Published originally in Spanish. Ignacio Martín Blanco, Joan López Alegre. El País
Catalonia is facing onto the abyss of separation; the wind of rupture with the rest of Spain and EU —but above all, of discord between us, the Catalans—, is blowing. These days, Catalonia hurts to many of us. One question that almost everyone is asking now is: How we got up to here? The causes are diverse, but in Catalonia there are two structural factors that consistently favoured the creation of a mind frame of estrangement, if not hostility, toward the rest of Spain: the educative institutions and media public and financed by the Generalitat.
As usual commentators in Catalan media —representatives of what has been ominously called the “unionists’ quota”—, we have concluded that our presence in TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio debates is counterproductive, as it only serves them as an alibi to show an alleged plurality and strenghten the dominant theory. The official theory in Catalonia is that it is a natural, telluric nation, essentially a good one, that has been living for three centuries at least under unsustainable colonial oppression within an artificial, perfidious and deeply reactionary state —Spain— from where we need to escape. To that end, anything goes. They talk about Franco all the time in all kind of programmes. Through Catalunya Ràdio, the listeners were asked if they were willing to physically prevent Artur Mas to be tried. More recently, they were asked to report about Civil Guard movements in the days prior to the illegal referendum of the October 1st; the information was subsequently disclosed on air: An anti-Spanish agitprop brigade, and now an office of recruitment and delation as well.
When reality is restricted to a single topic —the secession—, and debates become monographic, the presence of just one commentator opposed to the debate’s theory —jointly defended by the other three or four commentators plus the moderator—, sometimes reinforced by some viewer’s opinion by phone, only serves to project the image of a minority position, even marginal, in Catalan society. In these circumstances, the dissenter, no matter how seasoned, eventually becomes a necessary collaborator, not to say the useful idiot, for the separatist project.
That deceitful, distorted plurality, is also present in TV3’s series, where —as the Wall Street Journal’s correspondent for Spain denounced at the time—, “only thugs and prostitutes speak Spanish”. If their true purpose were to reflect Catalonia’s linguistic plurality, at least half of characters in TV3’s series would have often to speak Spanish, and the alternative use of both languages at work, on the streets and at home should be something pretty natural. While in pro-separatism debates there is an underlying pretension that the “normal” thing to do is support independence, those TV series show an undisguised attempt to plant in the public imagination the idea that in Catalonia, the “normal” is to speak Catalan, and Spanish is for alienated and misfits.
Any commentator who does not accept the string of falsehoods upon which the mainstream position in Catalan media is sustained; who dares to voice it as many times he finds necessary, he or she will be invariably subjected to an exhausting search-and-destroy operation at the hands of their fellow commentators, tolerated and even encouraged by the moderator. It is sad to admit it, but coexistence in Catalonia, if we want it to be calm, today requires the resigned assumption by many non nationalist Catalans of the offensive nationalist decalogue, based on the contempt for Spain and Spaniards, but specially for all Catalans that feel Spanish.
It only takes a review of newspapers’ archives to realize that if the rest of Catalans, those who feel to a greater or lesser extent committed to the Spanish common project, showed the same contempt for them as they show for us, coexistence in Catalonia would be unsustainable. Hence that many (possibly most) Catalans have chosen not arguing with the Pilar Raholas or Joan B. Cullas on duty, not only in radio and TV debates, but also at dinners and gatherings with family and friends.
When a public media institution treats part of the citizens to whom has to deliver its programmes as bad Catalans, if not straightforwardly as anti-democratic fifth columnists, because they do not second the derogation of rule of law promoted by the regional government, we better denounce it and step aside.
With this article we want to announce our leaving from Catalan public media, as long as they do not assume their obligation of giving voice with respect and a minimum honesty to all Catalan citizens. We prefer to waive our emoluments than to keep suffering the emotional deterioration that results from the involvement in such circus of hate to Spain and the moral burden of thinking that our presence legitimatizes it.
