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    <title><![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - Sebastià Portell]]></title>
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    <description><![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - Sebastià Portell]]></description>
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    <ttl>10</ttl>
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      <title><![CDATA[Many little houses make a hell]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/many-little-houses-make-hell_129_5757655.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p><img src="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/d0006e4b-1b87-4690-ae3f-fd202f47f0f2_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.png" /></p><p>One of the most recurring images in the discourse of the Popular Party during the campaign for the last regional elections and the first part of this legislature was that of the 'little house' or 'plot of land' that many islanders supposedly inherit 'from their grandparents' and that they should be able to renovate, build on, and exploit as they wished. The idea was very simple, and surely consensual among the vast majority of society in favor of the most basic defense of private property: almost everything belongs to someone, and the very fact of this belonging gives that someone the right to do with it as they please, as long as it does not harm others or the general interest. Thus, according to the arguments defended by the PP, everyone should be able to do as they please with that 'little garden' inherited from their aunt in Son Sardina or that 'shack' that, if fixed up, could become a perfect container for the umpteenth proposal for holiday rentals. What happens, however, when these 'little houses', 'shacks', and 'little gardens' come to occupy a large part of the rural land of the Islands? What should we do when so many promises of paradise, together, end up destroying it beyond remedy?Just take the car or the bicycle and go for a drive through any urban center in the Balearic Islands to see how not only the centers themselves, but their surroundings, have been substantially transformed in the last three or four years. Where there used to be vacant lots between party walls, in towns and cities, there are now houses that imitate (only imitate!) traditional construction and offer courtyards with luxurious swimming pools, walls lined with marès stone and dry stone walls, and shutters decorated in the most fashionable pastel colors. And the same happens in the countryside: where there was a vegetable garden, in the best of cases, or practically abandoned land, a villa has now appeared, like a mushroom, now a house that distorts the architectural and nouveau riche style of Beverly Hills, now a swimming pool from which one can almost (or without the almost) see the neighbor's swimming pool.A house with a pool in the middle of the meadow is a privilege and a luxury reserved for very few people; especially for those who can afford it, often with foreign capital. On the other hand, a small house from which one sees another small house, where the noise of the gardener of another small house arrives, who hears the construction work, all summer long, of another small house… It can become a hell. Who will want to buy or rent houses in the Balearic Islands when idyllic homes supposedly in the middle of nature are the only landscape left to see? Who will want to come when natural resources have been depleted? How far must we go for owners (without even appealing to their eventual ecological conscience) to see that, if the trend does not change, their own businesses will go down the drain in five years, ten years, twenty, at most? Many small houses together are no longer many small houses: they are a little hell. And it's not that it's time to set limits, it's that we are already very late.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
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      <pubDate><![CDATA[Thu, 04 Jun 2026 05:30:27 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <media:title><![CDATA[download   2026 05 29T102629.792]]></media:title>
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      <title><![CDATA[Catalan grows (where we didn't think so)]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/catalan-grows-where-we-didn-t-think_129_5743752.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>Fortunately, not all news is bad regarding the language: a few days ago, a report prepared by Accent Obert (formerly Fundació puntCAT) and La Fera based on data from the portal <em>Llista.cat, </em>which collects the names, fields, and activity of the main content creators in Catalan, revealed that the consumption of content in our language in 2025 increased by 71.7% compared to the previous year, with 2,759 views.This is the first time that data can be compared with an older reference, as it is the second edition of the study based on the activity of influencers on Instagram, YouTube and Tiktok, and it has also been known that the volume of publications has grown by around 31%. In one year! This can mean several things: on the one hand, that content creation is growing and advancing steadily, and on the other, that it has an even greater public response than this increase. Surely, initiatives such as the scholarships from the Department of Linguistic Policy of the Generalitat de Catalunya have a lot to do with this increase, or L’Aferrada, the meeting space for content creators from the Catalan