Educational Apartheid: Languages in schools

It’s the day of the “vuelta al cole” next September. By the school gates you wave goodbye as junior enters primary school for the first time. A tear in the eye but joy in the heart, as you will have decided that junior is to be taught in … taught in which language?

From the start of the next school year there will be free parental choice as to the main teaching language at the voluntary nursery level and at primary level, but not at secondary level. This will be in line with the election manifesto of the Partido Popular government. After a fashion. There was meant also to have been free choice in secondary schools. There still will be, but not yet. It’s all a question of money.

Electoral promises are fine, but they do require that the money exists to back them up. The Círculo Balear, the fiercely anti-Catalan and staunchly pro-Castilian organisation, reckons there is the budget, but then it probably would. The government says, however, that the education ministry needs to shed a 35 million euro debt before secondary schools are included. So this – 35 million, if you follow the government’s logic – is what it costs to be able to offer secondary school teaching in the language of parents’ choice.

The budget for education, and the ministry includes culture and university, will be down in 2012 by 55 million euros. With its budget already under strain, it could do without the complication of administering this choice. Because complication is what it is. The education minister, Rafael Bosch, has yet to decide exactly how the choice model will operate, though it would seem that he has in mind a mixture within the same school.

Let’s get this straight, because I am struggling here and you may be able to help. Bosch has, mercifully it would seem, dismissed the possibility of separation into different centres along language lines, but he appears to be saying that there will be separate classes within one school for those being taught in Catalan or Castilian. Have I got this right? Because if I have, it may be good for parental choice but isn’t when it comes to how schools function.

Schools are terrible places when it comes to “being different”. And what you would arrive at with this system is one of apartheid based on language choice. The potential for us and them should not be underestimated.

Moreover, it is an us and them that has the potential to carry on beyond school years. If you want to create a situation of tension between Catalan and Castilian speakers, where better than to foment it than in schools. The notion of splitting along language lines goes against principles of child socialisation that schools should be aiding, not inhibiting.

The Círculo Balear believes that the PP has bowed to pressure from the “anti-democrats of the Catalanist minority”, which it almost certainly hasn’t. Give the PP its own fully free choice and it would probably happily get rid of Catalan from schools, but it is enforcing the provisions of the 1986 act that recognised the right of language choice, but which has since come to mean Catalan taking precedence.

The Círculo, however, may not be right in assuming that an overwhelming majority of parents want Castilian teaching. Back in June it was reported that parents, for the most part, were happy enough for Catalan to prevail. In which case, they’ll be able to choose for it do so.

Apart from a budgetary constraint, the government’s position may have been watered down (albeit perhaps temporarily) by the presence of Sr. Bosch, described as a moderate when he was made education minister.

But this moderation, while it ensures a greater role for Castilian while maintaining Catalan, creates a different problem; two in fact – greater expense plus the linguistic apartheid. The cost of education will have to increase, though not by as much as Sr. Bosch might have wanted, as his plan to add an hour to the school day has had to be held back for now because of lack of money.

Accommodating the two languages, to be fair to the government, is a thankless task. The purely pragmatic approach would be to make Castilian the language and make Catalan a language taught in specific lessons. Where many Catalan-preferring parents would probably have to agree is not with the Círculo Balear’s posturing but with the notion of greater opportunity arising from Castilian.

But pragmatism is too simple when set against culture, history, arguments and tensions. Unfortunately, the government, while it is right in its free-choice policy, might find that it ends up exacerbating these tensions.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Flying The Flag

A brand new and large Spanish flag is flying near Can Picafort. It is larger than a flag of the Balearics and larger still than a European flag.

The Spanish flag now proudly flutters over the finca of Son Real in Santa Margalida. It probably should always have been there and had pride of place; law suggests that it should have, according to the director of the Balearics Foundation for Sustainable Development, Jorge Campos.

Who is Sr. Campos? He used to be director for climate in the Calvia town hall administration of the now tourism minister Carlos Delgado. As such, he can justifiably lay claim to environmental credentials. However, Campos was also, until recently, the president of the Círculo Balear, which he founded.

The Círculo, in terms of the great Castilian-Catalan argument, is firmly in the Castilian camp. Defender of the language, it is the opposite of the Obra Cultural Balear (OCB), the great defender of Catalan and all things Catalan lands. It has had a number of run-ins with the forces of Catalanism. Its building has been vandalised with graffiti, its presence at new year celebrations in Palma last year sparked off violence, and Sr. Campos has been in court to see members of the Maulets, the Catalan independence radicals, get slapped with fines for having chanted “Nazi”, “fascist” and “terrorist” at him.

