Making the case...in Spanish

Some­thing is eat­ing at me. It mat­ters.

Politi­cians and com­men­ta­tors pat the water in steady rhythm, send­ing out rip­ples that are reach­ing around the world. But the mes­sages are not all pro-Cat­alo­nia.

Knowl­edge of the flag and cause is spread­ing, with­out a shadow of a doubt. Aware­ness of the in­ten­sity of be­lief in this in­de­pen­dent-minded na­tion is now es­tab­lished in the con­science far be­yond Iberia. This is a huge and vital part of the jig­saw, but while it is a topic in a host of lan­guages, what is being said nearer to home, in Span­ish, is what wor­ries me. Does it worry you?

I mean among our rel­a­tives and neigh­bours with whom all Cata­lan res­i­dents should live side by side in es­sen­tial Iber­ian har­mony, mu­tual re­spect and fruit­ful co­op­er­a­tion.

If Rajoy and his media are win­ning any­thing it might be the pro­pa­ganda cam­paign to paint the peo­ple of Cat­alo­nia as petu­lant, spoiled chil­dren who have ex­hausted the pa­tience of a tol­er­ant fam­ily.

Last year we went to a book launch in our Pri­o­rat vil­lage. This tiny co­marca is ar­guably more fiercely in­de­pen­dent than any, so it was not sur­pris­ing a fair num­ber turned out to hear the actor, co­me­dian and au­thor Toni Albà make an ab­sorb­ing, hi­lar­i­ous, razor-sharp and pro­found ar­gu­ment as to why he was com­pelled to write SER O NO SER CATA­LANS – AQUE­STA ES LA QUESTIÓ.

One point re­ally hit home: When he was in Spain he over­heard a par­ent ad­mon­ish their plain­tive son by telling him to stop be­hav­ing like a Cata­lan. Our daugh­ter, now at uni­ver­sity in Lon­don, with (as it hap­pens) a friend from here in the Pri­o­rat, has been ver­bally abused by young Span­ish peo­ple when over­heard speak­ing Cata­lan.

I don't know the an­swer to this on-going and deep­en­ing sour­ing, but it will surely get worse as the mo­ment of truth ap­proaches and the de­trac­tors raise their voices in des­per­a­tion. I fear the defama­tion will be acute.

The im­per­a­tive, of course, is to counter it, but not with bad-mouthing in equal mea­sure, in­stead with re­spect and good­will. Words must be mea­sured. Of course Spain will be poorer with­out Cat­alo­nia. The Span­ish peo­ple, not the cur­rent es­tab­lish­ment in Madrid, need to know that Cat­alo­nia is sen­si­tive to this, just as they need to hear clear ar­gu­ment now, in Span­ish, as to why the dye of in­de­pen­dence has been cast in this multi-cul­tural coun­try.

Have you heard the voice of Vic­tor Peña, for ex­am­ple? He has a few thou­sand hits on YouTube. He de­serves tens of thou­sands more. This 19-year-old, talk­ing di­rectly to cam­era, in Span­ish (the lan­guage his fam­ily uses at home) to make an im­pas­sioned case for in­de­pen­dence and un­der­stand­ing.

Just search his name on YouTube.

Is it con­ceiv­able that with in­de­pen­dence and a more mod­er­ate, mod­ern gov­ern­ment in Spain, Cat­alo­nia can some­how sus­tain a de­gree of sup­port for its vital neigh­bours and rel­a­tives dur­ing the tran­si­tion? For sure, under the road map for in­de­pen­dence and in a very real way, Cat­alo­nia must and surely will re­main a vital, help­ful link be­tween Spain and Eu­rope.

But for now, for me, the issue is the dis­cord on the street, a poi­son that needs the an­ti­dote of rea­son and friend­ship. What prac­ti­cal, pos­i­tive steps can Cat­alo­nia take, do you think?