Now, place names

Every time Marga Prohens's highly ineffective government needs to pass something, it has to pay the corresponding political price demanded by its partners, or rather, its owners, in Vox (by the way, the writers Biel Mesquida, Carles Rebassa, and Josep Ramon Cerdà have already congratulated the president? In less than a week, Jordi and the Àngel Guimerà Prize for dramatic writing have won three prestigious awards in our literature, which is clearly Catalan literature). This time, the PP intends to pass a package of tax measures with reductions (of course, the right always cuts taxes in exchange for dismantling public services) to encourage, in their view, home purchases. In return, Vox is demanding the "recovery" (a recovery that stems directly from the Franco regime) of Balearic place names in Spanish. The PP bows its head, as always, and acquiesces to Vox's demands. Writing the place names of the Balearic Islands in Castilian Spanish is not only an aberration from a philological point of view: it is a humiliation, a sign of... right of conquest This is how Vox people think they should treat the people of Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, and Formentera. Just like the Catalans, by the way, and the Valencians. If anyone understands the existence of the Catalan Countries, it's the Spanish ultranationalists. To destroy them, naturally.

The feeling (the evidence) is that the Balearic PP has completely surrendered its will to Vox (we don't write 'to the far right of Vox' because the PP also finds itself in this far right, through its submission to the dictates of Abascal's party). It's somewhat embarrassing that a party like the PP, with such a long history as a governing force and as a leading force on the Mallorcan right, finds itself so hopelessly helpless before a group of ignorant and primitive individuals like those who represent Vox in the Balearic Parliament, but that's the situation. When Vox asks the PP to take a leap of faith, the only response from Prohens, Sagreras, Costa, and company is: "How high do you want us to leap?"

Now it's place names, just as last week it was the Democratic Memory Law, and in other votes it's been Catalan in public healthcare, the public school model, the number of Catalan books in Palma's public libraries, or laws protecting the territory. Vox's demands on the People's Party (PP) of Mallorca are always ideological and identity-based, rooted in three hatreds: hatred of everything public, hatred of Mallorcans, and hatred of the Catalan language. These are three ancient, deep-rooted, furious, and rabid hatreds. Vox's political program for the people of Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, and Formentera is to make them Spanish, that is, indistinguishable from the citizens of any other Spanish autonomous community. To achieve this, it is essential to eradicate the Catalan language, an obsession of Spanish nationalism with centuries of history. As for the destruction of public services, it comes standard in the ideological package of the so-called new right.

Vox simply wants to wipe us off the map, and Prohens and the PP are letting them get away with it without putting up the slightest resistance. Their job is to carry out orders from Madrid and try to line their own pockets with easy money. Given the current parliamentary balance of power, they have no qualms about selling out the citizens of these islands to people who hate us with all their might.