Campos was appointed to the post of director at the end of July. His was and is a political appointment in that the choice is that of the regional government. But it was an appointment with far greater political baggage. It has been like a red rag to the Catalanist, leftist bull.

The foundation, of which he is now in charge, has not been without its own controversies. Established in 2004 by the former president Jaume Matas, its main function was to oversee the promotion of the “tarjeta verde”, the green discount card, which came into being as a way of generating revenue for environmental purposes once the short-lived eco-tax was scrapped.

The green card has been a spectacular flop, not helped by the fact, as revealed by an audit for 2008, that the foundation managed to bring in a mere 13,500 euros from its sales, a shortfall of around 400 grand. Last year, when all hell broke loose regarding corruption cases stemming from the tourism ministry, the foundation was implicated. Questions were being asked as to how, when costs were added to the lack of revenue, losses of over a million euros a year could have mounted up.

The foundation was meant to have been wrapped up, like the two agencies more at the centre of the tourism ministry corruption affair, and brought under the new Balearics Tourism Agency. However, it survives as a separate entity, linked to the new tourism ministry and therefore to Campos’s old boss and anti-Catalanist soul mate, Carlos Delgado.

Other than the green card, what actually does the foundation do? It is charged with administering sites such as Son Real, the running of which it took over in July 2008, but the environmental group GOB has not had much that is positive to say for the foundation. It has argued that it should be scrapped and has criticised its operations in the Albufera nature park in Muro. It is likely that, with Campos as its head, GOB would be even more dismissive, as GOB is a fellow-traveller on the Catalanist left with the OCB. The Círculo Balear, for its part, has lumped both GOB and the OCB in with the Maulets, claiming that the Maulets have received the “adherence” of these two groups (and others) which have the “appearance of democracy”.

And so we come back to the Spanish flag at Son Real. What might seem a relatively inconsequential issue is anything but. It was Campos who gave the instruction for the flag to be raised.

The environment is a political issue, but now it is being even more politicised within the context of the whole Castilian-Catalan argument. And just to reinforce this, between the time of his appointment and his stepping down from the Círculo three weeks later, Campos managed to cram in a meeting with President Bauzá to discuss language and cultural matters.

Why, though, has the foundation escaped the axe when others haven’t and when it appears to have made a hash of things since it was formed? It is not solely reliant on government money, that’s true, but might it be expedient for the government to maintain it, with Campos as its chief, as an additional counterpoint to the Catalan left? There are more to flags than simply running them up a flag-pole.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Lorenzo’s Foil: The Catalan argument

What’s the difference between Jorge and Chicho Lorenzo? Jorge is world MotoGP champion and Chicho isn’t. Jorge was born in Mallorca and Chicho wasn’t. He is originally from Galicia, which may explain why he has been brandishing the sword of honour in defence of the Castilian language and jabbing at the armour of Catalan. Lorenzo’s foil is just a tip of the épée in the Catalan argument, but it has caused an almighty row.

Lorenzo took to Facebook to attack Catalanists. Facebook took the page down when the insults began to fly. The whole incident has caused a storm mainly because of who Lorenzo is: father of Jorge, one of Mallorca’s favourite sons along with Rafael Nadal. Pity the poor Mallorcan sportsman who has to contend with a father or a relative’s opinions. Nadal had to put up with uncle Toni slagging Parisians off by referring to their stupidity.

Lorenzo’s foil, which I suppose you could say was foiled by Facebook removing it, comes at a time when arms are being taken up in the Catalan cause. And what has brought the swords out of the sheaths, in addition to Chicho’s Facebook campaign, has been the announcement by Bauzá’s Partido Popular government that it is preparing a law that will remove the requirement for public officials to be able to speak Catalan.

To the fore in opposing this law change is the teaching union STEI-i. The Catalan argument is at its most pertinent in the education sector; it is here that the real battle exists and was always likely to become hugely controversial, given the PP’s aggressive and negative stance towards Catalan.

The rhetoric surrounding the Catalan argument is extreme. Both sides, pro- and anti-Catalanists, accuse the other of being fascists; Lorenzo has, for example. Fascist may be a strong affront in a nation that once had a fascist dictator, but its use just makes it the more difficult to those who look on and observe the argument to be sympathetic to either side. There is something decidedly puerile about the fascist insult.

Bauzá, to continue the connection to the good old days of fascism, is being characterised as being like Franco. Both before and after the May elections, I referred to concerns that a PP administration under Bauzá would create social tensions because of its apparent anti-Catalanism, but to compare Bauzá with El Caudillo is going too far.

