Originally published in Spanish. » Infantilismo, victimismo…nacionalismo». Teodoro León Gross. El Pais. Few days ago, amid the flow of big shocking headlines about the Catalan process, a delicious episode appeared: Jordi Sánchez, the ANC leader, requested to be moved to another prison cell-block because an inmate shouted “Long Live Spain!” to him. The anecdote, elevated […]
Categoría: Voices From Spain
Anglo-condescendance
Publié à l’origine en espagnol: “Anglocondescendencia” Ignacio Torreblanca. El País C’est un très long mot pour lequel je m’excuse. Mais il est nécessaire pour définir l’insupportable sentiment de supériorité anglo-saxonne qu’on subit depuis le 1r octobre. Les pauvres Espagnols, qu’ils voulaient si bien. Notre culture, notre guerre d’Espagne, nos taureaux, le flamenco et les paellas […]
Guilty Credulity
Originally published in Spanish. «Credulidad culpable» Manuel Cruz. El Pais. As it is usually said in these cases, “the images travelled around the world”. Reuters’ images that did so in the last weeks were that of the people gathered the October 10th in the Lluís Companys promenade, in front of the Ciudadela park in Barcelona, […]
Anglocondiscendenza
Originale: “Anglocondescendencia ”. Ignacio Torreblanca. El País. Ci dispiace di averli delusi. Ma magari il fatto è che siamo cresciuti e siamo stanchi di lezioni. Un parolone per il quale chiedo scusa. Ma è necessario per definire quell’insoffribile sentimento di superiorità anglosassone che sopportiamo dall’1 di Ottobre. Poveri spagnoli, eppure loro ci volevano così bene. […]
Catalogna: l’assalto al linguaggio
Originale: “Cataluña: el asalto al lenguaje”. Manuel Arias Maldonado. Revista de Libros. È ben noto che, soltanto due anni dopo la sconfitta del nazismo, il filologo tedesco Viktor Klemperer ha pubblicato un libro di formidabile importanza –dal titolo LTI. Notizbuch eines Philologen– che documentava, a partire dagli appunti presi quotidianamente dall’autore a partire dall’arrivo di Hitler […]
Possible Back Then
Originally published in Spanish: «Cataluña: lo posible anterior (I)». Manuel Arias. Revista de Libros. In an entry in his diary, dated on April, 1966, Ricardo Piglia says, by mouth of his alter-ego Emilio Renzi, that he would like sometimes to “go back to certain times in my life, and live them with the awareness I […]
Dr. 155 and Mr. UDI
Originally published in Spanish. Manuel Jabois. El Pais. On Thursday October 26th, in Barcelona, Carles Puigdemont didn’t abort the declaration of Independence of Catalonia because he didn’t receive from the government guarantees that justice would respect his demands. Twice he wanted to announce elections and renounce his promise of following “the mandate of the Catalan […]
The End of the Catalan Process
Originally published in Spanish: “El final del procés”. Ricardo Dudda. Letras Libres. On 27th of October, the pro-independence parties in the Catalan Parliament, with the opposition absent and without the approval of the parliamentary attorneys, through a secret vote and a ballot box, tricking not only the Spanish constitution but also the Catalan Statute of […]
Nation-Building in the School
Originally published in Spanish: “Hacer nación en la escuela”. Mariano Fernández Enguita. El País. It is vox populi, but it is not even mentioned. If to the shameless manipulation by secessionism you add the faculty’s hypersensitivity, the reaction will be explosive, but this is how it is. The Catalan school system has been exploited. The […]
The Melancholic Withdrawal
Originally published in Spanish: “La retirada melancólica”. Ricardo Dudda. The Objective. It is hard to be optimistic about the Catalan pro-independence movement issue. The Catalan process can last forever because it is a rhetoric, euphemistic, phenomenon; a series of stagings. But its effects on the Catalan society are both real and perceived. While societies are […]