10.07.2019
Is it relevant to report on the health of Catalan language? It is, because Catalonia is a bilingual society that has been able to recover a language that was not used in institutions or studied in schools and that was at risk of disappearing. What is the way to do it? Surely there are many answers, but one of them is not creating an identity link between language and Catalan and even less visualizing that Spanish, the mother tongue of more than half of the population, is a threat.
It is not because just one of the missions of TV3 is to contribute to the normalization of Catalan in all citizens, those who have it as their first language and those who don’t. And this is not the way to get it. Also because the mission of the public media is to reflect the diversity of society and to value the richness that represents that several languages are spoken. The Book of Style which should guide the performance of TV3 says so.
If we review the documentaries and in-depth reports that TV3 has broadcast in recent years, we can see the imbalance that exists in the attention devoted to all those issues related to the procés in contrast to other urgent and transcendental problems. For example, the effects of the cuts that have caused serious deficits in basic services such as health, education and dependency. A few days ago the Idescat noted that the poverty data has broken the record of the last 15 years standing at 21.3% of the population. The most affected groups are the elderly, immigrants and women. How do live these people who do not have access to the minimum level of what is considered a decent life? We do not know this from our public media, which have not deepened in this issue as they do with others.
On the occasion of the event ‘Cims per la llibertat’, our public media made an informative display that involved several TV3 teams following the ascent of groups of people to four mountains, live connections and the rental of drones to have aerial images. However, the day when primary care physicians were concentrated in the doors of the Parliament with moments of great tension, they had not even displaced a mobile unit despite the fact that the demonstration was announced several days before. Examples like this we see every week. No resources are spared for any activity linked to the proces, but the social emergency reported by the Third Sector does not deserve more attention. Neither are the problems of inequality, such as the macho violence that is a growing concern as a result of group rapes, or attacks on the LGTBI collective. In all these years we have not seen a single in-depth report on what the proces has represented for that part of the population which is not in favor of independence despite the fact that the CAC has asked TV3 to do so to balance the many reports that have been issued in the opposite direction.
Raising the situation of Catalan in the terms done by Llenguaferits, stigmatizing Castilian, ignoring the wealth that represents for Catalan society to have two languages, is not the way to preserve it and make it a well-loved one by all Catalans, however the mother tongue they might have. Perhaps if we stopped referring to Catalan as our own only language -as if the others were not our own or foreign- it would be a first step to change the mental framework of the debate and guarantee the good health of Catalan.
https://cronicaglobal.elespanol.com/pensamiento/hablar-tostadora-catalan_259944_102.html
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