The complex love and hate relationship between Catalonia and Madrid has existed for centuries. Madrid represents Spanish language, Castilian culture, central goverment, old-fashioned magistrates, congress, business, and any type of regulation or central control. Madrid is in the exact geographic center of Spain (kilometer 0) from which all distances are measured. In short, for a Catalan nationalist, it's everything that holds Catalonia back and keeps it in check. Madrid is that lead weight that keeps Catalonia and the Catalan people from excelling. The parent with that strong hand! Of course, as with any type of nationalism, their ideas are debatable and completely subjective. Outside Catalonia, Catalans (the nationalists) are seen as cry babies, marginalized victims of nothing, knit pickers, people who say "no" when everyone else says "yes" and viceversa... all just to create chaos whenever and wherever possible, and of course, to be different. Now, truth be told, and I have thought about this for quite a long time, both sides are right. Madrid is insensitive and Catalonia/ Barcelona is often a bit senseless.
The twentieth century was not kind to Catalans. Two brutal dictators (with a civil war between them) targeted the catalans as subversive and worked hard to break their will and destroy their language and culture. For example, two anecdotes... the famous architect, Antoni Gaudi, was arrested and jailed for speaking Catalan in public and if children spoke Catalan in school they were told they were "barking like dogs" and punished. No way to overstate this people's suffering up until 1975, when democracy returned to Spain after a long absence. A legacy remains though: immigration was encouraged from other regions (nowadays countries worldwide)and ethnic Catalans became a minority in the cities. For example, 55% of Barcelona's population do not have Catalan origins. Needless to say, it's as common to dance flamenco as sardanas, eat tortilla as butifarra, and more conversations are in Castilian Spanish than Catalan.
Democracy brought back autonomy, a renaissance in Catalan culture and language occurred. Who hasn't heard of the artistic marvels in Catalonia! Similarly there is a thriving theater, literature, and music scene. Catalonia slowly but surely has won more and more autonomy from Madrid, especially during the 4 term reign of the legendary Catalan nationalist Jordi Pujol. As the legend says, give an inch take a mile, give an inch take another mile. The policy of favoring Catalan also intensified. The regional government justified imposing Catalan in the following way: Simple bilingualism favors Castilian as people feel they can choose freely one language and completely ignore the other. In the long run, Catalan cannot compete with a world language like Spanish and would have a slow bitter death due to bilingualism. Moreover, Catalan is only spoken in Catalonia, so if it's not favored there, where will it be? Therefore, Catalan has become the de-facto sole official language of Catalonia (even though officially the constitution stipulates it is co-official with Castilian Spanish). All schooling, street signs, government deliberations and publications, public services, tv, radio, etc. are in Catalan. There are language policemen enforcing this policy and issue fines against businesses and individuals who do not use Catalan. The push toward Catalan has caught the attention of other Spanish regions and political parties, reporters, and some celebraties or writers who have denounced the Catalan language policy as discriminatory against other peoples in Spain. Also such a large autonomy in general is seen as a long-term threat to Spanish unity.
Well, today the Supreme Court in Madrid has bitten back and imposed limits to the regional government. It took them four long years to debate the Catalan statute, point by point, and they finally came to an agreement to what extent they should change it and/or sanction it. So, they corrected the Catalan statute ruling that "Catalan is the normal but definitely not preferential language of Catalonia". What does that mean and how will that change the language policy? I'd like to know! Likewise, the court stated 15 times that Spain was indivisible. Also that the symbols of Catalonia (flag, emblem, song) do not have anything but symbolic meaning. Moreover, Catalonia cannot be considered a nation but just a group of people living in Spain like Castilians, Andalusians, Aragonese etc. The judicial system will also be controlled directly from Madrid. All in all 14 articles of their statute were changed or abolished.
Look for the catalan nationalists to be in an uproar! They already felt they had compromised too much and that their autonomy was not large enough. Now, technically things should change, but I am not sure how???
Just one last observation if by chance someone is reading this post, ignorant of the Catalan situation. Una última observación si la persona que lee este post ignora la situación del catalán (Spanish). Una última obervació si la persona que llegeix aquest post ignora la situació del català (Catalan). They are sister languages and any native speaker of one can learn the other easily perhaps in just a year of intense, albeit sincere study. So, on the one had, the Canada or Belgium situation is not comparable as it is possible to pick up Catalan quickly. On the other, the difference is what justifies their otherness, their nationalism, and the self-determination.
More on this when I visit Barcelona in August
Rontay
Update January 2011: Spanish courts have just interpreted the Supreme Court's ruling as meaning Catalan and Castilian should be 50%-50%, that should mean the Catalan immersion in schools and language fines should come to an end.
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