On Tuesday night, Marc Giró started his Late show from La 1 with his usual monologue. He began by highlighting the news about the vote in the Valencian Community allowing families to choose which language their children want to be educated in, Spanish or Valencian. The presenter warned that this was a strategy to eliminate Valencian from the classroom. He then pointed out that it was all a result of the animosity many people feel toward the Catalan language and Catalans in general. Giró then began a plea in favor of Catalan and against all those who believe that speaking it is useless: "Catalan is useful for so many things. It's useful for everything you set your mind to. It's useful for everything, everything, everything... Catalan is useful for arguing, for loving, for healing. It's good in Catalan! Catalan is useful for fucking.. He then went on to list everything you can ask for in Catalan: a mortgage, a job, alms, or mercy. Even independence. Or not ask for it and do it in Catalan. And to demonstrate the functionality of Catalan, he showed that it can be used to welcome its Late showAnd so he did.
It was an unusual moment on Spanish public television because on the state channel, despite being public, there is no vindication of Spain's multilingual reality and its co-official languages. In fact, this circumstance is as if it doesn't exist. It's a topic that's barely discussed. While in bilingual autonomous communities, linguistic conflict is always part of the news, and initiatives and campaigns defending the territory's own languages are constant, in the rest of the country this reality is not perceived; it's a circumstance that doesn't interest them. And if it is discussed, it's perceived as a minor and burdensome issue, precisely because it's considered unnecessary.
Making that same speech on TV3 would be pointless because it's preaching to the convinced, and we already know all this. But on TVE, Marc Giró's staunch defense of Catalan is an act of justice, unprecedented and resonating forcefully. It even takes on an epic dimension. It provokes the shock of touching on a taboo subject, one we know causes discomfort in many people. Therefore, all these sensations indirectly reveal the painful linguistic reality of Spain and the proof of Catalanophobia. Fifty years after the end of Franco's dictatorship, asserting an obvious fact like the usefulness of Catalan and the right of citizens to learn it is almost a heroic act that elicits cheers and hallelujahs from its speakers. Very well said, Marc Giró. And thank you for reminding everyone that things are still this bad.