Nevertheless, these tensions were always going to come to the surface, and the heat of the rhetoric is being cranked up with Bauzá also being accused of attempting “cultural genocide” (Lorenzo has made the same accusation in the other direction).

The Catalan argument isn’t as simple as just being either for or against Catalan or Castilian as the dominant language. If it were this simple, then it would be easier to comprehend. But language isn’t the main issue.

The fact that Bauzá and the PP (and Chicho Lorenzo, come to that), while favouring Castilian over Catalan, also defend the use of the Catalan dialects of the Balearics adds complexity to what is more an issue of nationhood: Spain as a nation and Catalonia as a wannabe nation. What has been referred to as the “Catalan imposition”, the requirement for speaking Catalan in the public sector, and the one the PP would scrap, is wrapped up in the wider context of Catalonia’s ambitions to be a nation and for there to be a union of Catalan lands, of which the Balearics would be one.

Language equals culture and culture equals language; the two go hand in hand. The genocide charge being levelled at Bauzá is fallacious in the sense that he has no problem with the use of Catalan dialects, and these dialects could be said to be more representative of local cultures than pure Catalan.

But dialects are spoken by minorities, they are not the tongues of nations. To approve of them is to approve of diversity, not of nationalist pretensions. It is approval that can be considered as being tacitly designed to undermine such pretensions and in accord with attitudes of the Partido Popular nationally: those of being equivocal towards regionalism, be it that of the Balearics, Catalonia or anywhere, and of being fierce defenders of the Spanish nation, the whole of the Spanish nation, Catalonia and Catalan speakers included.

The swords are being drawn. There will be plenty more Chicho Lorenzos and plenty more Facebook campaigns and arguments, as there will be campaigns and arguments elsewhere. The worry is that the puerile use of the fascist insults gets more serious and that there is more than just a metaphorical brandishing of foils.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Taking To The Streets

The Mallorcans don’t really do demos. Not properly anyway. They do lots of them – sheets found in dusty corners of wardrobes brought out for a black daubing, loudhailers and chanting, obligatory photos of the “leaders” – but they don’t exactly amount to much. So common are they that no one pays much attention.

Occasionally, however, they do amount to something. Two years ago, there were two separate protests in Palma. Three weeks apart, they were both to do with language. The first was pro-Catalan, the second was pro-Castilian. Neither was that large, and the numbers involved fluctuated greatly according to who issued them. But around 10,000 people for both might have been right.

Despite the second protest arousing taunts of “no to fascism and yes to Catalan”, they were peaceful and uneventful. Less peaceful and more eventful have been the  end-of-year parades in Palma in celebration of Jaume I’s conquest of Mallorca in 1229. Deeply symbolic, the parade on the night of 30 December last year turned nastier than on previous occasions.

The violence that broke out at the Jaume I parade and the protests two years ago were evidence of language differences and of cultural and political differences. They hinted at a society split down the middle, which isn’t the case, as the majority is not as bothered as protesters might think. But then majorities rarely are; it is minority voices which shout loudest and cause the most problems.

One of the reasons for the trouble on 30 December was the presence in the parade of the Círculo Balear, a right-wing, pro-Castilian organisation which, in its own words, “defends the liberty and identity of the Balearics in a Spain for all”. The Círculo is a counterpoint to the Obra Cultural Balear (OCB), a left-wing, pro-Catalan association. Neither is a political organisation as such, but both have political agendas and both make these agendas clear enough.

The Círculo is back in the news thanks to another outbreak of confrontation, this time, of all places, in Sineu. The setting for this was the inauguration of a statue to another Jaume, number two, the second king of Mallorca. Without going into detail, suffice it to say that the OCB was on hand to dish out the fascist mantra in the Círculo’s direction.

Is this no more than just a bunch of activists playing silly buggers? Up to a point yes, but the minority voices are getting louder and you sense that the number of voices are growing; the division in society is beginning to become more apparent.

While the OCB is the mouthpiece for the pro-Catalan left, with the Maulets, a more revolutionary group, on the extreme left, on the right there are all manner of weird and wonderful groups, such as Hazte Oir (“make yourself heard”) and the institute of family policy. To these pressure groups, you can add the neo-fascist Movimiento Social Republicano political party and, lurking in the background, the Falange and Opus Dei.

What the groups on the right all have in common (to a greater or lesser extent) is a highly reactionary agenda of Catholicism, anti-liberalism, pro-Castilian and the state of Spain over all else. The spats between the OCB and the Círculo, and indeed the language protests of 2009, are just the tip of a not very pleasant iceberg which lies under the surface ready to sink the Titanic of normally sedate and pacific society.

