Inordinate Spanish-Language Supremacism of the Cervantes Institute

The Cervantes Institute faces the 2014 financial year with a comfortable budget of €110,450,000. An impressive figure considering the economic situation of the Kingdom of Spain. Among the measures taken by the Spanish Institute, none involve closing any of its 84 centres in 44 countries nor any reduction whatsoever of their bloated staff.

The Institute provides the Diplomas of Spanish as a Foreign Language (DELE) and has announced it will extend exam sittings and the variety of titles (commercial, educational, economic, and through Internet). To do this, they will increase expenditure on classroom rentals especially to hold exams, and on construction for their offices in Brussels, Paris and Warsaw. In the Polish capital the Institute is housed in a five-storey building.

All this is to promote Castilian, what most know as the Spanish language, which as we all know is agonising, with its 528 million speakers. Meanwhile, the Institute scorns with indifference the other supposedly Spanish languages like Asturian-Leonese and Aragonese or displays disdain for Galician, Basque and Catalan. Of the Institute's 210,000 tuitions, for example, 207,000 correspond to Castilian, 900 to Catalan, 100 to Basque, and 100 to Galician. The vast majority of cultural events of the Institute concern the Castilian Spanish language.

Just taking a look at the website of the Institute, you can observe the smouldering supremacism of Castilian. In fact, they have not even bothered to version the website in the languages which they are supposed to promote. The logo of the Institute itself resembles the "ñ" letter that does not exist in the other "Spanish" languages. The Institute is immune to the idea reflected by Romantic writer Victor Hugo: "There is no such thing as a small country. The greatness of a people is no more affected by the number of its inhabitants than the greatness of an individual is measured by his height."

It seems that the language that needs promotion, in which you have to invest, is Castilian. The other Spanish languages can look after themselves. Why help them? Or is it, perhaps, that Castilian is superior to the other languages? Whoever starts believing that certain languages are superior to others ends up defending that some people are also superior to their peers.




Jordi Vàzquez

@JordiVazquez
Editor for Help Catalonia

Read more »

Brave Shakira takes a valiant stand in defence of Catalan language: Once again, a wind of liberty is blowing from across the Atlantic

Shakira, an accomplished and recognized artist with a successful career behind her, whose financial success has allowed her to engage in extensive philanthropy, may not look like the likeliest candidate to attract Spanish hate by daring to take a public stand in favour of Catalan language and culture. Given the increasingly contentious battle between renewed independence-seeking Catalonia (conquered in 1714) and undemocratic Spain, bent on destroying the former's language and culture, why bother? There is nothing to gain. Much easier to keep a low profile, and avoid delving into treacherous waters. This is just what many artists have long been doing, looking the other way while Spain tried to destroy Catalan language. Just this week, a Spanish judge deprived a mother of custody over her child because she was a Catalan-speaker. Also this week, Spain's deputy minister for education said that Spanish would be reimposed as the language of instruction in schools “whether they like it or not”.

Fortunately, not everybody is seeking peace in our time with Spanish nationalists. Not everybody is ready to surrender, or even better avoid a fight in the first place. Not everybody is following the simple expedient of pretending no conflict is taking place between a 1,000-year-old nation struggling to survive and recover freedom and a fanatical regime ready to grab a child from her mother's arms to prevent her from being raised in Catalan. There is a growing number of brave souls ready to take up arms in the defence of democracy and liberty, and when a language is being targeted, what better weapon is there than employing that same language to sing, and even better to sing to a world-wide audience?



This is indeed what Shakira has done, by including a Catalan-language song, “Boig per tu” (meaning “Crazy for you”, one of the best-known Catalan pop songs, by a band called Sau) in her latest album. With her valiant gesture, Shakira has put Catalan on the world map. With her brave action, Shakira has made it impossible for the Spanish regime to hide its genocidal intention to stamp out this language for ever.



Like a wounded beast, Spanish nationalists have reacted furiously at the news, bombarding Shakira with a wide range of insults in the social media. Spanish regime figures may have avoided displaying so openly their true feelings, but there is little doubt that they are fuming. Just when they were trying to eradicate Catalan from schools, and while their politically-appointed judges sitting in kangaroo courts were threatening parents daring to speak Catalan at home, one of the world's top artists seizes the initiative and takes Catalan to to the world stage. Their strategy in tatters, their attempted cultural genocide exposed, the victim of their hate propelled to the world's music charts, insults is all they have left, as they lay impotent, seeing their dark dreams wither away.



Once again, when democracy and liberty are in danger in the Old Continent, the New World is coming to our aid. Once again, in Percy Shelley's words, a West Wind is blowing across the Atlantic. Once again this wind will prevail, defeating the forces of evil. This time the West Wind is carrying the sweet voice of Shakira, singing in a language under attack, and once again, in Sheley's words, it is “The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

Alex Calvo

Read more »

Judge removes custody of 4-yr-old from mother for having brought her to Catalonia

A Tenerife judge took custody of a 4-year-old girl away from her mother because of the supposed linguistic barriers that moving her to Catalonia, Ripollet near Barcelona in this case, imply. According to a report in the newspaper El Punt Avui, the ruling of the District Judge in Güímar, Tenerife, says that because the parents do not agree, what is important is to protect the interests of the minor.

"She is in an autonomous community defined by special characteristics of integration, because in addition to the normal adaptation to a change in territory or customs, one must add the difficulty of learning a language that is co-official with Spanish, that is Catalan, that, as everyone knows, is the language used by a large part of Catalan society, as well as in schools. [...] Neither has it been proven that the minor has adapted to the language nor that this circumstance is not acting as a barrier to her development.

The judge's ruling is even more surprising given the fact that, in addition to the language, the judge penalizes the mother because she has a job. "The flexibility of her schedule makes the judge doubt the mother ..." On the other hand, "the father is unemployed, and therefore has more flexibility in his schedule," said the judge.

This is not the first time that Spanish judges rule against tha Catalan language. The Catalan case has been reported as linguistic discrimination in Europe, the Catalan language has often been scorned, some people kicked off trains or fined for speaking Catalan, as Help Catalonia has reported before.

Source in Catalan

Source in English

Read more »

Catalan language in schools: When judges want to be legislators

On 31 January, the Tribunal Superior de Justícia, the highest court of the Spanish government in Catalonia, dealt a body blow to the Catalan educational system by making five rulings based on the appeals of five families, whose aim is to change the whole basis of Catalan linguistic education.
Catalonia, as is recognized by the Spanish Constitution, is a community with two official languages: Catalan and Spanish. After the first steps towards democracy and self-government that came out of the long darkness of the Franco dictatorship, Catalans chose to have an educational system that used Catalan as its teaching medium. It was to be based on the "linguistic immersion" model that was already being used in primary education: In the 1984-1985 school year, 408 primary schools opted for linguistic immersion in which teaching was in Catalan, with Spanish introduced gradually.  By the 1995-1996 school year over 1280 schools had adopted this successful model. Subsequent Catalan legislation made this model universal, in order to bring the linguistic immersion model to over 2800  public primary schools . Secondary, professional, and higher educational  centres choose their linguistic model based on the concrete needs and uses of each centre and its faculty, and this can be done because students finishing primary school are fully bilingual.
The linguistic immersion model that was created in 1965 in Quebec with its well-known bilingual situation has been the backbone of the Catalan educational system, and is based on some fundamental premises: It supports educational innovation, promotes social cohesion, avoids self-segregation for linguistic reasons, and consolidates the educational system. Finally, the law normalises the Catalan language, which was not only weakened by the Franco dictatorship that prohibited the public use of Catalan and never authorised the use of Catalan in schools, but is also in a weaker overall position compared with Spanish that has very many more speakers worldwide and is  the only official language for the entire Spanish state.
The positive results of the Catalan immersion system have been recognized by the European Council and they have not been challenged by any academic authority at home or abroad. Because of the gradual introduction of Spanish, Catalan students finish primary school with full competence in both Catalan and Spanish. A good example of this accomplishment is that in every one of the latest tests administered by PISA (the Programme for International Student Assessment run by the OECD), Catalan students have performed better than the average Spanish student in their competence in Spanish.
The opposition to linguistic immersion is thus a simple matter of politics. If we take a look at the Parlament de Catalunya, the main legislative body of Catalonia, 72.3% of MPs voted in favour of keeping the current model, while only 22.3% of the MPs who voted were against the model; in other words, 107 MPs voted in favour and 28 against. The social and political majority in support of this model is quite clear. But part of the political problem lies in the fact that among those who oppose the current model is the Partido Popular, which is the fourth largest political party in Catalonia, but has an absolute majority in the Spanish government. They favour a model that is used in other parts of the Spanish state that also have Catalan and its variants as anofficial language together with Spanish.  In Valencia and the Balearic Islands, the educational system has two different tracks: one for those who choose Catalan and another for those who choose Spanish. Not all students, then, who finish primary school have competence in both languages, and neither do they show any greater mastery of Spanish. Instead, in Valencia, the governing Partido Popular offers far fewer opportunities for students to learn in their own language than those asked for by pupils and parents. In the Balearic Islands, governed by the same party, a new linguistic educational model has been introduced that effectively eliminates the Catalan-language track, which was the one chosen by the great majority of families there.
Opposition to immersion in Catalan is thus political, ideological, and consistent with the wish to keep the Catalan language as the weaker public and social language: it is a reactionary and post-Francoist wish to eliminate whatever signifies plurality and diversity in a conception of a Spain with one color, one idea, and one language. Because of this, the five judgments passed by the Tribunal Superior de Justícia in Barcelona are an assault against the Catalan educational system and the social cohesion it guarantees. The judges of the Tribunal rule that, even if only one student in a classroom were to ask for it, the entire lingustic immersion model would have to be abandoned, and in its place 25% of the courses offered would need to switch to Spanish .The Principal of each school would have to obey the ruling.
These are ideological rulings that have no basis in juridical principles. The Spanish Constitution states that the authority for education is the government of Catalonia. The current law in effect makes linguistic immersion a  component of primary education.  Principals of public and private schools using public funding must meet the curricular and pedagogical objectives that are laid out by the competent educational authorities in Catalonia. A judge cannot modify a law, rather he must ensure its enforcement, regardless of personal opinion. A judge does not have the competence to assign percentages to languages or curricula. Furthermore, a judge certainly has no competence whatsoever to force a goverment worker or a principal of a school funded by the public to disobey the directives of their Ministry of Education.
In Europe this isn’t what is supposed to happen. It’s clear that, in the Spanish state, judicial power never transitioned from the Francoist era to the constitutional monarchy it is intended to serve and remained on the sidelines. Even today there are countless examples of sentences passed by judges that reflect this reality, among the first of which are the rulings disallowing investigations into the crimes perpetrated during the Franco regime and disallowing reparations to the victims of that regime.
But in Catalonia we take our language seriously.  It can’t be something imposed by a minority. A successful model isn’t going to change just because the families of 5 (or even 10, 15, or 20) out of over 800,000 primary students want to change it. Nor because a few judges want it to . And we mean this, with every ounce of respect and resolve we’ve got.

