Òscar Andreu: "If you're a Spanish speaker and don't understand Catalan, you may have a cognitive problem."

BarcelonaÒscar Andreu Fernández (Terrassa, 1975) said when he was young that in 2000 he would be 25 years old and it seemed impossible to him that in 2025 he would be 50. Well, this moment has arrived and Òscar has a partner, two children (one five years old and the other one and a half years old), two stable and successful jobs (The competition, in Rac1, and It is passing, on TV3) and a monologue (Flashy colored ocells), which is the linguistic autobiography of a boy who until the age of 18 only spoke Catalan with his mother, who at 40 becomes aware of the unjust situation the language is experiencing in Catalonia and now denounces it on stage or in this very conversation.

Do you remember the headline of your last interview in ARA, in 2023, with Àlex Gutiérrez?

— Yes! "I've been more Spanish than the balls of an Osborne bull."

Do you come with the same eloquence today?

— After the Osborne Bull's eggs, there's nothing left. Bigas Luna had a certain fixation, to the point that in the film Ham, ham There's that sequence where I think it's the character played by Jordi Mollà who is fed up—never better said—with his partner cheating on him, climbs onto the Osborne bull's balls, starts poking them, and rips them out. Which, since it's Bigas Luna, I see as a metaphor for being fed up with Iberia.

The last interview I did in this section is with Justo Molinero, one of the characters you imitate in The competitionHe said that there are many Radio Tele Taxi listeners who don't speak Catalan because we Catalan speakers are too polite. Do you agree?

— Wow, this is interesting. It's not a question of politeness, but of having bought into the idea that speaking Catalan is rude. And, of course, the person on the other end eventually picks up on it. What we have are decades, centuries, of repression, which end up making us Catalan speakers behave in a very specific way when we speak our language in our own country.

Lately, regarding the Catalan language, have you lost your sense of humor and replaced it with activism?

— I've practiced alchemy: I've tried to be an activist, but without losing my sense of humor. Fun sociolinguistics. I'm here to inaugurate this branch of humor. These are two concepts that, in principle, can't work. It's like pie, hmm... with vegetables... Pam! I haven't lost my irony; what I've lost is the ability to bury my head in the sand. And the education Justo Molinero was referring to, which isn't education, but learned fear, I've lost that too. I'm tired of not standing up to you, of backing down.

Is political humor a form of warfare or a form of non-warfare?

— I think it's a way of engaging in politics, of taking a stand, and it's also a way of finding a place to breathe. It's holding up a mirror to a situation, sometimes a distorted mirror, like those at Tibidabo. For me, humor is activism.

You have an Andalusian father and grandparents, and I have eight Catalan surnames. Who is the most special of the two?

— If you'll allow me, I think you do. We're the majority in this country. More than 70% of Catalans have one, two, three, or four grandparents from abroad. We're hegemonic. You, who have so many Catalan surnames, are a minority and, therefore, must be respected. Dr. Anna Cabré has studied how we Catalans reproduce and has come to some interesting conclusions. The first is that 50% came from what would be normal reproduction, the flower and the bee that fuck, and the other 50%, from signing abroad. marketMessi, Shakira, my grandparents—people who come here, like the place, end up having children, somehow come to understand what this country is, with its own language, institutions, and history, and they end up making it their own. This is the way of making Catalans for the last 200 years. Now many people are wondering if this Catalan-making machine, which has worked so well, might be breaking down, if it's cracking.

And why would it break?

— Well, there comes a time when the machine just can't keep going. There's a point of demographic pressure, our own pressure, that we can't reproduce, which is happening all over the world. I don't know if this machine, which has yielded such good results, which has also meant we haven't disappeared as a people, I don't know if it will last forever or if we'll wipe out this little goose that lays the golden eggs.

You're reproducing; you've had two children. Will there be a third, as Jordi Pujol hoped for?

— I'm from a new generation, and you know that when you have more than three people, things at home can get out of hand, and Pujol knows that. We need to finish talking this over with the other half of the couple, who ultimately holds the key to everything.

You are in a brilliant moment: radio, TV, monologue Flashy colored ocells, which is like your linguistic biography... Are you in that phase of "let's work, let's work, the world is ending?"

— No, I have ideas for more work. I have to keep my feet on the ground. The brain is a very tricky thing. You might want to do a lot of things, but I don't want to wake up one day and think I've left nothing behind, that everything around me is a wasteland. I also like having children and dedicating myself to my family. I force myself to do everything, and I've also reached a point where I do the work in a very direct way, right from the start.

Lately we have seen in Catalonia the resurrection of the term charnego. Because?

— The charnego thing is a very tedious one that comes up from time to time. It's one of the debates we have to avoid the big debate, which is self-determination. Until that happens, we question who we are, what we are like, and we have many doubts. This is very much an occupied country. There are many people who take the charnego label because they don't dare say they're Spanish, and therefore, you say you're a charnego, and it distances you from a position. If you feel special in Catalonia because you're a charnego, perhaps you are special, but not in the sense you think you are.