Within this context, you cannot and should not ignore the Partido Popular. It was voted in because of discontent with the handling of the local economy and in the hope that it will reduce unemployment. All other issues played only a minor part in its victories. But these other issues are far from unimportant. The PP, or some of it at any rate, is not far removed from the same reactionary agenda.

An impression given is that there is greater sympathy for the likes of the OCB than for the Círculo. This may be an impression formed by the Spanish media, but a question is to what extent it is held within Mallorcan society. And the OCB, though it would deny it, appears to have been instrumental in a certain radicalisation of pro-Catalan youth; the annual “Acampallengua” is more than just a gathering of young people in fields to pitch tents and sing some songs in Catalan.

The worry is that a PP-led administration will bring the competing views of an emboldened right and an increasingly radicalised left more to the surface and that, unlike the 2009 protests, things won’t be so peaceful. They will be more like the Jaume I violence, and there will be more of it. Then you’ll realise that Mallorcans can actually do demos.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Language At A Price: Promoting Catalan

If you thought that the forthcoming elections might just all be about the economy and might avoid the fractious topic of language, then think again. The two issues, the economy and cutbacks in public spending and language, specifically the promotion of Catalan, are coinciding.

Sorry, I need to be a bit clearer. When I say cutbacks, they don’t apply to the promotion of language. While there have been cuts in many areas of public provision and support, Catalan has not been one of them. Throw this little fact in front of the Partido Popular, and wait for the language to turn blue, appropriately enough for a party that is like the British Conservative Party.

The regional government has agreed to hand over 470,000 euros in the form of new support for what is the “social use” of Catalan. The money is distributed to town halls as well as to the likes of unions and even cinemas. It is all designed as part of a process of Catalan “awareness” and is driven by the ministry of education and culture, which is run by the PSOE socialist party, and which has under its umbrella the department for language policy, controlled by the nationalists of the Mallorcan socialists (PSM).

Though the full budget for this department was trimmed by 15% in 2010, it was nonetheless 45% higher than had been the case in 2007, the year of the last local elections. The existence of the language policy department is mirrored by there being responsibilities for language, by which is meant Catalan, at town-hall level.

Is it appropriate that Catalan should be enjoying governmental financial support at a time of austerity? Given reductions in public funding for other social purposes, then the answer is possibly no. The promotion of Catalan, however, is a political issue that can defy the rational, as was the case with the similar level of funding for promoting the use of Catalan in local restaurants.

There are, though, more fundamental questions. One is whether it should be any business of governments to involve themselves in what languages are spoken. The other is why is Catalan promotion needed in islands, the Balearics, where an overwhelming majority already speak it (or a variant thereof).

The answer to the second question is wrapped up, of course, in history, culture and politics. Despite the fact that Catalan has become the de facto official language, neglecting its dual status with Castilian, despite the fact that one has instances such as the secondary school in Porreres being criticised for conducting only 1% of its teaching in Castilian, the impulse to keep promoting the language remains strong. It isn’t perhaps necessary, but politics make it so.

Governments involve themselves in language, and none more so than the current Balearics regional government. The insistence on proficiency in Catalan as a necessity for working in the public sector has been a clear indication of this, an insistence that the Partido Popular would do away with. The politics of language policy are one largely of left and right, though not exclusively, as evidenced by pro-Catalanism within the PP itself.

Governments elsewhere involve themselves with language. The Welsh Assembly Government, for instance, states that it “has a statutory duty to support Welsh and promote its use”. In Ireland, Irish is the first official language, and public money for education is dependent upon Irish being taught, even if Irish is not treated as a first language in the educational curriculum.

At the very heart of the Spanish Government, the national parliament, you now have a situation in which languages other than Castilian can be used. In January, a Catalonian politician became the first to address the parliament in Catalan. This development has been criticised, and not just for its cost alone, but Spain is a signatory to agreements which obliges it to not just tolerate specific languages but also to promote them. And through the government’s regional wings, this is precisely what happens.

To answer the question as to whether governments should involve themselves with languages that are spoken: if not governments, so long as this involvement is tolerance or promotion and not repression, then who? It may cost nearly half a million euros for social use of Catalan, in addition to the six million plus that was spent on language policy in general in 2010, but it is a cost that comes with a moral and political obligation attached. The PP might do well to remember this.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Taking The Biscuit: The language of promotion

Fancy having a biccy when you’re in Palma? Seems like an odd thing to have a website to tell you about. It would indeed be odd, which is why bicipalma.es is of course nothing to do with biscuits. It is to do with bikes. Bikes you can use for free. Or can you? Can you in fact use them at all and how free are they?

