The Catalan elections sucked. First of all, how do they dare to announce the results without waiting for my vote which I religiously sent on October 31st by certified mail. Hey guys, I spent 8 bucks and they have the nerve to announce the results without counting MINE. That proves that there was fraud. Remember that Cuidadanos made the 3% threshold by a mere 0.04%. Maybe a couple of votes, mine and Rab’s for instance, can bring it to an insufficient 2.99%.
In a serious note, the only fraud is the clowns we have as politicians. But you are right, we have the politicians that we deserve.
I have to admit that I am surprised by the fact that Ciudadanos made it, even though I have to thank Albert Rivera for having been the reason of more than 1000 hits to my blog last month. On October 7th, several American and Canadian newspapers published an article about Albert Rivera and for two days, when you googled any combination of Albert, Rivera, Catalonia, Barcelona or naked, my site ranked first. Now he has become a popular guy and if you put the word naked, it brings me to the 6th page (otherwise I still make the top 10).
I do not feel too bad about Ciutadans making it to the Parliament. In general, they say the right things (although they think totally differently, but that's politics). My impression is, however, that the vast majority are core Spanish nationalists that cannot deal with Acebes (most probably only his mother can deal with him). As an example, I hardly found any Catalan first names on the ballot of Ciudadanos. I only recall Albert and two Sílvias (and I had to take my magnifying glass to see the two accents ‘ on the first i). I thought they are for bilingualism, therefore I would have expected at least 50-50 Catalan and Spanish first names.
Anyway I want to make use of this opportunity to ask our naked Santa, or even better, king Melcior-Albert-Rivera, the following Xmas presents:
- Trilingual schools (Catalan, Spanish, English)
- A new Spanish passport written in Catalan (in addition to the current 12 languages): Regne d’Espanya - Passaport
- That Catalan has the same rights in the E.U. as Gaelic, Maltese, Danish and any other official language spoken by less than 10 million people.
- That the Spanish Embassies and Consulates have signs (with smaller font if you want) in Catalan (Ambaixada d’Espanya, Consolat d’Espanya).
- That birth certificate form at the consulates has a box to tick if you want the inscription in the Civil Registry to be made according to the Catalan usage
- That all products sold in Catalonia have Catalan labeling and directions for use
- That all electronic products sold in Catalonia have Catalan user interface
15 comments:
Ian - the thing is that Ciudadanos aren't committed to bilingualism in any meaningful way. Practically there only policy is the removal of Generalitat protection of Catalá - the result of which will logically be that the language ends up as an archaic patois spoken only by Catalonia's ruling upper-middle class.
And let's not forget that there is a connection between this party and José Maria Aznar's 'thinktank' FAES...
sorry, that was meant to be 'their', obviously.
Alejandro Lerroux was a politic seemingly from the left that was againts catalonia. His history ends returning in 1947 to Spain friendly and with no problems with Franco. Lawyer as Albert, he begins as a left politic (in USA perhaps those left may be considered comunist) but his main program was end with catalan language and all catalan nation.
And for the mail vote, I was a president of a elections table and the vote was counted as all votes in the electoral journey. Your electoral table has to have it to count it. As you know in Catalonia we have Correos (our mail system), with that I'm sure ur vote are not in Spain on the 1-N, you losed your 8 bucks bud.
hmph... The day after the poll, they said something against bilingualism. So forget trilingualism.
Most of your wishes are wet paper... sorry!
Thoguh, the elections haven't finished yet as it has been changing everyday.
Now we seem to be having the same tripartit but no it will be call the... aliança?... no... wait... entesa! So they are going to understand each other, now, it seems. LOL! (Perhaps they understand!!! -> Spanish/Catalan GLBT joke).
Ian, if what you suggest could happen, Spain would not be Spain: it would be a normal country like Switzerland or Canada.
Ciudadanos has been set up and funded with the sole purpose of dividing society along linguistic and birthplace lines and I am afraid they will enjoy plenty of support from the Spanish nationalistic press.
We are in for a challenging four years ahead. God help us all.
And if that wasn't enough, a communist will be in charge of the police.
I wish I could time-travel and find out how this period will go down in history...
I am devastated. More tripartit, no please.
In addition, I do not support that someone born outside Catalonia becames Catalan president. What if there is a war between the Cordoba caliphate and Catalonia? Whom will Montilla support?
so you realize now that elections is just one big maffia excersize!?