Complete the sentence: "Lately, Catalonia..."

— Catalonia hasn't been doing well lately. I don't know. Catalonia should stop going backwards. This whole backsliding thing worries me a lot.

What does it mean to go backwards?

— Saying you're going to do something and then not doing it, saying you're going to create a state and then negotiating the working day in Spain. I'm referring to the pro-independence parties. You had the people motivated, you had immense political capital, and it turns out you've burned through it in ten years. There's a kind of need to return to the old glories of autonomism: we'll hold the Olympic Games, but winter ones; we'll hold the F1 on Passeig de Gràcia, we'll hold the F1 of the sea, and 300 million people will come. People aren't up to that, I think.

Can you tell me about the last adventure you had as a Catalan speaker in the capital of Catalonia?

— I get in a taxi and tell the driver I'm going to Tarradellas with Francesc Macià. He turns around and gives me his phone, with Google Maps open, so I can enter the address. It's like going to the bakery to order a roscón (roscón cake), and he makes you go into the bakery to whip the cream yourself. I explained how to get there, and at the end he says: [with an Arabic accent] "You speak Catalan all the time, what town are you from?"Soc d'un poble molt petit, molt petit, molt petit, which is on the edge of the mountains, at the end of a valley, which is diu Terrassa"Oh, I knew you were from the village." Being a Catalan speaker in Catalonia is a drug. It provides brutal, psychotropic experiences, you don't pay for it, and it doesn't leave a hangover. Maintaining Catalan is the best drug.

Do you never speak Spanish, not even to someone who doesn't understand Catalan?

— There are no people who don't understand Catalan. If you understand Spanish, you understand Catalan. These closely related languages—Portuguese, Italian, but especially Spanish and Catalan—have been studied by linguists. If you're a Spanish speaker and don't understand Catalan, you probably have a cognitive problem.

Let's go to Barça's last defeat. I heard one of your characters from The competition, Mohamed Jordi, saying that we had it to play, but that we don't want to have it to play, but to play it.

— Of course, it's that "crumbs no longer feed us, we want the whole loaf." This pride thing. Everything is in a minor key. "We lost like always, we played like never before." These are the things of a very small town and a very heated town. No, no, let's win and that's it. And above all, let's not give any more explanations.

But you can't always win.

— No, but it's good from time to time. We don't have to play the whole "we didn't win..." epic. We didn't win? Well, we didn't win.

Lamine Yamal says he lost his fear in a park in Mataró. Would you dare to say that too? Where did you lose your fear?

— It's all very well, but fears come and wear many different masks. There are things that no longer scare me, but that used to scare me: defending an idea, opening up a conflict. I'm afraid of not seeing my children at the age I am now. This scares me, but it's a fear I can bear.

Tell me about an illusion you have had lately.

— Watching my children grow up, seeing my country's self-determination, seeing the Catalan national team reach and win the World Cup final. These are dreams, but I think if you give me some leeway, I'll see it happen, and so will you.

Yeah?

— We're living in a time when everything is very disruptive, and things can happen that we can't even imagine. I was walking down Meridiana, seeing Esteladas hanging from the balcony... If you'd mentioned that to me, I'd think you'd gone crazy. Going with some friends, most of whom speak Spanish, to Plaça Sant Jaume to wait for the Spanish flag to be lowered wasn't expected to happen, and it almost did. It's close, it's close... All that's left is for us to touch it, and that's it.

When was the last time you thought you were the leader of a group, The North Pole Municipal Band?

— I think about it from time to time, yes. I relate it to a few years of intense life, of sex, drugs, and indie rock. Of going out a lot, of a certain lack of responsibility, but that's part of a person's development.

Is this impossible for you to get back now?

— Yes, yes, among other things because I'm already sleepy at 10:30 now. And a person who's into rock & roll goes out at 10:30 to see what's going on today.

For people who have never heard you sing, tell me a song by the North Pole Municipal Band.

— Dancing badly, one of the last we recorded. She talks about Europe like an old lady, somewhere between disco and prog.

Did you sing in Spanish?

— Yes, yes, I sang in Spanish, I spoke a lot in Spanish. Until you realize it, you're on a journey.

Wouldn't you sing in Spanish now?

— Not now. Now I'd make up for all the time I haven't dedicated to my country's language.

One of the phrases you hear lately about Catalan is that it has become associated with the independence movement and needs to become more likeable again.

— Something happens with the issue of friendliness: when it comes to demanding other rights, some people on the left don't ask for it. When it came to demanding the eight-hour day of La Canadenca, they didn't ask the workers to be friendly; when it came to demanding women's right to vote, no one asked the suffragettes to be friendly. Why do they ask us to be friendly about something that is a human right, something that is a linguistic right?

The last words are yours, finish as you wish.

— I think going against the identity of a people is going against that people's sovereignty. Going against the self-determination of Catalonia is going against the Catalans and the future of the Catalans. As a way to end the argument, that's fine, isn't it?