According to the legend, once upon a time there was a dragon that threatened a little village where a princess lived in. Some day, the dragon was about to kill the princess when a brave knight known as Sant Jordi (Saint George) arrived to the village to fight the beast. After a long and hard fight, Sant Jordi sank his lance into the dragon's body, who eventually dropped down dead. The legend tells that from the blood dripped from the dragon, a beautiful rose appeared. Sant Jordi took the rose and gave it to the princess.
Nice, isn't it? Well, the legend is a little bit childish but it is actually a tale for children. Anyway, every April 23rd Catalonia celebrates Sant Jordi's day, and, to follow the tradition, men give a rose to their princesses, who can be either wives, girlfriends, mothers, grandmothers, etc... On the other hand, since April 23rd is also the International Book Day, people also give books, so altogether leads bookstores and flower shops to set up one-day little street markets where people can buy books and roses. Sant Jordi's day also carries a lot of Catalan symbolism which makes cities and towns around Catalonia to be washed of senyeres (the Catalan flag with four red bands on a golden background).
Congratulations. You have chosen a great city with good climate, next to the Mediterranean sea, washed of sunlight, with the healthy Mediterranean diet and with nice people :-)
So, are you sure you know everything about coming to study in Barcelona? I repeat: do you know EVERYTHING? I ask this because many Erasmus students are not well informed by their universities about the linguistic reality of Catalonia. Indeed, one of the main things that shocks a foreign student is the unexpected and unknown language they should get on with in order to move around the city with not too much problems: the Catalan language.
Although Barcelona (and in extension, Catalonia) belongs to Spain in an administrative sense, it does not belong to Spain in a cultural sense. Catalonia's language is not Spanish, but Catalan. Of course Catalans know Spanish, but if you come to Barcelona, you'll find that everything is in Catalan language: traffic signs, information panels (unless they are for tourists) or shop signs. However, don't panic: you will always find someone to ask in case you don't understand something. Regarding to University, you will find no problems with burocratic issues like enrollment, scholarship requests, etc... However Catalan universities give their classes mainly in Catalan language (unless Master or PhD courses that may be done in other languages). Only a small part of the classes are repeated in Spanish version for students from abroad, specially from Spain, and here it is when the conflict arises: what happens if you come to study in Barcelona thinking that knowing Spanish is enough and you apply to a group that gets their classes in Catalan language? That was the case of a good friend of mine. In the first class day he was shocked of what kind of language the teacher was speaking in. Well, he knew it was Catalan but he couldn't understand a word from the lesson. After some minutes, my friend asked the teacher for giving the class in Spanish. Hundreds of eyes looked at him while the teacher said that there were other groups that got classes in Spanish language. My friend said that he made a mistake during the application and accidentally applied to the Catalan version class, so the teacher asked people if there was any problem in giving the class in Spanish. Although there was a clear disappointment in the air, people said there was no problem, and then the teacher went on giving the lesson in Spanish. I must say though that I've seen other cases in which the language was not changed despite the request of the foreign student.
What I want to say is that the information an Erasmus student receives from his/her local university is often incomplete. My friend quickly got on with Catalan language and soon he was able to fully understand classes in Catalan; he later said to me that he understood people's disappointment during the first class day. He said it is natural for a country to have its own language and if he had been informed before coming to Barcelona that Catalan was so important, he would had learned it.
A 40% of Catalans use Catalan as their primary language, whereas a 57% use Spanish (the remaining 3% use other languages).The reason of this unbalanced percentages is that during last 300 years Spain has attempted to anhilate Catalan language, which was legalized again 30 years ago. During Franco's fascist dictatorship (1939-1975) speaking Catalan in public was severely punished an today Spanish courts still ban any possibility of Catalan language to gain its fair acknowledgement status. Where Catalan language is clearly used by most of the Catalans is in higher relationship levels: for dealing with Catalan administration, banks, cultural institutions, universities, etc... Spanish has somehow settled as the language of the street, where people from many places mingle, specially in neighbourhoods with high Spanish immigration rates.
So, if you plan to come to do the Erasmus programme in Barcelona (or whatever city or town in Catalonia) consider learning Catalan. Otherwise you may find yourself in difficult or uncomfortable situations. You don't have to worry about being understood in Spanish, since all Catalans do speak it, but you'll see that if you make an effort in learning Catalan you will feel more "accepted". What would you think about an immigrant that comes to your country and makes an effort in speaking your language? Well, Catalans will think the same about you!