Ian, don't be so classist, what are your real roots? 100% catalan? This morning I have listened in a radio station that Montilla will be the third andalusian president of the Generalitat and around the 14th not born in Catalonia. Obviously, you shall travel back a lot of centuries to find their predecesors, but they were!
Any way, I am also devastated, a new tripartit, now called "Entesa Nacional pel Progrés" with Carod being again "Conseller en Cap", now called "Vicepresident" is too much for Catalonia. Now it's time to wait for spanish elections to see what happens. Of course CiU will no longer continue suporting PSOE in Madrid and this will bring new scenarios in spanish politics. Pasionating times are to come!
What did you were thinking about when you wrote "Consolat" d'Espanya? mmmmmm
Ian:
Interesting blog.. just to say I am another expatriate (maybe for more time that you guys, basically all my life) and I disagree with you. These elections were the best so far in the pathetic history of the Generalitat. PSC received its well-deserved punishment for years and years of monopoly in the control of power within the party, and finally showing their voters what they really were. The rise of Ciutadans has only surprised all those people who still believed in the Catalan Oasis. To me, it has been more surprising the really HIGH vote turnover that PSC has received. But the best is that the tripartit will be governing Catalonia again. They will show us once again what their face really is and luckily provide more reasons NOT TO VOTE PSC in the next election. I'd rather seen a purely nationalist coalition CiU-ERC..because Catalan politics needs to start from zero again, and the best way is to show how hidden fascism has grown up along the XX century in Catalan politics and society. I have lived in Catalonia for 10 years, an expatriate from the Basque Country, lived in US (including Boston, by the way), and Canada and now in Wales.
By the way, I really like your questions to Albert Rivera, and I think you deserve your answers. And, regarding your comparissons to Gaelic..why don't you try to compare Catalonia with Wales in other areas? have you ever been to Wales, which is region objective 1 like Extremadura or Galicia? have you checked out the transportation network (4 hours by bus to Cardiff in a 140 km trip?)..do you know that classes at the University are NOT taught in Wales in 90% of the cases? why don't you ask Albert to propose something like that? Because Ciutadans proposes not 90%, but just 50% of Castilian..way better than the situation of Gaelic...
Great blog and great guy, by the way..I love the fact that Ciutadans are receiving so much attention, in the end!!
Javi
trilingues seria perfectos, pero de verdad no monolingue gubernamental, pasaporte genial, no hay 10 m de personas q hablen catalan, ni de lejos, que cuentas son esas, en valencia no hablan catalan, y en mallorca plantealo, puedes salir escaldado, embajadas en idioma catalan perfecto, etiquetado en catalan y castellano, todo eso es perfecto, pero pq en TV3 no se habla castellano, en la Generalidd tampoco, y si se plantea te llaman fascista, cuando ni de lejos lo soyu
Anonymous,
The Catalan language, is far away from being normalized. If you go to Catalonia, you will realize that in most parts of society, Catalan is set aside. I agree that the Catalan government has gone overboard in the field of education (maybe trying to compensate the shortcomings in the rest of society). The main issue in education is that it is bad, the second, that is Catalan monolingual. My preference would be that it is good and trilingual, but the only thing I would never sacrifice is quality.
TV3 only in Catalan. I am OK with it, there are plenty of channels in Spanish. No one forces you to watch TV3, you can watch Tele5.
Speaking in Spanish in the Catalan institutions? The prevalent language in the Catalan institutions should be Catalan. If you are really bilingual, Catalan should be used. If you cannot speak Catalan or you have difficulties with it, I have no problems that you use Spanish or English.
Regarding Catalan, Valencian, Majorcan, I will say that only an ignorant or an anti-Catalan would deny the "unity of the language". So I will not waste a single second debating it.
If you live in Catalonia and are unhappy there, I would advise you to go somewhere else. I have lived and worked in 4 continents, and I can tell you, the world is pretty big.
wow, that's a change!!!!
yes nice new look -- and of course more naked people
Intervencionismo a saco, la marca de la casa.
Haters,
You have no clue what you are talking about.
I propose a pure market economy that taylors services to suit customers and customer needs in order to grab market share from the competition who still believes on the monopolistic approach of one size fits all.
If you ask me would you buy a product made by a company in Albacete and sold in Catalonia that has directions for use and user interface in Catalan and a call center that if you press 3, they will reply you in Catalan or a similar product made by a company in Sant Feliu de Guixols where everything is in Spanish, I will tell you that without any doubt that I would by the product made in Albacete.
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