Countries that the Obra Cultural Balear has been organizing for two years. Finally, it seems that the digital ecosystem in Catalan is starting to gain momentum, and the best of all: people are responding, they are there.Regarding platforms, while TikTok is the one growing the most (with a 57% increase in posts) and YouTube shows signs of fatigue, Instagram is the one leading the ranking for both posts (55%) and views (with 69%). Without leaving this network, the names of island influencers and content creators that come to mind no longer fit in one hand: there is @parlars_mallorquins, where Joan Moñino speaks about language, traditions, and identity; there is @co.torrita, a regular collaborator of Moñino and recently received a special mention, along with him, at the Isabel Coll awards from JSIB; there is @suau_morro and their profile for the dissemination of history and traditions with a marked self-centered tone; @herboloco, a space dedicated to botany, ethnobotany, and rural culture; @entrefonesineurones, with content on history, art, and science from the Balearic Islands; the always interesting and lively @juliameridac and her day-to-day life, between books, music, flowers, and outfits; the conversational podcast @anamfent.podcast, with Neus Gil and Aina Segura… And I could mention many more.Finally, we can say, as has been happening for some time in fields such as literature and surely music, that Catalan is growing and conquering new spaces. And it is, in this case, in a strategic area for generational transmission and for social use among young people, such as platforms and social networks. The content is there, it's improving, it's growing. The creators and influencers are there. Now, all that's left is for people to pay them the attention they deserve and give them our support. It's simple: follow them, comment on them, recommend them, find out more about them…</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/catalan-grows-where-we-didn-t-think_129_5743752.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Thu, 21 May 2026 05:33:12 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[Air sovereignty]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/air-sovereignty_129_5729495.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>A friend from the Principality who has a great pull towards the Islands once told me that being Mallorcan basically meant three things: suffering, going to pick up people at the airport, and being told more often than you'd like that “you would know her if you saw her”.I believe the first idea explains itself, and it goes far beyond dialectal particularism: one only needs to look at the situation the Islands are going through in areas such as housing, environmental destruction, and the social use of language to understand that we fully meet this requirement. The other, the one that says "if you saw it, you would know it," is perhaps just as annoying, but sooner or later it comes true: the thing about telling someone from Catalonia or the Valencian Country where you are from and them saying "oh, yes, I have a friend from Mallorca, maybe you know each other," and after denying it, realizing that yes, indeed, you know that Xisca from Sencelles or Sineu. Or someone from your own town or neighborhood, whom you might not know by name, but by appearance.And the airport? That was the idea that impressed me the most, because it went beyond the traditional everydayness suggested by the other two (“a way of being”, as the very wise and pacifying current Government would say) and captured an experience that is certainly true, but which has not been so for so many years.After the tourist <em>boom</em> of the sixties, the natural, economic, and social appearance of the Islands has changed from top to bottom, and airports, those non-places that are not places because they precisely take us to other places, have played a key role. For decades, hotel companies and airlines have enriched themselves by dividing the cake as they pleased, and the same has been done by Aena, the company responsible for their management. A company, yes. A commercial society that is public, but that does not always respond to everyone's interests. Who decides how many flights can pass through an airport each day? Who decides where the money is invested? Where do the profits of the busiest airports in the State go, among which those in the Catalan Countries (Barcelona, Palma, Valencia, Ibiza…) win by a landslide?It seems that with this spirit of oversight and reinforcement of public service, from the minimal sovereignties recognized by the 2007 Statute, Parliament has just approved an organic law proposal for the co-management of the Archipelago's airports, at the proposal of Ara MÉS. An initiative that should allow the Government of the Balearic Islands to decide on the flight cap, master plans, and the load capacity of these facilities, and which will add the voice of the councils and town councils in decision-making.The proposal has moved forward and now begins its path to Congress. Will it have as much luck as the recognition of its own senator for Formentera, despite the complications in its processing, or will it be like the other twenty times Parliament has spoken in favor of the issue? Time, and above all, the consistency of each party, will tell us. Sovereignty, aerial in this case, was also that.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/air-sovereignty_129_5729495.