Some Catalan language related resources:
parla.cat: a virtual learning space for learning Catalan.
F.C. Barcelona soccer team anthem is written in Catalan language (the link points to the team's official site and contains an English translation).
The world record lipdub for the independence of Catalonia is sung in Catalan.
Barcelona (the capital of Catalonia) voted past Sunday, April 10th, for Catalonia's independence in an unofficial non-binding referendum. The surprise has been the final participation of 20% of Barcelona's citizens, a quantity that doubles initial estimations. What may seem a low participation rate, may not be underestimated: this referendum has been organized by volunteers; it has not been supported by political parties and Barcelona's city council did not provide any facilities nor permission to advertise the event. Besides, many people decided to stay at home or going out to the beach instead of voting a referendum with no practical effects.
But, what's happening in Catalonia? What is shaking the Catalan society to the point of making unofficial referendums, demonstrations, worldwide awarded lip-dubs, internet activism, and other stuff to promote the break-up with Spain? Moreover, what's happening in Catalonia that even some politicians that were cautious some time ago say now that they have no arguments to not support independentism? Or even more, what is happening to make an English writer to write a book for foreigners in order to explain them the Catalan nationalism, which is often misunderstood abroad? (Catalan nationalism has nothing to do with ethnic or racist issues, but just cultural ones).
Some years ago nobody thought Catalonia could begin its trip toward independence. Today, Catalonia has a government with renewed politicians that are less tolerant to the attitude of the Spanish government against Catalan culture and economy. For example, CIU - the largest Catalan nationalist party - is challenging Spanish courts to not obey any law that may go against Catalan language, continously threatened by Spanish parties which look for imposing Spanish over Catalonia's own language. Many of these politicians voted yesterday saying yes to independence.
After Franco's dictatorship, during which many Catalans were executed to defend the Catalan nation and during which speaking in Catalan language was strictly forbidden, independentism has been a big taboo and nobody deared to play with the idea of breaking up with Spain. As time has passed, this taboo has vanished, and today Catalans have no fear to shout their desire for cultural and national freedom.
The reaction of Spanish media to this event has been the one expected: although they have always said these referendums are non-sense and useless, now they try to use the participation results as an argument to say that the 80% of Catalans do not want independence, whereas recent polls say that there is a large amount of people that do not know what to decide yet. However some Spaniards think that 20% is a worrying number, wondering how a reduced amount of volunteers could mobilize more than 270,000 people in Barcelona (over 1.4 million census) to vote a non-binding referendum.
Barcelona's referendum has been the last one of a series that began on September 13th 2009, in the Catalan village Arenys de Munt. A total number of 874,173 people have voted and a around 90% supported independence. And now...what? Spain forbids any referendums for getting independence, so some Catalan independentist parties are proposing to pass the Law of Independence, which gives power to the Catalan Parliament to proclaim independence unilaterally. The spotlight is focused now on CIU, the largest Catalan nationalist party, which has been traditinally ambiguous regarding independence. Meanwhile, the volunteers that organized the unofficial referendums told they will start doing pedagogy on the right to decide*, which is systematically violated by the Spanish government and laws.
An example of internet activism for the right to decide.
* Universal Declaration of The Rights of Peoples
Section II. Right to Political Self-determination, Article 5: every people has an imprescriptible and unalienable right to self-determination. It shall determine its political status freely and without any foreign interference.
The next Sunday, July 10th, Barcelona's citizens will vote for Catalonia's independence in an unofficial referendum, thus, with no practical effects. Barcelona Decideix (Barcelona Decides), the entity that organizes this referendum, estimates a participation between 10% and 20%, which is seen by many people as a defeat for independence supporters. So far, Catalonia's people has been divided in four main groups:
those who want to be Catalans in an independent state within Europe.
those who want to be Catalans in a Catalan state within a federal Spain.
those who want to be only Spanish (mainly people from Spain that came to live in Catalonia)
those who don't mind.
Recent attitudes of Spain toward Catalonia's culture and economy have made the size of the first group to be multiplied by 3 in 10 years. Besides, since Spanish laws seal any possibility of converting Spain into a federal state, today the main groups have been reduced to three:
those who want to be Catalans in an independent state within Europe.
those who want to be only Spanish.
those who don't mind.
