One thing I forgot to mention in my tipsy post from yesterday is a conversation I had with my host over coffee in the old city, regarding the use of Catalán in public life. She told me that the federal government cut off funding for TV and radio broadcasts in the dialect spoken in Valencia (further down the coast), and that some people fear the government might do the same with Catalán.
I knew that Catalán was repressed under the former dictator, Franco, but I didn't realize the extent of how much this language still influences local politics. I started thinking of this ancient ruler in Persia...I forgot his name (maybe Alexander the Great?), but I remember that he allowed all his subjects to maintain their local traditions, and this freedom helped the empire flourish (for how long I don't know, maybe after a time, parts of it rebelled).
Why do governments keep thinking that repressing a language will make people assimilate/intergrate into the mainstream? Perhaps it works in the short-term, but the minority cultures always seem to emerge again, even if it's generations later. All the public signs here are in Catalán (as well as Spanish and English). I think of Native American tribes trying to revive their indigenous languages, Jews trying to revive Yiddish (or Ladino, or Judeo-Arabic, etc.), '48 Palestinians who try to use Arabic words instead of Hebrew ones...
Why do governments keep making the same mistake?
[LATER]
The desire for Catalán autonomy is stronger than I thought. I walked into a tobacco shop to buy some stamps, and when I asked in Spanish, the guy at the counter responded, in English, "I don't speak Spanish, just Catalán and English. How can I help you?"
I've also noticed a lot of political posters calling for the region of Catalunya to become a sovereign state. Elections for the EU Parliament are just around the corner.
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