The other day, in “The Guardian”, there was this thing about what’s new in the Balearics. “Life may be chilled in the Med’s coolest islands, but it doesn’t stand still.” Hey, hip, daddy-o. Do people really talk like this? Presumably they do at Guardian house. So chilled are they, that they don’t exactly pay a lot of attention.

One thing that isn’t standing still and that is now cool is, the paper informed us, the fact that Mallorca has “gone all Boris” with a “free bike scheme”. Just chill, and click onto Bicipalma. No HobNobs or Garibaldis, just a load of gibberish in Catalan; gibberish if you don’t happen to speak Catalan. Many Guardian readers do of course.

Ah, but there is always a Spanish version, which is rather more intelligible, but still not exactly English. A Guardian readership may dream of hours riding around on a bike and being abused by car drivers and driven off the roads of Palma, but dreams are what they will remain. You see, the Palma biscuit ride isn’t for tourists. The site says so. “It is not a public system for hiring bikes for tourist or recreational use.” It says so, but in Spanish and in Catalan.

The chilled journos of The Guardian have rather overlooked this slight drawback, as they have also overlooked the fact that the site adds, but not in English of course, that “in order to use Bicipalma, you only have to have a citizen’s card (and be over 16)”. Yes, only have to have a citizen’s card, for which read an identity card or a residency card, were one still available. I may be mistaken, but most British tourists would have neither; nor, indeed, would many a British resident of the Med’s coolest islands.

So, life may not be standing still in the oh-so-cool islands. It may be clambering aboard two wheels, finding the roads of Palma mercifully free of buses because they’re on strike, before being knocked over by a taxi, but life, for the cycling tourist, is well and truly stationary. Nice try, Guardian, better luck next time.

Oh, but there is also this free bit. Irrelevant the service being free or not may be to a tourist, its actual freeness is not all that it seems. There is a free period of use, but there is some confusion. Is this free period for 30 minutes or two hours? The site seems to suggest both, but to be fair I didn’t tarry long in trying to fathom it out. I shall not be availing myself of the service anyway. You have to be insane to want to drive a car in Palma, but as for riding a bike …

The absence of a language other than Catalan or Spanish on Bicipalma does rather give the game away. Or you would think that it does. That there may be no English doesn’t automatically mean that the tourist is being ignored. What it usually means is that no one can be bothered. As is the case with pretty much any fair or fiesta you may care to mention.

Someone remarked to me recently that the poster for the upcoming extravaganza in Alcúdia that is the annual rubber-ring gastronomy fair is only in Catalan. What on earth does he expect? Of course it’s only in Catalan. It’s always only in Catalan. And even were it in English, it would still insist on referring to “sepia”, which wouldn’t mean anything to an English reader. Even if it were translated as cuttlefish, it wouldn’t exactly have hordes of Brits rushing to the nearest restaurant, unless possibly they were Guardian readers of the cuttlefish-eating classes of middle Islington.

“Oh wow, amazing. Gideon, there’s a cuttlefish gastronomy fair in Mallorca. How chilled and cool is that. We simply must go.”

“Oh, yuh, amazing. Can you hire a bike as well?”

“I’m not sure, but there’s something here about biscuits. They’re free apparently.”

“Cool.”

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Will The Circle Be Unbroken?: Mallorca’s education

“The idea is to make a break with permanent change.” So spoke the president of something called the Economy Circle, a high-powered organisation of businesspeople and professionals, which, together with various other bodies such as the colleges of lawyers and architects, the chamber of commerce and parents’ associations, has formed a united front to present proposals to tackle the failing public education system in Mallorca and the Balearics.

It wouldn’t be a break with change as these groups would like some more, but they would hope that it might be a definitive change that can restore some credibility to a system which makes the Balearics one of the worst-performing regions of Spain and which also makes the islands’ schools return results that are, by some distance, below those of other countries.

Among the proposals being advanced are regular assessment of teachers, greater professionalism of both headmasters and teachers, the scope for greater autonomy in decision-making by heads and improvements in standards of English. One of the key targets is to reduce the early drop-out rate that currently stands at 40% of pupils by the age of 17. The Economy Circle and its allies insist that defects within the educational system have to be addressed, those which have been too easily blamed on factors such as tourism and immigration. Both these factors do play a part, but it is probably right to assert that they have been used to disguise deficiencies.

Permanent change in education is something of a motto for politicians who constantly wish to interfere. The same can be said of England (and Wales) as it can of Mallorca. More so, you would think. There was a period, though, after the Second World War, when the English tripartite educational system was left much to its own devices; some would argue that its status quo should never have been played around with. It was not a perfect system, maybe there is no such thing, but the first major change, the widespread introduction of comprehensives by the start of the 1970s, ended a generation of calm and unleashed all that followed and which continues to follow – permanent change.

