismos. El primer diario español de la historia fue "el diario de barcelona". Diario barcelonés editado en castellano en el 1792. Contenía algunos artículos en catalán que eran básicamente poemas. Pero era prácticamente en exclusiva en castellano.
El principal escollo que ha tenido siempre la lengua catalana es su falta de gramática y ortografía. Además, como puedes comprobar no existían ni dictaduras, ni fascismo en el 1792.. por no existir, ni siquiera existía el nacionalismo como ideología porque no había nacido aún.
Pilar Rahola, es otra iluminada fascista-linguista que pulula por las esferas "altas" catalanas. Y como no, como buena manipuladora, día si y día también se encarga de recordar el peligro de muerte que corre la lengua catalana, a pesar que no hay ningún indicador objetivo o dato, que demuestre su teoría catastrofista. Simplemente, se dedica a la apología del miedo mintiendo. Nada que no hubieran hecho los gabinetes de prensa de los gobiernos más tenebrosos que gobernaron en Europa antaño.
Don't worry, Elemental, you can use here any language you want.
ReplyDeleteI do not know if I agree with your views on Diario de Barcelona. Back then there was censorship, did this not obligate the publication to be in Spanish?
@Estrany Thanks, again. Let's get the readership up. Make me some propaganda among your friends and acquaintances. Tell them they're very welcome to the debate. To share their experiences and views.
I'll also be happy to receive some guest articles.
No. There was censorship... but it was not an idiomatic censorship, but ideological (the newspaper was pro-monarchy as it was everything and everyone who wanted to live peacefully).
ReplyDeletelet's say it in a different way: how could it be censorship against any language, catalan language in this case, if the newspaper itself got some articles in that language? aswell as other publications or books.
The language was not forbidden. It was a language not use for that purpouse.
You have to take into account that you can't read the past with an actual point of view. That would be anacronic (anacronico). People in the past, got a completly different view about languages, religion, monarchy, knowledge etc etc. There was not the actual view about languages. Not a change. In fact, it is the oppossite as it was before. With nationalism, the point of view changed.
The problem of catalan language it has been always the same: his modern grammar was born in early's XX century.
Let's say that it was in the same situation as almost all the languages in the world about scientific publications nowadays. You must know english or you won't be able to read anything. If you add to that situation, have no grammar, no unification of the different dialects (dialectos), you have all the ingredients for not use that language as an academic language.
How can you teach sintaxis of catalan in 1800 if there was no sintaxis? Is like studing Newton's laws before Newton ¡¡¡ you can't because they weren't discovered yet.
it was as with latin language. Some centuries ago, everything was wrote in latin, no matter which one was the language/languages of a country. The academic language was latin and that's all (and nobody use it as a commnunication language). There was no conspiracy nor pro-latin language goverment. It was just the educated language. that's all.
If you are talking about "Decreto de nueva planta". I recommend you to search for it, read it for yourself, and then you will be really surprise of its content. Also, i recommend you to search and read which was the previous law that was ongoing before was change it by nueva planta.
Point taken, thanks.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm not going to re-read Nueva Planta, or search for a law I know no details about. You know them, well then, make that part of your argumentation.
I'd be delighted to read your interpretations. Please do share more, this blog should not be all about me babbling in the dark.