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Thu, 07 May 2026 05:31:50 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[They will be the young]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/they-will-be-the-young_129_5715968.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>Fifteen, perhaps? Twenty, at most? I haven't had a minimally documented and well-founded political consciousness for that many years, but I can't recall any time when the country's spirits have been so low. I lived through the eruption of social movements on Twitter, including the indignados; I participated as much as I could and more in the spectacular response of island society to the linguistic extermination attempts by the Government of José Ramón Bauzá; I witnessed, as a distant observer, the orange joy of the Valencian spring, and not many years ago I beat with the Catalan autumn and the self-determination referendum, the anti-repressive movement afterwards... And now? Where are we now, that the citizens of the Catalan Countries seem to be so discouraged?Everything indicates that the country is experiencing a moment of hangover from what we could have been or achieved and that could not be. And I'm not just referring to the independence of the Principality, which would have been a magnificent first step towards the constitution of a federal republic among the different Catalan Countries, but also to the progressive ideas proposed by the governments of the Valencian Country and the Balearic Islands which, whether due to a lack of consensus among the forces that composed them, or due to a lack of courage and decisiveness in moving forward, were not consolidated. The social use of the language seems to be at an all-time low, political debate is eaten away from top to bottom by hatred and resentment, and suddenly, in Mallorca and the Principality, two new supposedly self-centered forces (in Valencia, Vox is already in charge...) have begun to defend right and wrong the same exclusionary discourses of the global far-right.Something, however, tells me that there is hope, and that this time hope will come from one of the groups most judged and doubted throughout all time: those who will save the language (that is to say, the country) will be the young people. After the generation of heroes who in the seventies and eighties fought to establish our own laws and institutions that we still preserve today, and the subsequent wave of the '<em>baby boomers'</em>, who with all due love I say, thought they had paid for everything and now see that they haven't, a new batch of young people with drive has erupted throughout the territory. Initiatives like Acampallengua, not many days ago in Manacor, or the Correllengua Agermanat, which youth organizations from all over the linguistic domain have launched thanks to the spur and meeting point that has been the New Congress of Catalan Culture, make me think so. Or Sant Jordi per la Llengua, with demonstrations in different cities of the Principality, organized in large part, also, by organizations and unions led by youth.Yes: perhaps they, them, and him will be. They will do it from self-esteem and love for diversity, online or in assembly or in rounds of folk dance, and the others will not always understand them. The important thing, however, is that there is a generation that does not intend to give up, and with that, often, it is enough to start again.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/they-will-be-the-young_129_5715968.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Thu, 23 Apr 2026 05:31:34 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[Vox: fleas bite]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/vox-fleas-bite_129_5701943.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>It should not surprise anyone that the party that has accumulated the most internal crises in the Balearic Islands since the beginning of the legislature (between splits, cross-accusations, and dissenting votes) is now going through its own ordeal at the state level. Let it be known that I do not use this Easter and Christian expression for nothing: what Vox is experiencing these weeks is the explosion of an escalation that its democratic tradition (sic) has precipitated since they began to torpedo the Spanish party map. Who could have imagined that a force so open to reflection, so fond of complexities, so enamored of individual liberties and dialogue would end up sinking on all fronts? Who would have said that the party of bracelets with the flag of the Empire and the '<em>fachalecos</em>' (perhaps in Catalan we could call them 'fatxapits'...) would end up having serious internal problems due to a lack of debate and consensus?The electoral results in the recent elections in Aragón, Castilla y León, and Extremadura might suggest that the party is in top form, but its internal reality is very different. While the respective regional formations struggle to influence or enter these governments, it seems that numerous militants and founders of the far-right party would be trying to force an extraordinary congress to put an end to Santiago Abascal's leadership (that gentleman who for decades has denounced the vices of the political caste without ever having worked at anything else, yes, the man with chest hair who skipped military service), while, in parallel, the Justice system is investigating two high-ranking party officials accused of revealing secrets.In the Islands, meanwhile, the PSIB a few days ago made yet another attempt to remove Gabriel Le Senne from the position of President of the Parliament, a position he has not been worthy of since the PP granted it to him. They