In England though, there was no debate as to which language should be used. The great Catalan-Castilian divide in local education is about to be given another major airing, the Partido Popular seemingly intent on giving Catalan the heave-ho if it wins power at the spring elections, and the main teaching union pleading with the PP not to make the divide an issue of political confrontation. It was also brought further into the open by “protests” last week at 18 educational establishments across Mallorca. Led by teachers at the secondary school in Inca, appalled by the PP’s stance, this amounted to declarations in favour of Catalan by pupils and teachers alike.

The change envisaged by the PP (or by its leader at any rate), that of primacy for Castilian with Catalan removed from the agenda, has to be seen in the context of a a report from the local schools’ inspectorate. This indicates greater what is referred to as “inmersión” of Catalan, i.e. it dominates as the language of teaching school by school. It also dominates as the teaching language across the island. But the situation is anything but straightforward.

The use of Catalan or Castilian (and indeed English) varies. At primary level, Castilian has in fact increased somewhat over the past 12 months. At secondary level, there is a geographical variance. Catalan is less the language of “inmersión” in Palma than it is in the rest of Mallorca. To add to this, there is the difference between public and private education. Catalan is almost universally the dominant language in the island’s public nursery schools, but in private schools it is much less so, even if here it has also enjoyed an increase.

What you have, therefore, is a confused picture. The abandonment of Catalan might remove this confusion, but to argue that it would be a helpful change to the island’s educational system would be open to serious question. To also argue that it is the Catalan-Castilian divide which is at the root of the problems of the educational system would also be open to question. It may well contribute to the problems, but the Economy Circle and the other bodies do not appear to dwell on it.

From this we may well conclude that, like the immigration argument, the language debate in education clouds the real issues, those of teaching standards and professionalism as well as, perhaps most importantly, pupil motivation, to which can be added parental attitudes. Unfortunately, the politics of the election will cloud the issues ever more by highlighting the language debate. The permanent debate.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Street Fighting Men: Balearic independence

The new year in Mallorca coincides with the celebration of the conquest of the island by Jaume I in 1229. On 31 December of that year, Jaume took what was then called Madina Mayurqa (Palma, as it is better known). It is a hugely symbolic date, and it is why it has been hi-jacked in the name of independence and by the arguments of language and the relationship with the Spanish nation.

The night of 30 December has become an annual event in which different sides of the arguments turn up in Palma to celebrate the conquest and in order to trade insults. This year things turned nasty. A pensioner and two police officers were injured when violence flared. There had been an indication of things to come. The building in Palma that houses the offices of the Fundación Nacional Círculo Balear, an organisation that, among other things, protests against the “imposition” of Catalan, had been daubed with graffiti. The organisation is now but one calling for political condemnation of independence activists who, during the demonstration, attempted to burn the Spanish flag.

The Círculo Balear’s offices were targeted because it had said that it would participate in this year’s Jaume celebrations. This was a red rag to the bull of its opponents who took none too kindly to the foundation’s claim that the celebrations were being “Catalanised” and to a further claim that there is a growth in “nationalist violence”.

The Círculo Balear was probably right when it came to denouncing violence, as this is what it got. As to the Catalanisation, there is a slight illogic to the argument. Jaume, though not from Catalonia, was instrumental in the introduction and promotion of the Catalan language. A Catalanised Jaume celebration seems entirely reasonable. Otherwise, though, reason seemed to be chucked out the window, or at least chucked across a square together with chairs from a café.

The demonstrators, the pro-Catalanists that is, combined behind the slogan “som una nació” (we are a nation), by which they mean the Balearics. Their ranks were swelled by the usual suspects of the nationalist-inclined left of local politics and groups such as the Maulets, an independence- and revolutionary-minded organisation. Their cause, in 2010, had been fuelled by the Spanish Supreme Court’s denial of Catalonian nationhood and the rumpus inspired by the language policy of the Partido Popular in the Balearics.

Does the call for Balearic independence have any real substance? In terms of popular support, you would have to think that it doesn’t. The prevailing mindset in Mallorca is conservative. There was little evidence of support, other than political, for Catalonia when the Supreme Court made its decision back in the summer which made it clear that Catalonia could not be a “state”.

Nevertheless, there does appear to be a growing radicalisation. It is one that the Círculo Balear has drawn attention to, and a target of its concerns is the Obra Cultural Balear. The OCB, says Círculo Balear, has received over four million euros in grants from regional and central government during the past three years. Grants, it claims, with which the OCB “gives cover to the violent”.

