Alicante is important

What has happened in Alicante with the language could end up happening in the Balearic Islands, no matter how far away it may seem. It's more or less similar in Alicante. The city of Alicante is the best studied and documented case of language substitution in the world, thanks to Brauli Montoya's comprehensive study. Alicante, the interrupted languageMontoya, who, incidentally, was a professor of Catalan Philology at the UIB, offers some chilling data, such as the fact that the Civil War (which, it should be noted, ended in the port of Alicante) caused some families to speak Spanish to their children born after the war, in contrast to those born before. When successive waves of Spanish-speaking labor arrived in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, they found a linguistic desert where the natives themselves had already sown salt to further stifle the timid signs of recovery.

It was a purely municipal phenomenon, but the surrounding towns in the same Alacantí region (San Vicente del Raspeig, Jijona, San Juan, Mutxamel, Agost, Campello) acted as a barrier to linguistic desertion. Not to mention the powerful hinterland represented by the Marina, the Condado, the Alcoyano and large areas of the Vinalopó. And not only extramural: Catalan, no matter how hard you dig, we'll find it within the city itself: in toponymy, in signage, in the daily life of many neighborhoods, in the mouths of the elderly, in songs, sayings, and proverbs, in that irreplaceable vocabulary, passing from hand to hand, circulating hidden, secretly, like a rose.

What would it mean if Alicante were to become a "predominantly Spanish-speaking municipality" within the Law on the Use and Teaching of Valencian? Well, among other things, that Catalan would become an optional subject, since the city would be fully included on the list of towns where 'exemption' from teaching the language can be requested, a measure that was meant to be provisional, in accordance with the spirit of the law, and which has become entrenched in some regions. The exemption, which they now want to implement in the Islands in some cases, does children no favors: not only does it deny them the benefits of being bilingual, but it also closes their access to job offers that value multilingualism as a requirement or merit. Furthermore, Valencian speakers would see their rights severely violated. If we're already struggling in predominantly Valencian-speaking areas, in Spanish-speaking areas they would have carte blanche for linguistic decay. Just look at what they're doing in the Serranos, a historically Spanish-speaking region: even though Catalan won the perverse language preference referendum perpetrated by Minister Rovira (a referendum they intend to emulate in one format or another on the Islands), they will implement measures to marginalize Valencian in schools, hiding behind them precisely in the schools.

But we don't buy their subterfuges: it's not the children's education or future that matters to them. After all, it's not that complicated to acquire a Romance language where, if you scratch the surface, you'll find it present. Nor does the Valencian identity of Alicante represent any danger to the linguistic rights of Spanish speakers, nor to the Spanish nationalist project. On the contrary, this institutional declaration turns its back on its own past, its present (the percentage of Valencian speakers in Alicante remains considerable), and also on its future. It turns its back on the cultural life of the University, where Valencian is a tool for teaching, promotion, and cultural programming. And it also turns its back on the province itself, of which it has already renounced exercising leadership, or even representation, and in any case, on embracing linguistic wealth for what it is: a shared wealth that must be managed.

The attacks on Valencian are in line with the strangling cuts to the Valencian Academy of Language (an invention, let's not forget, of theirs), the promotion of bullfighting "culture" in À Punt, and the language-killing policies that appear everywhere. This institutional declaration (it took five attempts for the Alicante council to approve it) breaks consensus established over forty years and sends a very clear message: we're here to destroy everything. A few years ago it was the closure of the TV3 repeater in Carrasqueta, yesterday it was the stifling of the Académica, the other day the name war in La Franja, or the attacks on the school in the Islands. The objective of Spanish nationalism is none other than to make Catalan an accessory language, and in any case, subordinate to Castilian. The desertifying pontificate will not stop until there is not a single Catalan speaker, until we completely shut down.

Therefore, it's urgent to stop looking at it with compassion and believing that what's happening in Alicante is far from us. The map of linguistic dominance is leaking at the borders, but the capitals and major cities are also experiencing significant gaps. We don't believe ourselves safe and sound because of the distance, nor do we shake off the thousands of Valencian speakers who break their backs in Alicante, day after day, to live and cultivate in the language we share. Because this institutional declaration isn't the acknowledgment of a (complex and nuanced) reality: it's an attack on all Catalan speakers.