A flat-earther presides over Parliament

One of my favorite moments of the year is when my mother and I go to the solemn mass commemorating the entry of Jaume I into the city every December 31st. It's a favorite for many reasons, but lately, I find it amusing to watch the Vox politicians, usually seated in the front row like good Christians, squirm when the Bishop reminds us that on the same day and by the same king who brought Christianity to Mallorca, he also brought Catalan identity. Basically, because he was Catalan.

It's all so simple, so straightforward, that it's hard to believe anyone still wants to manipulate it. Or wants to deny any part of it. Because, of course, Vox is quick to assert the Catalan identity of Christianity in Mallorca. They love the story of the king who subdued the Muslims, but when they're reminded, as the Bishop does with exquisite precision, that it was done by a Catalan, and in Catalan, then their faces change.

Because facts are facts, and because we have many problems as a society when, in the 21st century, a Speaker of Parliament asks scientists from the University of the Balearic Islands what they would find if a formal register of a language—Catalan, the language of the Islands—were modified to adopt supposedly more colloquial forms. It's such enormous ignorance that it can only be described as flat-Earthism. For a Speaker of Parliament to address academia to try to pretend the Earth is flat shows a profound lack of awareness of the office he holds.

These are times to respond to cultural, social, economic, and environmental challenges. Not to invent some convoluted narrative. Curiously, all this stale fighting is always done by people who mainly speak Spanish. How strange.