The president of the OCB, in a recent interview, said that he believed a Balearic state would be something from which much could be gained, not least from keeping  all the “riches” that accrue from tourism and from having its own voice within a group of independent Catalan states. He is probably right when he also says that politically there is a bias towards the notion of independence. Only two parties, the Partido Popular and the Unión Progreso y Democracia, would be dead against it.

But you come back to the question as to whether there is sympathy within the public at large. The OCB is now rolling out a new campaign to try and generate such sympathy. Entitled “Mallorca m’agrada” (I like Mallorca), this is intended to create a “collective self-esteem” in promoting elements of identity that characterise the Mallorcan people. It remains to be seen what impact this might have.

While the notion of a Balearic state as part of a group of Catalan states may not be an issue that excites that many Mallorcans, there is another matter which just might. And that is the whole question to do with language. This spring’s local elections could see the Partido Popular coming into power under its leader José Ramón Bauzá, someone who has so far proved to be capable of dividing not just the general public but also his own party where it comes to the Catalan-Castilian debate.

What Bauzá might do is to turn back decades of linguistic policy. It is potentially highly dangerous in terms of what it would represent symbolically. It is this issue that has the power to give the OCB, the Jaume I demonstrators and the independence activists the ammunition they need. For this reason, the local elections in May could prove to be highly significant. What occurred on the night of 30 December might, just might, be a precursor of what else could occur.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

United We Speak: Catalan or Mallorquín?

When is a language a dialect, and when is a dialect a language? Opinion as to the distinction between the two is one on which you will find a lack of unanimity. Linguists themselves can’t agree.

If you are inclined to do so, you can go back far enough with most “languages” and argue that they are in fact dialects. It all depends where you want to start. But for current-day purposes, there are languages which are undeniably languages, one of them being Catalan. Or is it? A definition of a language is that it should be that of a “state”. You may have noticed that there is no Catalan “state”.

Alternatively, a language is a language if there exists a “standard” form, which is the case with Catalan. Except, of course, that there are variants. Nevertheless, the language has its own “code” in that dictionaries determine the standard form. The fact of there being variants does not negate a claim to being a language. Were it to, then English would fail the test. In the case of English, standard codes of language as set out by dictionaries, most obviously the Oxford English Dictionary, are important as there is no body which arbitrates on what is or isn’t standard English, as is the case with Spanish (Castilian) or French.

The problem with these variants, however, is the vagueness as to the language-dialect distinction. Let’s take Mallorquín. Is it a language? There is no Mallorcan state and there isn’t a specific language code, or at least as far as I am aware. Where it appears, in dictionary form, is in the work of Antoni Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll who included Balearic languages (or are they dialects) in an all-embracing Catalan dictionary.

Greater unanimity of opinion surrounds the political dimension as to whether a language is a language or a dialect. Think what you will of the politicisation of the language debate in Mallorca, but to deny the importance of politics would be to completely fail to understand the debate, and it is a debate that has been sparked into ever more controversial life by the leader of the Partido Popular (PP), José Ramón Bauzá, who has said he will reform the so-called law on linguistic normalisation if his party wins power in May next year. This would have the effect of relegating Catalan in favour of Castilian and the languages of the individual islands.

What Bauzá argues is that there is no such thing as a “unity of Catalan”. He seems to believe that Mallorquín and the other languages of the Balearics are that – languages, and not therefore dialects of Catalan. Why does he think this? The reasoning is political. If Mallorquín is distinct, then so is Mallorca from Catalonia. The political motive lies with his alliance with the Spanish state and not the aspirations of a Catalan state, language and all.

Bauzá has attempted to prove linguistically that Mallorquín is not a dialect by mentioning certain Catalan words that are not used in Mallorca or the Balearics. He has come unstuck, his theory being disproved by teachers at the institute in Inca from where a protest of schools in Mallorca is being planned against him. Moreover, even if they weren’t used, this wouldn’t prove anything. Dialects do tend to change words. Indeed Bauzá’s whole linguistic argument is preposterous. The Catalan lineage from the time of the conquest of the thirteenth century is indisputable, except by a few who claim that a brand of Catalan was imported directly from southern France. Mallorquín has fundamental differences to Catalan, such as with the definite articles “es” and “sa” (and even these aren’t used in all instances), but the differences are not so great as to suggest some sort of separate development or major divergence that might qualify it as a distinct language.

