In school, democracy is at stake

The ongoing teachers' strikes in Catalonia and the Valencian Country are significant events, in the sense that they go beyond their professional dimension (which is also fundamental and, of course, entirely respectable) and bring to public discussion issues that affect us all. Issues such as what kind of society we want to have, and also how we want this society to be governed, and according to what values and with what idea of the future. Of course, they also point to what future we want, as citizens of the Catalan Countries, for our language and culture, and for our viability as a cultural community in the world of technofascisms. Universal public education up to the age of sixteen, and in Catalan, are recent achievements that have brought great progress to a society that largely defines itself as democratic. Not only that, but – in Catalonia, in the Valencian Country, and in the Balearic Islands – this society has had as its central nerve the awareness of being a democracy that is still fragile in many aspects (the weight of a Civil War, a fascist military dictatorship, and a democracy born with all sorts of subservience to the previous regime is heavy) and, in response to this fragility, the will to deepen, precisely, in democracy. This means in the knowledge, defense, and respect for the rights and freedoms of citizens. To advance in this democratic deepening, public education in Catalan has played a fundamental role. Today it has more than ever, because the will to live in democracy is seriously questioned for the first time. That is why it is a serious error, or a too dark bad faith, for elected rulers to present teachers and professors as enemies (as the PP and Vox do in the Valencian Country) or as an extremist group that makes unreasonable demands (as the socialist government does in Catalonia). Trying to reduce or caricature their demands as a simple matter of so much money per month or year, besides being disrespectful, is to distort the content of protests that reflect a long-standing discontent and in which all governments —regional and state— that have existed until now have a share of responsibility. To underestimate teachers or to try to get by with an agreement with large but minority unions within the sector, or — much worse still — infiltrating police into assemblies and then offering half-hearted apologies, are gestures between disrespect and authoritarianism.

The Catalan strike lasts seventeen days until the end of the school year, three of which are a general education strike. The Valencian strike is indefinite. These are protests that show a very high level of commitment from those who call and maintain them. We expect at least an equivalent level of commitment from the rulers who must respond. What is at stake is not just working conditions, it is our future as a democratic Catalan-speaking society.