When we think there's nothing we can do about Catalan

We're ending the week with gasoline prices climbing and the war escalating. To give you an idea, the US Treasury Department has announced it will temporarily authorize countries to buy Russian oil from tankers in transit.Iran's new supreme leader, son of the previous one, says the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed While Netanyahu remains silent and bombs, Trump speaks to continue occupying the center of the stage alone and says things like the increase in fuel prices is bringing many benefits to American companies.

While, We are waiting for the Spanish government to approve specific tax measures.Especially for farmers and road transport, who have been particularly hard hit by rising fuel prices. They considered reverting to the system used during the pandemic, when the state paid 20 cents per liter of gasoline. That was heavily criticized because it essentially subsidized fuel for millions of tourists and commuters who didn't pay their taxes here.

This is the harsh reality in which we are moving and which conditions everything.

But today, as we finish the week, I would like to refer to a piece of news that we haven't covered here, which is that according to the survey carried out by the Barcelona City Council, The use of Catalan is plummeting among young people in the country's capital.Only 18% of citizens between the ages of 15 and 34 primarily speak Catalan in their lives. Ten years ago it was 38%, meaning that Catalan among young people in Barcelona has fallen by twenty percentage points in ten years.

The demographic makeup largely explains these figures. 43% of young people in Barcelona have lived there for less than five years, and 55% of young people have both parents of foreign origin. Catalan is never the predominant language among foreigners, who tend to prefer Spanish and a combination of it with other languages.

Of the many threads we could pull from this data, we'll choose one: figures like these can fuel pessimism about the future of Catalan. I say they can, because, as the late, great Carme Junyent used to say, this is one of the few historical opportunities for many people to learn Catalan.

But the thread I'm pulling is this: any pessimistic news about the use of Catalan can end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is, if all Catalan speakers internalize that there's nothing left to do with Catalan, then, yes, of course, there will be nothing left to do. We have structural elements working against it. Others in its favor: education in Catalan, the vitality of a creative language in all areas, and, above all, it has us. I'm the first to say that as long as Spanish is compulsory and Catalan is voluntary, we're playing the game with one hand tied behind our backs, especially with this demographic shift. But it's up to us to use Catalan whenever possible. How many times have we seen a waitress or shop assistant who we think wasn't born here and started talking to her in Spanish? If we start the conversation in Spanish, we're the first ones saying there's no point. We don't throw in the towel so quickly, partly because many young people here were raised here and understand and speak it. We must fight for what we believe is important, out of respect for those who passed the language on to us, out of respect for ourselves, and out of respect for future generations. And because the causes we fight for make us feel alive.

Good morning.