Linguistic immersion: 15 years of consensus and 24 of politicization of Catalan

When asked when the political consensus around Catalan and the educational system of language immersion, the answer is that this Thursday marks the 24th anniversary of that moment. On January 7, 1998, the language policy law that still governs today in Catalonia. The Parliament had approved it a week earlier by 102 votes in favor, 25 against and one abstention. Although the norm had the support of 75% of the deputies, the vote meant the breaking of the unanimity with which in the same chamber, but in a very different political and social context, the first major regulation had been enlightened 15 years ago of the use of Catalan: the linguistic normalization law.

The contrast between one context and another is well exemplified by the change in the word ‘standardization‘for that of’politics‘between the first norm and its successor. ‘No deputy said’ no ‘to the Catalan law’ could be read on the front page of EL PERIÓDICO on April 7, 1983, along with a photo of the deputies standing and under this main headline: ‘I beat the Armada in the judgment before the Supreme ‘. In a Spain that was still judging the 23-F, the Parliament endorsed with the affirmative vote of all the parties and a single abstention the law that cemented the language immersion in the classrooms.

An unaffiliated deputy, Joan Besa, formerly of the CDS, prevented unanimity despite acknowledging that he was in agreement with the majority of articles, but not with the explanatory statement, which he called “revanchista”. In said preamble, “the prohibitions and the chases unleashed against the Catalan language and culture as of 1939. “A draft that today would cause hives in some right-wing parties, but which at that time was not an obstacle for the deputies of the CDS, from Centrists (Catalan brand of UCD) and Popular Alliance endorse the text.

Loans of all parties

The parliamentary debate showed that all the groups had renounced part of their proposals in pursuit of consensus. That is why the ERC deputy Marçal Casanovas He considered it a “minimum law” that fell “short”, but he “accepted” it because the rest of the parties had also made concessions. And that is why the historic PSC deputy Marta Mata, which played a key role in forging the immersion model, praised the standard despite not accepting an amendment to ensure that students were not “separated into classrooms for linguistic reasons.”

The educational chapter took center stage in the plenary session thanks to an eloquent anecdote presented by the PSUC deputy Teresa Eulàlia Calzada: a school in Vallès had responded to parents who wanted to enroll your daughter in Catalan that enrollment was not possible because there was no course of her level that was taught in that language, unless they were satisfied that the girl was educated in Spanish. “This letter has to be unrepeatable,” concluded Calzada.

General discomfort

Unrepeatable was also that consensus of 1983, forged after two and a half years of negotiations in the first legislature after the restoration of the Generalitat. 15 years later, with Jordi Pujol still of ‘president’ but now on the arm of the PP to govern, the Parliament gave birth to a language policy law who rejected, for diametrically opposite reasons, the PP of Alejo Vidal-Quadras and the ERC of Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira. The ‘yes’ block was made up of the CiU, the PSC, the Initiative Rafael Ribó and the Independence Party of Angel Columbus.

The debate made clear the discomfort experienced during the 10 months of preparation of the text and a bittersweet feeling for the outcome, even among those who supported a norm that can be considered the origin the linguistic politicization. The PP sold inside and outside of Catalonia that the law would end the “coexistence“because it would prosecute merchants who did not label only in Catalan with fines; ERC diagnosed the”death in installments“of the tongue and accused Initiative of”linguistic Thatcherism“for rejecting a stricter standard.

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Little was said about schools in that session held on the penultimate day of 1997. Perhaps it was because, despite the partisan arguments of both, the section dedicated to education suffered few variations from the first law to the second. Both texts made it clear that children “have the right to receive their first education in your usual language, whether this is Catalan or Spanish “, and that students” should not be separated in centers or in different groups by reason of their habitual language “. Something was qualified: the current norm establishes that the two languages ​​must have one”proper presence“in the study plans, while the 1983 law made it explicit that they should” be taught obligatorily“.

By the way, in the political give and take in which the current law was created, entities of both signs were already being heard and seen. The Babel Forum branded the PSC as “submission” to nationalism and Language Platform gave coal to the deputies at the gates of Parliament. Catalan had become a political weapon 15 years after the historic consensus. And Ciutadans and the ‘procés’ were still to come.