Pep Guardiola and his magical football team F.C. Barcelona won yesterday the UEFA Champions League Cup 2011 by overwhelming Manchester United 3-1 with goals by Pedro, Lionnel Messi and David Villa.
Pep's team demonstrated the Catalan values of humilityand team-based hard-working. There's no place for individualism: success is something to achieve by the team, not by individual persons. In Catalan we have the expression "fer pinya" that means to stick together and help each other out to achieve a goal. This is what Pep's team has demonstrated during the last three years. Yesterday he wanted to show this idea in the New Wembley Stadium by emulating the Catalan national dance called "la sardana", which consists on building up a circle of people holding their hands:
La Sardana
FC Barcelona team, yesterday in Wembley
"Fer pinya" means saying to a team member: "Hey, forget your differences and your problems with other members because we need to achieve this goal. You decide: either you are with the team or you are out. And don't forget: you can be better than another, but you'll never achieve the goal alone". A good example of what "fer pinya" is can be found while building up the Catalan "castells" (human castles). The "pinya" is the base of the castle that must be solid enough to hold the entire structure:
Catalan Human Tower ("Castell")
The funny thing is what "fer pinya" literally means. "Fer" means to do, and "pinya" means pine cone. Indeed, you will have to use a hammer or a hard rock to break up a pine cone to eat its nuts! :-)
"Through these polls [for Catalonia's independence] the Catalans are sending a clear message to Spain: for 300 years we've had to listen to you and do what you've told us. Now this is what we have to say."
With these words the documentary of endboard productions, Spain's secret conflict, ends a 40-minute exposition of a reality that is often hidden by Spain to the world. The journalist Gary Gibson interviews different Catalan and Spanish personalities to talk about the cultural and economical conflict between Spain and Catalonia, which is pushing many Catalans to want independence from Spain. The video has received in 2 days more than 8000 visits on Vimeo and is being spread throughout several Facebook profiles and public forums. You can see the documentary (in English) below:
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.