Josep Bargalló Valls

First Minister and Minister of the Presidency of Catalonia 2004-2006
Minister of Education of Catalonia 2003-2004
Councillor in Torredembarra Town Council (1995-2003)
President of the Ramon Llull Institute (2006-2010)
From 2010 he is Professor of the University Rovira i Virgili

Read more »

Catalan literature to be guest of honor at prestigious book fair in Nordic countries

Catalan literature is going to be the guest of honor on the upcoming 2014 Göteborg Book Fair, the most prestigious literary event held in the Nordic countries. On the same week the Paris Book Fair will take place with Barcelona as the guest of honor. Under the umbrella denomination of Voices from Catalonia, eight Catalan writers translated into Swedish and other Nordic languages will participate at the Göteborg Book Fair. With the sight set at 2015, the Ramon Llull Institute is also working on the illustrated children’s and young’s literature to be the honor guest at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

The Deputy Director of the Ramon Llull Institute  (IRL), Àlex Susanna, has announced they are working on being invited to some of the big annual literature book fairs so they can project efficiently the Catalan literature heritage from both the past and the present, which has a “huge potential”. In 2012, Catalan literature was the guest of honor at the Québec Book Fair.

As a preparation for this event, next June, eight Swedish editors and translators will visit Barcelona to establish contacts with book publishers, editors, authors, and literary critics. They will be immersed in Catalan literature and will make their proposals for the 2014 event. On this occasion, the focus will only be on authors writing in Catalan language. Mr. Susanna says that it is of paramount relevance for Catalan authors to be known in the Nordic countries, especially in Sweden.

Read more »

Foreign policy roundtable stresses need to work towards international recognition

The Catalan National Assembly, a civic umbrella group working for a referendum in Catalonia, conquered by force of arms by Spain in 1714, held a fourth talk on post-independence foreign policy, within “The Country We Want” series. The two speakers were Liz Castro, American-born, originally from California, who has helped to make Catalonia known to the world, writing a number of books and articles in English. She currently serves as coordinator of online newspaper Vilaweb's English-language edition. Jordi Vazquez, a business graduate, is the editor of Help Catalonia, a private entity devoted to public diplomacy. He has a long curriculum working to inform the world about Catalonia's freedom movement. Over a couple of hours, Vàzquez and Castro discussed how to work to ensure the speedy recognition of independent Catalonia, also going over other issues such as the role of civil society in public diplomacy and how to ensure Catalans abroad are not denied their right to vote.

Liz Castro: Catalonia has powerful cards up her sleeve to negotiate with the EU.

Following the presentation of the two speakers, Liz Castro opened the event, explaining how at first her purpose had been to inform her friends and acquaintances about what was going on in Catalonia. She stressed how the news circuit, often going through Madrid, made it difficult for events in Catalonia to reach international audiences.

She then next referred to Catalonia's economy, equivalent in size to that of Finland, which makes it impossible for Catalonia to be excluded from Europe. Furthermore, the current euroskeptic wave makes it even less likely for the EU to try to exclude Catalonia, a net contributor to Brussel's budget. In addition, the more than 3,500 foreign companies in Catalonia constitute an added powerful voice to defend continued EU membership.

Castro also discussed the intoxications one often finds in the media. As an example, she cited the “Barcelona Declaration”, which at first seemed to have been signed by more than 50 powerful German businessmen allegedly against the coming referendum, but that was quickly disowned by BASF. Also significant were the recent words of Josep Oliu, Bank Sabadell chairman, saying that although he personally did not expect Catalonia to recover independence, it should not be a problem for his bank. The third example was the claim by Jaime Malet, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Spain, who said that many American enterprises were worried, only to be immediately corrected the following day by US Ambassador to Spain James Costos, who said that no companies were worried about this.

According to Castro, Madrid is not free to do what she wants, due to her huge national debt. The debt is also important because, if Madrid wishes Barcelona to take up a portion, then she must open negotiations with Catalonia. Should Spain fail to recognize Catalonia, then Catalonia would not be bound to re-pay any part of the former's national debt. Castro next discussed the different European institutions and organizations, and the euro, and Catalonia's prospects for continued membership. While noting that it was by no means a foregone conclusion that Catalonia would be excluded from the EU, she stressed how countries like Norway or Switzerland did not belong to the Union and this was no bar to a very high standard of living. She also explained how European law did not provide for German reunification, and this was no obstacle for immediate East-German membership once the two Germanies had reunited. It was then, and it is now, basically a matter of finding political solutions.

