Category Archives: Spain

Those horrid Catalans

Catalonia, Language, Politics, Spain, ,

Whenever the topic of Catalan devolution is argued about, at least one person will draw attention to the ‘fact’ that Catalans are rude and horrible people. The argument, though it has absolutely no bearing on the topic of devolution, is fallacious, and is employed as a tactic to make the debate about the conduct of Catalans rather than the fact of their desire for further devolution from Spain.

The classic form of this argument is: “Why should I have to speak in Catalan when I know they speak Spanish?“. This is generally asked by foreign visitors to Barcelona who have allegedly undergone awful treatment at the hands of vicious Catalan waiters, shop-keepers and officials all intent on making their lives a misery.

My first response to the question is that it’s just good manners to make an effort to connect with people when you come to their country. If I have dinner at a house where they say grace before eating, I don’t just sit on the sofa with the TV on waiting for them to finish. I’ll go along with it, bow my head and say Amen with the rest of them. Similarly, in Catalonia, I’ll make an effort to say just a few words in Catalan: of course people here speak Spanish, but a lot of them speak English too and would we really expect them to deal with us only in the language most convenient to ourselves? This smacks of a huge double-standard. Is it really the Catalans who are obstructing communication? Or is it the people who refuse to make any effort whatsoever to use the local language?

My second argument is much simpler: this never happens anyway. Catalans do not refuse to speak in Spanish to people. This is a lie which is bandied about by people who’ve had some sort of bad experience here. How can I make this claim, I hear you ask? Simple: I’ve lived here for four years. In this time, I’ve visited numerous (hundreds) of bars, restaurants, night clubs, shops, bakeries, offices of the state and businesses. From Cadaques to the Ebre, from Vic and Lleida to Sort and Tarragona, I’ve travelled all around this country and not once have I experienced this alleged rudeness. I’ve probably had contact with thousands of Catalans and not a single one has ever treated me in this way.

Indeed, my experiences suggest that the true situation is the opposite of what the original question suggests: I have found that if I’m talking with a Catalan and trying to get by in Catalan, they will invariably switch to Spanish or English to make things easier for me. This can be very frustrating when you’re trying to learn Catalan, but it’s done out of courtesy and kindness rather than any malicious intent.

Why is it then that my experiences with Catalans and language seem so totally contradictory to those of the complainers? I can only assume that the extent of this rudeness and bad behaviour is grossly exagerrated by people who have a fixed anti-Catalan agenda.

Reial Madrid

Catalonia, Politics, Spain, , , , , , , , ,

I’ve just read an interesting article in Sapiens, the molt Catalanista history and current affairs magazine, about how the football club Real Madrid was in fact founded by two Catalan brothers. Carles and Joan Padrós i Rubió were born in Barcelona, but moved to Madrid to pursue their business interests. On the 18th of April 1902, the two brothers put the finishing touches on the statutes of a new sports association: the ‘Madrid Foot Ball Club’.

For those who are unaware of the animosity between Madrid supporters and Catalans over the last sixty or so years, Real Madrid is deeply unpopular here in Catalonia. Seen as an emblem of everything that is bad about Spain, Madrid fans (or merengues as they are disrespectively termed) are thin on the ground in this most avowedly un-Spanish corner of the country. Real Madrid was the favourite team of fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, and – sometimes in openly unsportsmanly ways – had the best of domestic and foreign players and league success under the dictatorship.

For these reasons, the fact that Real Madrid was actually created and managed by two Catalan brothers will come as a shock. It certainly seemed to shock many Real Madrid officials, both during and after the years of the Genaralissimo’s patronage. On the death of Carles Padrós i Rubió in 1950, no mintue’s silence was held at the club’s ground. No one connected with the modern club attended its founder’s funeral. Similarly, during the club’s centenary celebrations five or six years ago, the families of Carles and Joan weren’t contacted to play any part – or even watch – the club’s triumphal spectaculars.

The fact that Real Madrid’s fans, a small number of whom are openly neo-Nazi and anti-Catalan, are left in the dark about their beloved club’s origins is an interesting reminder of how politics and football have been intertwined in Spain’s modern history. There’s no reason that Madrid supporters should choose to like Catalans any more simply because their club was founded by two. But perhaps it would give them food for thought enough to realise that they owe a lot to their polako cousins.

Interestingly, the Sapiens article ends with another snippet of information. Atletico Madrid, arguably the bearers of a far greater hatred of Catalonia and FC Barcelona, was founded by Basques. But that’s another can of worms, best saved for another day.

briefly… a stupid man

Rants, Spain

Another target for the rotten egg list, if ever there was one, is Jorge Valí­n. This guy, writing in the happily far-right-wing Spain Herald (whose John Aust I have grown to like, to a fashion) considers a poll result which has 75% of French youths expressing a desire to work in the civil service.

This 75 percent naively believes that employment is the same as wealth and production, but a job where you don’t do anything (and this is the aim of civil servants) adds no value to the community.

Well, Jorge, tell that to my future parents-in-law, who work hard at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Tell it to my father, who rose to a high rank in the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy. Tell it to the millions of people in Spain, Catalonia, the UK and rest of Europe who work hard every day in the service of their country. It doesn’t matter whether you come from a background which disapproves of a large civil service: you can’t dismiss a major sector of civil society as workshy scroungers.

If the quality of journalism has sunk so low at Libertad Digital, perhaps they ought to consider a witch-hunt for scroungers in their own offices. There must be thousands of readers out there thinking: “Write reactionary bullshit for a living? I could do that!”.

Christmas in Foreign Lands

Catalonia, Spain, UK, , , , , , ,

“Instead of the placid ox and ass of Bethlehem, we have for companions the ravening tiger and exotic camel, the furtive jackal and the ponderous elephant” (Evelyn Waugh, A Handful Of Dust)

Christmas in a foreign country is always slightly absurd. Traditions, food, the correct time for opening gifts – everything is turned on its head so thoroughly, you could almost believe that Christmas isn’t an English festival.

But Christmas is English, just like Hallowe’en and Guy Fawke’s day. What could be more English than roasted meat, boiled vegetables, gravy, silly hats and dodgy jokes? As Orwell wrote, “Yes, there is something distinctive and recognizable in English civilization. It is a culture as individual as that of Spain. It is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes. It has a flavour of its own“.

This passage always reminds me of Modbury, Devon and home. Old fashioned? Yes. Stereotyped? Absolutely. But like it or not, that is a major part of the England I grew up in – a place which still has a feeling of continuity which I only rarely sense in Barcelona. If we travel to some of the more remote country towns here in Catalonia, I sometimes get a whiff of that continuity. Cerdanyola, however, has no redeeming features – especially not at this English time of year.

It seems to me that the reason Christmas seems so quintissentially English to me is that most of the ‘classic’ images of Christmas (except for those odd nativity scenes) are themselves quintissentially English. The snowy village with Victorian streetlamps, the frosty roofs and windows misted up, glowing with warmth against the bitter winter, holly and mistletoe, fights in the pub – all images typical of England. Well, my England anyway. And that’s the problem. When you grew up in a town so staid, traditional and olde-worlde picturesque like Modbury, Christmas actually is exactly like an old fashioned Christmas card to the tune of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’. And Christmas in Tarragona isn’t.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining about the opportunity to spend Christmas with Gemma’s family in the family town. I enjoy that. All I’m trying to do is explain how whatever they do, however much fun we have, however many fights they have in the local cerveceria, Christmas for me is English and old fashioned. I’m all for change but I’m really looking forward to next year.


Bon Nadal!


 [This post was edited and updated on December 15th 2010]