1. Resentments. The latest displays of the Spanish right brought the language debate back into the spotlight. They revealed that Hispanic nationalism has been abandoning the signs of prudence and restraint it had shown when it constantly sought the support of CiU and the PNV, which had become key to political alternation in Spain. And so it was that recognition was given to Catalan and Basque, and to the other languages of the Iberian plural framework. Resistance was evident, but even Aznar took significant steps under President Pujol toward the normalization of Catalan. And although for Spanish nationalism, Castilian was the language of everyone and the others were extravagances that challenged the national framework, the territorial presence of linguistic diversity was accepted, even if it was against the grain.
Since 2017, this has changed, and for a significant portion of Spanish culture, peripheral languages are once again a threat. Why now? Why move from tolerance? de factoDespite the pain felt by those who see differential languages as a threat to the homeland, are we once again pointing to them as a danger? Beyond the resentment generated by the independence challenge and the frustration over the meager demonstration in Madrid, which has ended up paving the way for confrontation within the PP itself, there are also other reasons that explain the turmoil of recent days. It's time to raise the tone: now Catalan is no longer just a nuisance, but a virus that threatens the Spanish homeland.
There's a lot of noise, a lot of arrogance, in all of this, the result of a very specific dynamic in current politics. Due to circumstances specific to the Spanish case, but also to the general framework, in which nationalisms are signs of the times. Let's start with the first point, the most prosaic. Sánchez is trying to capitalize on the post-trial process, taking advantage of the climate of relative relaxation following moments of high tension—from repression to frustration—by seeking complicity and avoiding confrontations. And by validating the recognition of Catalan, and consequently other peripheral languages—Catalan conquests always have these compensatory effects—it assumes normalcy. But the PP needs the war to aspire to return to power, and it turns the national language into an instrument of resistance.
2. Animals that write. It's clear that language is a key factor in our condition as humans, animals with spoken and written language. Languages socialize and distinguish us, and it's undeniable that they shape culture, a community's way of being in the world. That's why language and nation have been so often associated. They define our horizons: the word with which we communicate, which gives meaning to shared referential elements. It's well understood that linguistic diversity is an essential trait of humanity, and that it makes less and less sense, in a globalized world, to aspire to a nation with a single language. But precisely the recognition of linguistic plurality, undeniable in an open society, is not incompatible with the recognition of what history has shaped as its own language. And, in fact, the slow construction of linguistic diversity has been a singularity of the Spanish transition.
Let's return to the more prosaic. If the linguistic conflict is now returning, and it does so with rather nuanced expressions that present multilingualism as a monster with many faces, it is because the Spanish political system is changing, and the alternation is no longer played in the center as beforeAnd on the right, the influence of the far right is decisive. The maneuvers against Catalan respond to this spirit: one language, illiberal despotism. The question is not only about the question of how to create a place for linguistic plurality in societies with an increasingly open verbal composition. Without renouncing the referential role of one's own language: the link between speech and the state of mind of a country.