Concerning recognition, Castro explained that no state would speak out about Catalonia until a referendum had been held. Then, once Catalans had voted, foreign governments would follow suit. She then proceeded to describe what, for her, were Catalonia's outstanding characteristics. She emphasized the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises, the high degree of solidarity (as clear in the yearly TV3 television fund-raising marathon), and the strength of civil society, which has pushed forward a peaceful independence process. Being a small country can also be an advantage, since they tend to work better than bigger entities.

 

Jordi Vàzquez: 'We must fight to gain recognition by the 193' UN member states

Vàzquez opened his address stressing the importance of Sants, together with Gracia, two of Barcelona's most active districts, and thanking them for their role in promoting the independence movement within Catalonia's capital. He then explained the significance of recognition by other countries, stressing that some states had proclaimed independence yet failed to gain recognition. Northern Cyprus and Abkhazia were among the examples he cited. Thus, “what we must fight for, and this why we set up Help Catalonia, is to gain recognition by the 193” UN member states. According to Vàzquez, “many of us are no longer Spanish”, having mentally broken away from Spain, and therefore now the time has come to declare independence and to get other countries to recognize us as no longer Spaniards. Taking into account all examples of unrecognized states, making Catalonia known around the world is essential. Following the Spanish Civil War, Catalonia disappeared from the maps. Furthermore, Madrid worked hard to ensure that this remained so. It was a “silent war”, a strategy where one tries to silence one's enemy. This is the “silent war” against which Help Catalonia was created. The goal was “to make friends, find allies”, so that “the Catalan Republic is recognized by these friends”. Vàzquez stressed the need for Catalonia to have relations with all countries in the world, no matter what their nature was. Normal countries have embassies everywhere, “Iran, North Korea, everywhere”. Thanks to Help Catalonia, foreign journalists have an alternative view on the table, media outlets like the BBC can now get information direct from Catalonia. They no longer have to exclusively rely on Madrid, Help Catalonia speaks their language, English. Furthermore, Help Catalonia not only communicates in English, it uses the terminology of the international media. As an example, Help Catalonia has succeeded in labelling Spanish nationalists as “unionists”, and acts of political violence against Catalonia as “terrorism”.

Vàzquez explained how Help Catalonia did not emphasize the tax plunder of Catalonia, since this is something that other countries do not care about. Instead, Help Catalonia explains how Spain is trying to prevent Catalans from voting, which is something that no democrat can ignore. It also informs about Spain's wasteful economic policies, using subsidies from the EU to, among others, build huge embassies and trains to nowhere. Help Catalonia also informs the world's defence and security think-tanks about Spain's failure to do her duty as a NATO member, acting like a security consumer and not a security provider.

Now it is the time for Catalan civil society to devote her efforts to public diplomacy, instead of relying on the Catalan Government, Vàzquez stressed. This is necessary for a number of reasons. First, to avoid accusations that the independence movement was government-directed, instead of a grass roots development. Second, because the Catalan Government could be accused of wasting resources if it spent much on diplomacy while being forced to implement cuts in health care and education. Third, in order to bypass the legal limitations under which it labours when acting abroad, which the Spanish regime is trying to tighten even further.

Vàzquez then outlined the origins and the work of Help Catalonia, stressing that it operated in a number of languages, including not only English but also French, German, and Spanish. It is staffed by volunteers, based all over the world. In addition to directly informing about events in Catalonia, Help Catalonia has often assisted media outlets interested in conducting interviews or filming documentaries in Catalonia. Volunteers do not receive any kind of compensation. Help Catalonia has also conducted a number of events, including a guided visit to Catalonia's Parliament, where lawmakers had the chance to explain the mediaeval origins of the institution to a group of foreign journalists. Another guided visit took place last year, on the occasion of Catalonia's 11 September National Day, when a dinner with foreign journalists was held.