Town halls in Mallorca have responded to Bauzá by approving Catalan as Mallorca’s “own language”. Manacor has just followed the likes of Sa Pobla, Pollensa and Inca in doing so. Why should they do this? Apart from the political aspect, the town halls are their own local repositories of culture, and language is indivisible from culture. In Manacor, there is an additional political flavour. The mayor is Antoni Pastor, a member of the PP who does not see eye to eye with Bauzá.

But what makes this all the more curious is that claims for a Mallorquín language are therefore being denied by those who oppose Bauzá, be they from his own party or from the left of the political spectrum. So Mallorquín is a dialect, and to say it isn’t would be to deny the supremacy of Catalan. It is a somewhat bizarre argument when you consider nationalist pretensions to the existence of a Mallorquín language, though perhaps it isn’t so bizarre when you consider that in a different Catalan-speaking part of Spain, Valencia, the far-right has supported the notion of a separate language to the extent of calling for linguistic secession from Catalan.

Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter whether you call Mallorquín a dialect or a language. What does matter is where you stand on the issue politically. And that, it would appear, is all that matters.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Mind Your Language: Catalan and the Guardia

A Moroccan interpreter, Saïda Saddouki, has been found guilty of defaming a Guardia Civil officer and been fined a total of 1500 euros. The Saddouki case is the first of two to go to court in Mallorca, along with one in Gerona on the mainland earlier this year, which all have as their theme the speaking of Catalan to Guardia officers.

In August 2007 Saïda Saddouki went to the Guardia’s command headquarters in Palma in order to translate from Arabic. She spoke to a captain in Catalan. At a later press conference, she alleged that the captain racially abused her by referring to her as “una mora catalanista” (literally a Catalan dark-skinned woman). The court found in favour of the captain who denied that he had said what Saddouki had alleged.

The case has become something of a cause célèbre, thanks in no small part to the role of the Obra Cultural Balear, an organisation which this year celebrates its fiftieth anniversary as one that promotes Catalan in the Balearics. The OCB was with Saddouki at that press conference. Since the court’s decision it has said that it believes her account of what happened and not the captain’s. It has also referred to discrimination in matters of language, has brought the Saddouki case to the attention of Amnesty International and has called for international observers and journalists to attend a future court case.

In March this year a woman called Àngels Monera was fined 180 euros for showing a lack of respect to Guardia officers at Gerona airport. Her version of events was that officers, to whom she did speak in Catalan, showed “contempt” for the language, and detained her long enough for her to miss her flight. She then made complaints to the media and ultimately found herself in court as a defendant. The Guardia version was that she had spoken aggressively and had called them “Francoists”. The officers insisted that they had asked her to speak Castilian not because they sought to “impose” a language but because they didn’t understand Catalan.

The future court case to which the OCB has invited observers from the European Union, and which has also been raised with the European Parliament, concerns one Iván Cortés. On 7 August last year Cortés was allegedly given a beating by Guardia officers who had asked him to produce his papers at Palma airport security and to whom he spoke in Catalan. He was allowed to make his flight – to London – where a doctor seemingly confirmed his injuries. The OCB took up his case and publicised it widely in the media. The court case is the trial of one of those officers.

What are we to make of these cases? Setting aside the rights or wrongs of what has happened or may have happened, they point to one thing – a ratcheting up of the whole Catalan issue. Appealing to Amnesty International and international observers and media takes it to a new level, and one that, on the face of it, seems somewhat extreme.

By doing so, the OCB, which had its own brush with the Guardia when a leading member was detained during the “Acampallengua” (language camp) in Sa Pobla last year, is further politicising an already political issue and also elevating it, via Amnesty, into the realms of human rights abuse.

The Spanish constitution recognises, through the exercise of human rights, the cultures, traditions and languages of all the peoples of Spain. Yet there is a dichotomy in that the defenders of the state, in the form of the Guardia, are officially only Castilian speaking. It is a dichotomy that needs addressing. Whether witting or unwitting, the Guardia should not be pushed into being a defender of language as well; it’s not their job. But as things stand, the Guardia, placed in an invidious position, are an institutional target for those with a Catalanist agenda. Which is not to say that they can’t potentially be brought to book, as will happen with the Cortés case.

The Saddouki case would probably be quickly forgotten about were it not for the Cortés trial. It is the alleged violence, together with the Catalan connection, that will, in all likelihood, make it more of a cause célèbre than Saddouki. And it probably will attract international attention. Moreover, it is likely to ask some awkward questions, ones that go to the heart of the constitution and of institutions.

For many of you, the Catalan issue might seem pretty arcane, but the depth of feeling that surrounds it is of great significance and is one that colours much of the local political discourse, as shown with the debate over language in education. Yes it’s political, but then it’s been a political issue for centuries, and an incident at Palma airport is about to make it more so.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.