accused him, in fact, of being like his party: contrary to the plurality and neutrality that should mark the exercise of this position and, ultimately, complicit in extending and legitimizing the discourses and values that allow homophobic aggressions like the one suffered a few days ago by a teacher at the IES Baltasar Porcel in Andratx (an aggression that the Parliament has condemned in its entirety, without the vote of Vox). The PP, however, preferred to ignore the socialists' offer and keep in office the one who tore up the portrait of Aurora Picornell, a woman imprisoned, tortured, and murdered by the supporters of a dictatorship that neither the PP nor Vox have ever condemned.A few years ago, following a personal disappointment, a good friend told me that sometimes some people are also fleas, and fleas, as you know... Fleas bite. Thus, it is no surprise that the party that has sown discord and intolerance, those who have stirred up political debate even before having representation in any parliament, are now drinking their own medicine and attacking each other. If it weren't for the pathetic nature of it, it would even be a pleasure to watch.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/vox-fleas-bite_129_5701943.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Thu, 09 Apr 2026 05:31:43 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[Mesquidian Letters Honorary Award]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/mesquidian-letters-honorary-award_129_5684651.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p><img src="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/a82b99ad-8e2e-41da-a477-39602ed1b0f9_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg" /></p><p>"Will I be able to say your name, disheveled boy, now that you have been awarded the Catalan Letters of Honor prize?"</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/mesquidian-letters-honorary-award_129_5684651.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Fri, 20 Mar 2026 17:10:41 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <media:content url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/a82b99ad-8e2e-41da-a477-39602ed1b0f9_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg" type="image/jpeg"/>
      <media:title><![CDATA[Biel Mezquida, Writer]]></media:title>
      <media:thumbnail url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/a82b99ad-8e2e-41da-a477-39602ed1b0f9_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg"/>
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      <title><![CDATA[Sleep in our house]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/sleep-in-our-house_129_5675730.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>It is healthy and necessary, but it can also be traumatic or complicated: there comes a time in life when the term 'ca nostra' begins to feel uncertain.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/sleep-in-our-house_129_5675730.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Thu, 12 Mar 2026 06:30:15 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[It's the cyclists' fault]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/it-s-the-cyclists-fault_129_5659737.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>"It's all the Jews' and the cyclists' fault." This slogan, coined by Joseph Goebbels, propaganda minister of the Third Reich, is still studied today in communication and political science departments as a clear example of a false dichotomy. It is said that Goebbels presented the idea to Hitler in the midst of the frenzy of anti-Semitic targeting and persecution, and that Hitler responded with what many of you might have thought, given the context: "And why the cyclists?"</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/it-s-the-cyclists-fault_129_5659737.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Thu, 26 Feb 2026 06:30:38 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[A new moment for sovereignty]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/new-moment-for-sovereignty_129_5645985.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>Good news is also coming from the Valencian Community. A few days ago, an internal Compromís poll was published, confirming a trend already emerging in other stateless nations of the Iberian Peninsula: pro-independence parties could be the alternative to the PP and Vox governments. The fact that the poll shows a four-way tie between Compromís (25-26 seats), Vox (25-26), the PSPV (24-25), and the PP (24-25) undoubtedly reflects a significant tectonic shift. On the one hand, there's the reaction of Valencian society to Mazón's disastrous handling of the torrential rains. On the other, there's the lack of leadership in the PSPV, which is too preoccupied with "preventing further glories for Spain" from within the ministerial sphere. Can this map help us envision a new horizon for the Balearic Islands?</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/new-moment-for-sovereignty_129_5645985.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Thu, 12 Feb 2026 06:30:27 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[United States of Europe]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/united-states-of-europe_129_5631939.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>It's not a new idea, but today it makes more sense than ever: has the time come for a United States of Europe? In a context of constant geopolitical friction, with the United States unleashed in its neocolonial offensive, a militarily weak Russia yet ready to undermine all the non-aggression pacts established at the end of the Cold War, and a China that is quietly growing and expanding both within and beyond its borders, the global context is complex, and I can think of few solutions more surprisingly feasible and appropriate today than this one.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/united-states-of-europe_129_5631939.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Thu, 29 Jan 2026 06:45:35 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[Crosses and cracks]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/crosses-and-cracks_129_5629831.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>We live in times of crux and fissures in life and geopolitics. The Greenland episode—and Venezuela—reminds us just how uncertain everything is and how easily it can change at any moment. In parallel, these days in our own country we have also seen how infrastructure only truly 'exists' when it fails—especially due to the (far) right. The Adamuz train accident has left more than forty dead, with high-speed rail traffic disrupted and an entire country in a state of shock.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/crosses-and-cracks_129_5629831.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Tue, 27 Jan 2026 06:45:58 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[Sensitive matter]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/sensitive-matter_129_5618312.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>"Without knowing exactly how, you end up with a house overflowing with water": that's how it begins <em>The magnet and things</em>The unclassifiable first book by artist, teacher, and philologist Mateu Coll (Pollença, 1962). Not surprisingly, objects and the idea of collecting (or accumulating) are some of the central themes of the volume, which explores the relationship we have with the things we own or want. "You go after them, the searches, the objects," says Coll. "I've bought and collected like crazy, as if the world were ending, an ark in the middle of a flood, a pair and more of every kind." And so he draws us into a discourse that oscillates between a highly personal memoir and an essay, between deeply personal thought and almost poetic prose.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/sensitive-matter_129_5618312.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Thu, 15 Jan 2026 06:30:54 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[Aloud]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/aloud_129_5605039.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>What space are we willing to reserve for the voices of others? In a world moving toward individualism, where people listen to each other less and less, spoken or felt words can be a balm against isolation and a lack of empathy, a way to step outside of oneself. I was thinking about this the other day, after attending the complete reading of the <em>Same as the shooting genre</em>, by Miquel Àngel Adrover Perelló, in the Vella de Calonge church, organized by the poet, narrator, playwright and conspirator Joan Tomàs Martínez Grimalt and by the poet and cultural dealer Pau Vadell y Vallbona.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/aloud_129_5605039.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Mon, 29 Dec 2025 18:30:31 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[Anti-politics]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/anti-politics_129_5594282.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>Almost halfway through this legislative term, it seems the Balearic Islands have become, as has already happened with regions like the Valencian Community, Andalusia, Extremadura, and Murcia, a testing ground for the anti-politics that is looming at the national level. Or, in other words: the reality that arises when a liberal or conservative party, with a democratic bent like the PP claims, comes to need the votes of anti-establishment and far-right parties, with populist and anti-constitutional rhetoric, such as Vox. Few institutions are spared, and the Balearic Islands Government, the Council of Mallorca, and the Palma City Council serve as unfortunate examples of this.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/anti-politics_129_5594282.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Tue, 16 Dec 2025 18:30:43 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[Mallorca in transition]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/mallorca-in-transition_129_5579834.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>Sometimes there are books that are ahead of their time, or that, without being ahead of their time, capture the spirit of an entire era. They can even help us imagine future, or better, ones. This is the feeling I had with this novel. <em>Monument</em>, by Alba Noguera (Palma, 1997), winner of the VIII Antoni Vidal Ferrando Prize and published by the Calongí label Adia Edicions.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/mallorca-in-transition_129_5579834.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Mon, 01 Dec 2025 18:30:10 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[]]></subtitle>
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    <item>
      <title><![CDATA[Mystic without a soul]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/mystic-without-soul_129_5566009.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>It has been the best debut in history for a Spanish-speaking artist, with over forty-two million streams on Spotify worldwide. Mainstream critics praised her, audiences soared with every interview she gave, and even the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, congratulated her for being "the third most listened-to artist" globally for a few days. But what makes the success of Rosalía's new album so remarkable is... <em>Lux </em>(Sony Music Entertainment), is it also paradoxically, and in a more qualitative, artistic, profound sense, a failure?</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/mystic-without-soul_129_5566009.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Tue, 18 Nov 2025 18:30:33 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[]]></subtitle>
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    <item>
      <title><![CDATA[New men, women of the same old]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/new-men-women-of-the-same-old_129_5550076.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>Perhaps one of the defining features of the 21st-century human experience is the discomfort many people feel (or we feel) in relation to our bodies and the anxieties that arise in the realm of identity. It is the "sufficiency of having a name, / the filth of having skin, / the filth of a womb struggling / with all the children they will not have," as Maria Sevilla says to <em>Pulp teeth</em>, and which rests on centuries of virtually unquestioned cisheteropatriarchal system, extremely rigid gender norms and a paradigm that has only just begun to change in decades.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/new-men-women-of-the-same-old_129_5550076.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Mon, 03 Nov 2025 18:30:36 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[]]></subtitle>
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      <title><![CDATA[Television insularity]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/television-insularity_129_5536460.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>It's easy to say, but it's no small feat: this year marks forty years that TV3 has been available to view from Mallorca. It all began in 1985, thanks to the Voltor Association, promoted by the Balearic Cultural Work (OBA), and the "We want TV in our language: TV3 now!" campaign, which received contributions from more than 1,000 citizens to purchase land in Alfàbia and install a repeater. Later, other networks arrived, such as Canal 33, the now-defunct Valencian Canal 9 and Punt 2, and the stations Catalunya Ràdio, Catalunya Informació, and Catalunya Música. And in 2005, naturally, IB3 was born, which has seen better and worse times in terms of language normalization and the representation of our society. But what remains of all this today? With all the apparent progress, do we have the audiovisual ecosystem we deserve?</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/television-insularity_129_5536460.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Tue, 21 Oct 2025 17:30:46 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[]]></subtitle>
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    <item>
      <title><![CDATA[Galicia, Euskal Herria, Catalan Countries]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/galicia-euskal-herria-catalan-countries_129_5520092.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>What was the last book you read originally written in Basque or Galician? How many authors would you name currently writing from Galicia or the Basque Country? And direct translators between these languages? If it's clear we have a few things in common, though not all of them good, why don't we have more spaces for exchange between the three cultural systems?</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/galicia-euskal-herria-catalan-countries_129_5520092.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Mon, 06 Oct 2025 17:30:25 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[]]></subtitle>
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      <title><![CDATA[Who takes care of the classics?]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/who-takes-care-of-the-classics_129_5506669.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>We spoke a few days ago with the writer Sebastià Alzamora and the editor and poet Jordi Cornudella, at the presentation of the new edition of <em>Béarn or the doll room</em>Surely, the maturity of a culture can also be measured by the care it takes for its heritage authors. Reading, rereading, and revisiting the ideas and creative universes of the writers who have come before us is a very good way to remind ourselves of where we come from and, above all, where we can gain momentum to move forward. This new edition of <em>Béarn </em>In Edicions 62, which recovers the definitive revision by Josep A. Grimalt and includes four readings by Alzamora, Carlota Gurt, Carme Riera, and myself, must be very similar to the way in which ordinary countries should relate to their artistic heritage: from a contemporary perspective, with historical and philological rigor. Yes! <em>Béarn </em>Return to the bookstores because, as Jaume Fuster said, every book we haven't read is something new.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sebastià Portell]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/who-takes-care-of-the-classics_129_5506669.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Tue, 23 Sep 2025 17:15:57 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[]]></subtitle>
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