Help Catalonia has cooperation agreements with other organizations, like the Catalan Business Circle. Since, “unfortunately some people do not read much,” Help Catalonia also designs infographs and multimedia guides, which are spread in the social media, reaching a lot of people. While Help Catalonia denounces Spanish nationalism, including violent threats and Nazi propaganda, it also seeks to put forward a positive message, welcoming developments like Monarch Airlines' Catalan-language website, and informing about attractive episodes of Catalan history like Pau Casal's UN address. While in the past, many Spanish nationalist deeds went unnoticed in Europe and the wider world, in recent years Catalans have started to systematically denounce policies like government subsidies for the Francisco Franco Foundation, which Madrid funds.

Vàzquez concluded his address stressing that it was other organizations' job to win the referendum, while Help Catalonia's was to contribute to gaining international recognition for the new state.

Who will recognize Catalonia first? Both speakers were asked to give their opinion on who would likely recognize Catalonia first. Castro believes that recently-independent countries like the Baltic Republics could be the first, and that the United States, which favours stability, would follow. Vázquez believes that Scandinavian countries will immediately recognize Catalonia, and that countries opposed to Spain will follow suit. An example is the United Kingdom, which would have easily recognized Catalonia if she had declared independence last summer, while Gibraltar was suffering a blockade. He also explained that Help Catalonia had a number of volunteers in Gibraltar, and that relations between Catalonia and the Rock were excellent. Israel is clearly in favour of Catalonia. Russia is traditionally more reluctant, but Putin seems to be shifting. African countries will probably wait and see what Western powers do, while South American countries and Portugal seem reluctant to date.  

Other Questions. 

One of the attendants asked Jordi Vàzquez whether Help Catalonia sought to engage ordinary citizens abroad. He explained how it very much did so, and how over the years they had received expressions of support from myriad countries. As time goes by, Spanish aggressions increasingly go unchallenged. An example he provided was a Filipino citizen who, on reading about Spain's attempts to stamp out Catalan from schools, wrote to Help Catalonia and sent pictures taken during the colonial period showing how Spanish authorities had imposed their language in the islands by force.

Another question to Vàzquez and Castro concerned the position of countries not mentioned earlier. In his reply, Vàzquez explained how France, which five years ago was rather reluctant toward Catalan independence, had now become neutral or even leaning towards recognition. Contacts with Quebec have helped, as have visits by French journalists to Catalonia.  Castro referred to Canada, explaining that Otawa was clearly in favour of Catalonia's referendum, in accordance with her strong democratic tradition.

A member of the public asked about the role of different Catalan entities and associations in public diplomacy. Vàzquez explained how Help Catalonia cooperated with a number of associations, including Catalan centres in many cities like London. Castro stressed the significance of Catalan centres abroad in helping to adapt one's narrative to each country, stressing those issues that could better connect with local public opinion. This led to the issue of the right to vote of Catalans abroad in the coming referendum, in danger from Madrid's grip over the election system to date. In the past, many Catalans have been de facto deprived of their right to vote, and Vàzquez stressed the need to work hard to ensure this did not happen again.

A question concerned the influence on the United States of a Israeli decision to recognize Catalan independence. Castro explained that Israel's recognition could have a significant impact on the United States, while Vàzquez added that the impact extended to many other countries as well. He also explained that Israel had already treated Catalan Prime Minister Mas as a head of state, and that her ambassador to Spain had visited the Born Cultural Centre and learned about the siege of Barcelona and occupation of Catalonia at the end of the War of Spanish Succession.

 

The roundtable took place at Cotxeres de Sants cultural centre, in Barcelona, at 1900 on the 13^th of February 2014. A video of the event is available on line. 

Alex Calvo is an Asian defence and security expert

To know more

Article in Catalan 

Full video 

Read more »