Three language policies

At a time when no territory in the Països Catalans has a sovereignist government, or at least one with sovereignist participation, what is the outlook for their respective language policies?

The Valencian Country is suffering the bloodiest situation. The Valencian People's Party (PP) has always been the most blatantly pro-Spanish and frantically anti-Valencian, and all it needed was Vox's excuse—oh, pacts are binding, you know—to decisively launch the language-killing policy it had always wanted to perpetrate. The offensive is total: regulatory changes to eliminate any requirement for Valencian, permanent aggression against the Valencian Academy of Language, closure of the language rights office so that Valencians cannot even protest, and an educational policy planned to eliminate Valencian from the classrooms. Here, they suffered a major setback with the failed referendum on language choice in schools, when Valencian society gave a harrowing testimony to show that the country exists and endures. But the war against the language continues on land, sea, and air, because the silent Valencian government of Mazón only thinks about how it can do more harm. Of course, in this tragic period, any cultural exchange initiative with the Balearic Islands and Catalonia has been buried. The Letras Compartidas program survives (for now) because in the Valencian Community it is managed by the Valencian Academy of Language, but the Palma Declaration is now nothing more than the beautiful memory of an unborn child. Fortunately, once again, Valencian civil society persists in defending its rights, which, thanks to pressure from organizations, reversed the ban on Catalan-language magazines implemented by several PP-Vox municipal governments. This, along with the education referendum, shows us that we must never give up and always work hard, because the future is difficult, but unwritten.

The Balearic Islands present a more complex situation. The inauguration of the Prohens government, again using the argument of pacts with Vox as a starting point, showed clear hostility toward the timid advances in language normalization that had been made during the previous period, starting with the liquidation of the General Directorate of Linguistic Policy, the elimination of any reference to the defense of linguistic rights, and the Valencian Pilot Plan. The situation has been met by Balearic society with healthy contempt. We also suffered enough from Vox's wet dream of creating an office for the defense of Spanish, but here Prohens has scored a point every time, in exchange for other concessions, he has managed to get Vox not to withdraw support if he did not create such an office. Meanwhile, the Institute of Balearic Studies maintains its structure, staff, and programs, and continues to do more or less the same thing it did under the previous government. And, to be fair and honest, we must acknowledge that the current managers of the IEB are more diligent and dynamic than those who governed the entity during Francina Armengol's second term. With this balancing act, Prohens manages to guarantee peace with the cultural sectors that benefit from IEB support. In the island councils, the strategy is similar to that of the IEB, although Menorca's is led by the leader of the most grotesque Gonellism. Regarding external projection and relations with other territories, relations with the Valencian Community are nonexistent, as we have already explained, while, in contrast, some avenues of collaboration are maintained with Catalan public entities dedicated to the language. Without enthusiasm, but without hostility. The Balearic PP pursues a semblance of normality, trying to avoid linguistic conflicts, while doing nothing, or even acting contrary to the law, to guarantee the linguistic rights of Catalan speakers.

I've gone on too long and can't devote the space I'd like to analyzing the policy of the Generalitat and the entire Catalan public ecosystem supporting language and culture. The Isla government launched with two highly visible initiatives: elevating the General Directorate of Language Policy to the level of a regional ministry (the opposite of the Balearic Islands) and, later this year, presenting the National Pact for Language. Nothing is wrong; the narrative is positive and the music is pleasant. And this precisely reveals the strategy: working positively for Catalan, but avoiding any minefields and the slightest confrontation.

In this, and this is where I wanted to get to, there is a dark parallel between the Isla and Prohens governments. Although their motivations are antithetical, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands agree on avoiding addressing linguistic rights, which is the backbone of a language policy with minimal capacity to address the linguistic emergency. Without guaranteeing linguistic rights, which means confronting those who violate them, it is impossible to reverse the inequality that Spanish laws and judges only reinforce. Some because they don't believe it and others because they fear it. The port of arrival is the same: we do kind little things, with greater or lesser conviction, as life already has other, more important problems. And whoever remains silent one day, pushes forward the next year.