Still or NEVER

With respect to the Peninsula, Spain comprised three territories.

1. “The uniform or purely constitutional Spain, made up of the thirty-three Provinces of the Crowns of Castile and Leon, equal in all the economic, legal, military and civil issues”.
2. “Foral Spain, comprising these 4 Provinces with the “Fueros” (charters) they retain”. This clearly refers to Biscay, Guipuzkoa, Àlava and Navarre.
3. “Incorporated or assimilated Spain. This takes in the eleven Provinces of the Crown of Aragon, still different in their way of contributing and in certain points of private law” (the underlining is ours). That is, the four Catalan provinces, the Aragonese, the three Valencians and the Balearic Islands.

Two observations. The first is how remarkable it is from today’s point of view that the document in question omits all reference to linguistic and cultural differences. In 1854 the political mindset and Spanish law probably did not attach importance to these questions that must have been regarded as entirely residual, condemned to extinction. Later, with Catalonia’s cultural and linguistic renaissance, Spanish uniformity passed from Charles III’s slow asphyxiation  “without making it obvious” to a radical onslaught against the Catalan language, regarded as the mainstay of Catalonia’s personality.

The second point – and the most important – is the use of still. “Still different”. That is to say, whether because it was considered as something logical and inevitable or because it was thought that the policy of “incorporation or assimilation” would continue, the assumption was that Spain would eventually become entirely homogeneous.

The policy in question was indeed carried out. With total efficiency in Aragon and with significant though not entire success in Valencia and the Balearic Islands. However this has “still” not been achieved in Catalonia, despite a relentless depersonalisation policy. This policy at that time was conducted through political and ideological action, through immigration, cultural and linguistic persecution and sometimes through military action, often accompanied with economic pressure. It cannot be denied that this pressure took its toil, yet Catalonia clung on to its own and different personality (not uniform and assimilated) within Spain. The differential factor continues to exist.

This fact irritates a large part of Spain, and even exasperates some sectors. And there is still a desire to erase our identity.

This is old. This was the situation in 1854. And before then. But we may now be facing a new threat, which is especially dangerous in that it seeks to convince Catalonia that the contention as closed. Although unofficially, the message is being conveyed – subtly, but insistently and practically  - from key political sectors, with the connivance of the Government of the Generalitat itself, that there is no problem; that everything is fine as it is; that there is no need to forcefully and tenaciously demand guarantees that Catalonia will not be subjected to an action of dissolution of its identity, its autonomous government, its economic potential and capacity to consolidate its internal cohesion.

Just another Autonomy or, in official jargon, just another Autonomous Community. Like any other. In the name of unity, non-discrimination (who is discriminated?) and efficiency. And in the name of a regressive impediment towards Catalonia. And they want it at the level that the feeble autonomic vocation of most of Spain dictates. And with a gradual suppression of everything that makes Catalonia a country with its own and different personality.

Òmnium Cultural published the map of 1854 under the title “Time does not pass”. But it does pass. Things happen with every passing day. Every day we may lose layers of our collective consciousness, or areas of our home-rule (the Disability Law, for example, or whoever knows what of the new Statute), or the linguistic wealth, or self-respect. Or, worst of all, the Catalan public sectors, or the Institutions, may explicitly or subtly encourage us to accept the process of erosion. To give up. To maintain the status quo. These things may happen. In fact they are already happening.

Other things may also happen: our revendication may remain strong enough for the “still” to become a definitive and effective rebuttal of the policy of assimilation by some and of discrimination by others. This is what the situation has been from 1854 to the present day.

Thus it can be and thus is must also be now. So that “still ” is substituted by NEVER.