The BIG problem today in Catalonia is that Spanish laws also forbid legal and effective auto-determination referendums, leading in a complete ignorance of what are the real sizes of the first and second group. Barcelona decideix will ask people "do you want to be independent from Spain?"; and the entity expects a participation of 10% to 20%. What would happen if the question were: "do you want to stay in Spain?". Probably, the poll would yield the same participation numbers. Why? Because this referendum is absolutely effective-less. Voting this poll means nothing. Whatever the result is, Catalonia will not change its status and this leads many people to spend their time enjoying with their families. Of course, the day after the referendum, non-independentist people will probably misunderstand that 80% of Catalans want to be Spanish, without thinking first if they had voted if the question were expressed in the opposite way.
Three days after the referendum, the Catalan Parliament will vote to pass the Law of Independence, which does not proclaim independence, but sets the basis to do so. CIU, the biggest nationalist Catalan party, is in the spotlight because they are often criticized to be hesitant toward Catalonia's independence.
Yes, Spain still has remnants from the dark past of Franco's dictatorship. La Falange, a dangerous fascist group that is surprisingly legalized by Spanish laws, has warned about its plans to sabotage the unofficial pro-independence referendum that is to be taken in Barcelona the next April 10th. During the last week, this group is trying to prevent people from going to vote by promoting threatening messages. The last one is that "they would like to go to the polling places in Barcelona to break the ballot boxes". The leader of La Falange is calling fascist activists to go to polling places to advice people of the bad consequences an independence of Catalonia would yield.
About 1 million people are called to go to vote for this unofficial referendum. Some people think this kind of referendums are not a good idea because, since they will have no practical effect, many people would rather go to spend Sunday out with the family. This would lead anti-independentists to use the low participation as a (false) argument to say that Catalans do not want independence. The problem is that, in Spain, legal auto-determination referendums are forbidden.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the famous sentence often said by tourists when coming to visit Spain is right: "This is Spain!"
The fascist group La Falange during a demonstration.
It seems that Catalan independentists do not surrender to achieve the goal to get independence from Spain. Yesterday, April 2nd, another demonstration has been taken in Sant Jaume square in Barcelona, the seat of the Catalan government, where hundreds of people (about 2000 demonstrators) gathered to ask the government for passing a law that will let Catalonia to unilaterally declare its independence from Spain, that is, without the endorsement of the Spanish government. Catalonia is living really bad times, as a Herald Tribune article described two days ago. Catalonia contributes with the 10% of its GDP to support poorer regions of Spain through taxes collected by the Spanish government. The inability of Catalonia to decide the amount of taxes to transfer to Spain for solidarity leads the Catalan country to a deep impoverishment, specially in these times of crisis. The only way the Catalan government can get funds is, first, to save money by cutting public spending and, second, to borrow more money; both are bad solutions, specially the latter. The problem is that, again, the Spanish government has forbidden Catalonia to increase its debt. This difficult economical situation together with the continuous attempts from Spanish politicians and courts to gradually annihilate the Catalan identity have lead independentism to be multiplied by three during the last 10 years. The past July 10th 2010, more than 1 million people filled the streets of Barcelona during a huge demonstration to demand the right to decide. Some months later, the nationalist party CIU won Catalan elections and a new independentist party (SI) entered the Parliament. Actually, SI has been the party that has proposed the Law of Independence that people in the today's demonstration were claiming.
The Law of Independence will be discussed in the Catalan Parliament from April 13th to 14th, and it will be a decisive event to show what parties are true supporters of independence. During the past elections, CIU gained the confidence of many independentist voters, so their decision on supporting the law will be crucial for saving or hurting their credibility.
Plaça Sant Jaume (Saint James square), Barcelona, April 2nd 2011
The English writer Mathew Tree has stated that Catalonia will be fully understood abroad if it becomes independent from Spain. Tree has presented his last book Barcelona, Catalonia: A View from the Inside, in which the author gives many examples of how foreigners do not understand Catalan reality or how they do not know anything about it.
"It is not a particularly nationalist country, in the sense that catalanism has no ethnic component or whatsoever; everything is based on the culture and the language", says Tree, who is very critical with the Spanish State in general and particularly with its attitude towards Catalonia. Whenever Catalan people decide to do something that goes against the Spanish nationalism or against Spanish establishment, Madrid makes all Catalan aspirations fail. Tree says that this attitude is "an insult to collective intelligence", and he actually states that if Madrid does not change its attitude, Catalonia will eventually become an independent nation.
You can see a 2-minute video with Mathew Tree presenting Catalonia to foreigners:
