The PP, father and protector of the Catalan language

The Correllengua Agermanat was an undeniable success, a new demonstration of the appreciation of the people of the Balearic Islands for their language and culture, and of the defense –energetic, festive, unrenounceable– that Mallorcan society, especially (and this is more than important, it is decisive) young people, carries out. The Plaza de España in Palma was packed to the brim, just as the Plaza Mayor was two years ago, with thousands of people who shouted a civic, inclusive, hopeful, and, above all, massive ‘Yes to the language’.So massive that the very next day the Government spokesperson, Sebastià Sagreras, with his particular oratory, was struggling to avoid being completely left behind. After congratulating the organizers of the Correllengua Agermanat (there were reasons to do so, even more so after the institutions governed by them had turned their backs on them), he said: “The PP of the Balearic Islands is the father and protector of the Linguistic Normalization Law”, Sagreras stated improperly, because the Linguistic Normalization Law was approved with a PP government, yes (they wouldn't do it today), but in no way can it claim a paternity that was much broader, nor a protection that, over these forty years, civil society has too often had to provide. And he added, in Peixet, referring to this same law: “Throughout the entire legislature we have defended it, supported it, and marked it as a red line in all negotiations, despite the left's intentions to use our language to confront us with the citizenry”.This is what Sagreras said on Monday. The following day, Tuesday, in the Parliament, the PP supported a series of amendments by Vox to the law on strategic projects, the sieve law. The approved amendments eliminate the Catalan requirement for teachers and professors from outside who occupy “difficult to fill” positions, without any obligation or subsequent deadline to prove knowledge of the language. They also exempted “temporary” students, who reside for a limited time in the Balearic Islands, from the Catalan subject. In other words: for the umpteenth time, an attack against the own language of the Balearic Islands (and also of the PP leaders, such as Sagreras himself, or Prohens, or Vera) perpetrated by the Government. An attack, incidentally, which constitutes a serious violation of the Linguistic Normalization Law, and also of the Statute. The PP does this to please the obsessions and hatreds of its Vox partners. Among the measures, it was also approved that local police officers can carry taser guns, and pigeon shooting was legalized: weapons, and killing animals, are things that the right also tends to like very much.Proclaiming oneself one day as the father and protector of the Linguistic Normalization Law, and the next day getting rid of it without any qualms in the company of fascism and Spanish ultranationalism, is no longer just cynicism: it is a strange dysfunction that indicates an extremely weak government, without leaders capable of negotiating anything, without principles and without dignity, completely surrendered to the far-right and with no other course than to exhaust the legislature with the strategic project of giving the green light to all the speculators who happen to come by. There is something curious about Sagreras's little speech about the PP's paternity and protection of the Linguistic Normalization Law, and that is that he says they have defended it “during the entire legislature”, and they have barely (not yet) been in office for two years. It is known that it feels long to him: imagine the rest of us.