What’s going on?
Jordi Pujol
Editorial / July 01, 2008
Some very important negative things are happening from the Catalan perspective. (There are also positive ones, but we will address them another day).
1. Spanish public opinion, at all levels – from the highest levels to the man on the street, to the mass media -, and in all areas – from the political to the intellectual, to the economic-, is hostile to Catalonia.
2. We are hearing of very serious threats concerning the new Statute, as much in terms of its powers as its financing. Outside Catalonia, opinions concerning the role, meaning and consideration that Catalonia should enjoy in Spain do not appear to be very favourable either. All this may have serious consequences for us to act efficiently in areas such as the economy, infrastructures, immigration policy, cohesion, social progress, or the defence of our way of being.
3. Some of the concepts that the Transition brought and that contributed positively to progress and social harmony in Spain – including Catalonia – are now becoming tarnished or simply denied. One is the concept of solidarity, which has lost its initial positive and creative character of coexistence and self-reliance.
Another is Spain’s authentically plural character. Spain is turning back to the idea of “the peculiarities” to the hostile attitude to everything that represents a well-defined, strong and unique personality, based on language and culture, historical conscience and sense of collectiveness, collective project and real political and institutional autonomy”.
Our editorials have gone out of their way to underscore our share of the blame for the current situation. However, we have not insisted enough, on the decisive role that Catalonia and Catalan nationalism have played in Spain’s positive development over the past 40 years. Decisive.
Such was the case during the Franco dictatorship, in the transition to democracy, and this is how it has been down to the present. Contributions in more than one crisis. Generous. Adding and subtracting all the factors, we owe nothing. On the contrary.
We should probably have to remember it. Although in all probability, we will never be recognised for it. However, it will serve us to regain our pride and the assurance of a country that has accomplished as much as or more than anybody else.
But what is pressing now is to grasp the causes behind the current hostility towards Catalonia.
What’s it all about?
Or, to put it another way, what does the rest of Spain want?
They simply want Catalonia’s role as a country, as a language, as a culture, as a well-defined personality with a capacity to develop its own projects of all kinds, to be further diminished, to become more marginal. And they pursue all this, now, with a growing petulant and aggressive attitude.
Some have even said in reference to the Catalan language that, “it’s time to disconnect the artificial respiration”.
As we set out in the editorial of 12 June 2007, -Still or NEVER- it has now been some 400 years since measures were first taken to assimilate everything in Spain had its own personality. Of everything that, as they said in the nineteenth century and as explained in the aforementioned editorial, “still different... not yet uniform.”
And it is in this context that aside from the many other means of applying pressure (financing, the Constitutional Court, much of the media,...), the “Manifesto for the common language” emerges. It aims to relieve the Catalan language of those instruments and mechanisms of defence that it needs in order to maintain its vitality. Instruments and mechanisms, by the way, that have never harmed Catalonia’s contribution to the Spanish democratic, social and economic progress, nor have they proved detrimental to the cohabitation and the attitudes of respect within Catalonia herself. It also seeks to relieve Catalonia of all possibility to act as a collective, to appeal for collective rights. They want to relieve us of any possibility to develop our own collective project, even though it fits – as has been and continues to be in Catalonia’s case - within the Spanish and the European frameworks (See the editorials An almost forgotten in-depth debate published in this bulletin (21-05-05) and Article 29 of the Declaration of Human Rights, published at 01-11-05. _______________
“Disconnect them for ever”, they say.
Luckily, the patient – Catalonia- is not so ill.
Serious concern exists for the economic situation. Concern all over Spain, concern throughout Europe. And in Catalonia. But we have a more robust economy than most of Spain.
Serious concern exists for competitiveness in general. Though if there has been an important change in Catalonia, it has been in the field of research and, as well, in her internationalisation.
Serious concern exists for immigration, in social terms and with respect to the Catalan identity. And naturally, the risk is great. But if any European country has proved its all-inclusive capacity, and the capacity of its ascenseur social, it has been Catalonia.
Serious concern exists for our language, and we have already spoken about the pressure applied in this area, but surely it must be a strong language to justify such an uncivilised attack as the Manifesto. That is also the reason why the success of our language immersion policy without causing social discord makes them so uneasy.
