I just arrived in Shenyang (China), a city not too far from the North Korean border, but I continue to think of the Catalonia politics.
As some of you know, there is a new party in Catalonia called “Ciudadanos the Cataluña”. It is an anti-nationalistic party that is trying to attract those people from the center left that do not want to play the nationalistic game in Catalonia.
I think that every party has the right to exist. The voters will decide whether or not they become an anecdote (I think they will).
Personally, I do not agree with most of their premises and I do not like their tone in general, f.i. one of their keynote speakers said, with very obscene words, that he could not care less about the Catalan nation (a rough translation to English would be: “the Catalan nation makes my dick sweat”) and I think that they are promoting anti-Catalan sentiments, but let’s wait to the next elections and see what happens.
There are, however, two things they say that I agree with (remember I am a non-orthodox Catalan nationalist):
- A push for bilingual education (I am actually for trilingual)
- And that most of the Catalan politicians are crooks (remember the 3%, the revolutionary tax letters sent by ERC, the corrupt business practices by Duran Lleida, La Caixa writing off the Catalan Socialist Party loans, etc), but, to be frank, the Spanish politicians are not much better. This is not an excuse, it is a regrettable fact.
The presidential campaign will start momentarily and the new party has presented its new ad campaign where its presidential candidate, Albert Rivera, appears totally naked. I think it is a bold move, that ERC or the PSC will not be able to match (can you imagine Carod or Montilla in a similar fashion?).
However I would like to give you a piece of advice, if you meet Albert Rivera, do not shake hands with him, just in case he has the same reaction to the Catalan nation as his keynote speaker.
Finally I will say that no one in Barcelona will be surprised to see a naked person on the billboards. It is quite normal to go naked on the streets of Barcelona, either voluntarily or involuntarily. It has the advantage that no one can pick your pocket, what is a very important premise in Barcelona, otherwise ask the prime minister of Bosnia who was robbed last week on the streets of the Catalan capital (… and he thought the problem was the Serbs!). It is also a good method to avoid suicide bikers.
14 comments:
They're called "Ciutadans - Partit de la Ciutadania" and not "Ciudadanos de Cataluña". Their website (http://ciutadansdecatalunya.com/) is in Català by default. They're not anticatalan, only non-nationalist. But you seem to equate the two.
Pitix: I beg to differ. CdC are anticatalan since their policies will lead to the complete obliteration of Catalan culture within a generation and the total assimilation of Catalonia into Spain, at all levels: culturally, politically and economically.
They are the 21st Century version of the Lerroux party of early XX century: anti-catalan, demagogue, populist and profoundly nationalistic (Spanish nationalism, that is).
Default language is Catalan? Token gesture that means nothing when their policies are unmasked.
I still have to meet anyone who having been to school in Catalonia does not speak Spanish. Yet, there are thousands of people who have been educated in Catalonia that do not speak Catalan. I wish they were bilingual too.
These people (CdC) do not represent anybody but themselves and the phobias of a little bunch of self-appointed intellectuals, whatever that means. I can't wait for the 2nd of November and see the scale of their failure.
I'm afraid they did change the name of the patry to Ciutadans-Partit de la Ciutadania, because they want to participate at the Spanisn elections too, and Citizens of Catalonia is not a suitable name for a Spanish Party. And, Mr. Pitix, they are nacionalist, spanish nationalist.
I agree with Rosa de Sang that bilingualism should be applied both ways. This means that public schools should be bilingual, but also that directions for use, labels, menus of electronic equipment, etc. should be bilingual too (preferably trilingual)and they are not, they are only in Spanish.
I recently read an article in Raco Catala of a foreigner who only speaks Catalan (not Spanish) explaining how hard it is to live in Catalonia being a Catalan monolingual.
It is true that Catalan is in far more danger than Spanish. My insistance on Catalan children learning Spanish is because I want them to be competitive and Spanish is an important language that they can learn with no effort.
By the way, I read in e-noticias that Albert Rivera has declared that "Catalonia does not make his dick sweat".
So you can go ahead and shake hands with him.
Oooh. Wasn't the CdC speaker merely paraphrasing every Catalans favorite nationalist (our "friend" Pepe Rubianes) when he spoke about a sweating dick? Or was it the other way around?
Neil,
If what you imply is that the fact that a Galizian actor used very inappropiate words to refer to Spain, gives everyone the right to insult my nation, including those who represent a party that wants to govern my nation, I have to respectfully disagree.
I will come back to you after the elections to discuss whether I was the only one.
Ian,
No, that was not what I was implying. Please do not waste your time coming back to me after the 2nd of November as I will be able to see the election result for myself thanks. I'm not sure what disscusion you'd expect anyway as I know that you are not "the only one" and I do not agree with such rudeness - just in case you were implying that I am a fan of such things.
The only ppl in Catalonia not bilingual are monolingual castilians that dont want to speak in Catalan, so they want that the others switch his lenguage.
Make a trilingual school english/castillian/catalan may solve the problem with our scholars english but will not solve the monolingual wishes. That way in Valencia they tend to say (remember castilians) that Valenciano is a different language than catalan. That is like United States saying that his language wasnt english...
Like I want my milk from a cow, I want my President de la Generalitat Catalanist (in the RAE sense of the word).
What do you think will happen with montilla?
The man who said "The catalan nation makes my dick sweat" was Ivan Tubau. He is not member of the party, only was invited to the speech. After he saids that, the party's president and other members spoke about their unagree with that words.
Jaume Planas is in true. Only monolingual people is no bilingual. In Valencia's Autonomic Comunity there are two languages: catalan, and spanish, like in México people speak spanish.
Bye!
Sergio - Ciutadà - Citizen
Nobody would say Catalonia is anti-Barcelona. Only catolonian integrism can say Spain is anti-Catalonia. Spain has the richness of four languages. All of them spaniards. In first place citizens. Nations come later if you need one.
Nationalist governments in Catalonia punish people who use castillian in their establishments. They have also forbidden Castillian (spanish) in schools, and all administrative information is now only writen in catalan. There is a cruel discrimination of spanish language in a region where 50% of people has spanish as his/her first language.
Ciutadans-Partit de la Ciutadania/ Ciudadanos-Partido de la Ciudadanía
is the only party that is clearly defending the freedom of people to use their language, even with public administration.
Therefore, it could hardly be called anticatalan, as is the only party which defendes the languages of all catalans without discrimination.
I hope the come into the parliament afther the 1 of november.
Ciutadans al Parlament!!
Nationalist people, catalan and spanish, everywhere, tend to insult rather easily. Bottom line.
Many nationalistic catalans now feel threatened, therefore now they insult peaceful citizens when they gather around a new political group. That is a very common behaviour. This new group (Ciutadans-Partit de la ciutadania) defines himself as social-democrats accepting free market = free market economy.
I have taken the time to read their ideas. Having said that, I don't see any fascist, nationalistic, right-wing lines there.
Jordi.
When you really want to discover what is going on in the Catalonia Region of Spain pay a visit to an online news source featuring local news from this region. www.barcelonareporter.com
Post a Comment