July 14th, the French national holiday, to commemorate the end of the Bourbon monarchy and the establishment of a republic driven by easily embraceable universal values, such as liberty, fraternity, and equality. It was only fitting that in "Casablanca," the "Marseillaise" competed against a Nazi anthem to become the anthem of freedom sung with pride and courage by a group of Free Frenchmen, in one of the most moving scenes in cinema history. It would all be very beautiful if it weren't for the fact that in the name of this fraternal republic, France has pursued languages like Catalan to the point of self-loathing and extinction.It is similar to what the Spanish state has done in Catalonia. What it has done, and what it continues to do:The Supreme Court has ruled that Spanish cannot be excluded from the signage of public educational centers in Catalonia. He says that “Castilian is the official language throughout Spain, which means it is a language that cannot be excluded from communications between public authorities and citizens".As Sebastià Alzamora titles his article today, “if you are Spanish, speak Spanish”, which is what my parents had to hear in their youth during the dictatorship. It's the same old song, when it suits us we are Spanish (especially when it comes to paying taxes that go away and don't serve the well-being of Catalans) and when it suits us (always) our language is not Spanish enough. We know all this by heart and, even so, meanwhile, President Illa went to Madrid yesterday and signed Catalonia's loyalty to the State. A loyalty that, as we see, is not reciprocal and that, by dint of repetition, led to the logical conclusion of half the country wanting independence in 2017. Loyalty is only possible from equality. And what exists between Spain and Catalonia or between Spanish and Catalan is a Catalan subordination to the supremacy of the State over the province. The rest are rhetorical sleight of hand that no one can believe anymore. Or kind, almost pleading, ways of telling the Spanish that the current government of the Generalitat will not organize any October 1st for them. 

In an event held in Montserrat, the winners of the 60th edition of the Crítica Serra d'Or awards were announced this Wednesday. Núria Perpinyà received the award for best novel with "El cos invisible"; Raül Garrigasait, the one for essay with "La roca i l'aire. Art i religió de Llull a Tàpies", and Sebastià Alzamora, the one for poetry with "Sala Augusta". And the award for best translation goes to Anna Casassas for the translation of "Germinal", by Émile Zola.

The great Catalan dialectologist Joan Veny (Campos, 1932), at 93 years old, continues to dedicate a few hours a day to the study of the etymology and dialectal variety of words. He seals his commitment to Catalan by going every week to his office at the Institut d'Estudis Catalans to continue working with the meticulousness and passion with which he created seminal works such as Catalan speech and theLinguistic Atlas of the Catalan DomainThe years have not diminished his enjoyment of language. Therefore, he says that due to his "professional deformation," he can't help but notice this aspect when he reads for pleasure, especially poetry and, much less, fiction. As for poetry, he immediately recommends the book by Sebastià Alzamora Augusta Hall (Proa), which "is a delight." Through two long poems, Alzamora speaks of collective and personal memory: "It speaks of the mother and of Franco's persecution," says Veny. "It's a poem that appears simple, but it reaches you deeply," he declares.

Augusta Hall, the first of the two poems – moving and shocking – contained in the new book of Sebastián Alzamora (Llucmajor, 1972), begins with a movie screen projecting the image of a ship moored in the port of Palma. The beam of light takes us on a journey back to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. The reader soon learns that this ship, the James I, was converted by the Falangists into a prison for a few weeks in 1936. The cinema where the film is shown had also been, during the war, "a prison for locking up the Reds", known as Can Mir, because it was owned by a Falangist family with that surname.