A bad urban guard

The Barcelona City Council has done what it had to do by suspending the City Guard officer who, when a person asked him to speak to them in Catalan, replied: “It is very fascist to force people to speak in a language they don't want to.” And he even added: “In the exercise of freedom, we speak as we wish. Just like you, who speaks as you wish and nobody tells you in which language you have to speak.” And he finished off with an authoritarian “Agreed?”

The officer, apart from being rude and, therefore, a bad police officer, constructed arguments to suit himself. A city guard is subject to obligations, and his was to speak to the person in Catalan if they requested it. Precisely a police officer is the first person who should know that the exercise of freedom means the exercise of rules, and among the rules he had to follow was that of conducting the first verbal interaction in Catalan.

For the officer, the fascist was the citizen. Pure Orwell. It was fascism that forced us to speak in Spanish and, even today, agents of the National Police or the Civil Guard can humiliate you and even fine you if you dare to address them in Catalan. 

The most intolerable thing is that this is happening 50 years after the start of the official normalization of Catalan. It is pertinent to ask what kind of education regarding linguistic uses those who aspire to wear a uniform and carry a weapon in Catalonia, and those who are assigned to Catalonia, receive when they graduate from the police academy. How can it be that asking someone to speak in Catalan in Catalonia “is very fascist”? And the same goes for all civil servants.

The city guard in question carried out a textbook “we are in Spain” [remark]. Because when you know that you have the father Spanish State behind you, you feel very brave. And just wait and see how they will feel if Vox ends up governing Spain hand in hand with the PP.