Lastly we are dialectically strong enough to confront the manipulators of solidarity (“solidarity should only be practised with third party assets”, they say), of political reality, of language coexistence in Catalonia, and of historical reality – referring to the political, institutional, economic and social progress made throughout Spain, the indispensable roles that each has played in them, and the decisive part played by Catalonia.
We need not enter the fray with complexes and disillusion. Nor need we be fearful. Nor need we be petulant and boastful. We must be decisive and confident. Without fear. And without respect for those who fail to respect us.
3. Some of the concepts that the Transition brought and that contributed positively to progress and social harmony in Spain – including Catalonia – are now becoming tarnished or simply denied. One is the concept of solidarity, which has lost its initial positive and creative character of coexistence and self-reliance.
Another is Spain’s authentically plural character. Spain is turning back to the idea of “the peculiarities” to the hostile attitude to everything that represents a well-defined, strong and unique personality, based on language and culture, historical conscience and sense of collectiveness, collective project and real political and institutional autonomy”.
_______________
Our editorials have gone out of their way to underscore our share of the blame for the current situation. However, we have not insisted enough, on the decisive role that Catalonia and Catalan nationalism have played in Spain’s positive development over the past 40 years. Decisive.
Such was the case during the Franco dictatorship, in the transition to democracy, and this is how it has been down to the present. Contributions in more than one crisis. Generous. Adding and subtracting all the factors, we owe nothing. On the contrary.
We should probably have to remember it. Although in all probability, we will never be recognised for it. However, it will serve us to regain our pride and the assurance of a country that has accomplished as much as or more than anybody else.
But what is pressing now is to grasp the causes behind the current hostility towards Catalonia.
What’s it all about?
Or, to put it another way, what does the rest of Spain want?
They simply want Catalonia’s role as a country, as a language, as a culture, as a well-defined personality with a capacity to develop its own projects of all kinds, to be further diminished, to become more marginal. And they pursue all this, now, with a growing petulant and aggressive attitude.
Some have even said in reference to the Catalan language that, “it’s time to disconnect the artificial respiration”.
As we set out in the editorial of 12 June 2007, -Still or NEVER- it has now been some 400 years since measures were first taken to assimilate everything in Spain had its own personality. Of everything that, as they said in the nineteenth century and as explained in the aforementioned editorial, “still different... not yet uniform.”
And it is in this context that aside from the many other means of applying pressure (financing, the Constitutional Court, much of the media,...), the “Manifesto for the common language” emerges. It aims to relieve the Catalan language of those instruments and mechanisms of defence that it needs in order to maintain its vitality. Instruments and mechanisms, by the way, that have never harmed Catalonia’s contribution to the Spanish democratic, social and economic progress, nor have they proved detrimental to the cohabitation and the attitudes of respect within Catalonia herself. It also seeks to relieve Catalonia of all possibility to act as a collective, to appeal for collective rights. They want to relieve us of any possibility to develop our own collective project, even though it fits – as has been and continues to be in Catalonia’s case - within the Spanish and the European frameworks (See the editorials An almost forgotten in-depth debate published in this bulletin (21-05-05) and Article 29 of the Declaration of Human Rights, published at 01-11-05. _______________
“Disconnect them for ever”, they say.
Luckily, the patient – Catalonia- is not so ill.
Serious concern exists for the economic situation. Concern all over Spain, concern throughout Europe. And in Catalonia. But we have a more robust economy than most of Spain.
Serious concern exists for competitiveness in general. Though if there has been an important change in Catalonia, it has been in the field of research and, as well, in her internationalisation.
Serious concern exists for immigration, in social terms and with respect to the Catalan identity. And naturally, the risk is great. But if any European country has proved its all-inclusive capacity, and the capacity of its ascenseur social, it has been Catalonia.
Serious concern exists for our language, and we have already spoken about the pressure applied in this area, but surely it must be a strong language to justify such an uncivilised attack as the Manifesto. That is also the reason why the success of our language immersion policy without causing social discord makes them so uneasy.
Lastly we are dialectically strong enough to confront the manipulators of solidarity (“solidarity should only be practised with third party assets”, they say), of political reality, of language coexistence in Catalonia, and of historical reality – referring to the political, institutional, economic and social progress made throughout Spain, the indispensable roles that each has played in them, and the decisive part played by Catalonia.
We need not enter the fray with complexes and disillusion. Nor need we be fearful. Nor need we be petulant and boastful. We must be decisive and confident. Without fear. And without respect for those who fail to respect us.
