On March 1st, 2012, Jaume Bonet began a hunger strike in Majorca to defend our language; as of March 18th, his fast has lasted already eighteen days. The Spanish nationalist
party PP arrived to the Balearic government under the pretext of the economic
crisis, but it has not carried out any of the measures of economic recovery for the islands. In fact, the situation is worsening, and PP takes advantage of it to rule the islands with a renewed offensive against the Catalan language. According to Bonet, their intention would be to make Catalan disappear or, at least, make it as peripheral as possible. Some of the recent actions by PP in this respect are:
- The creation of the Spanish version of Palma’s
literary prize, which has always been a Catalan price (there are many
more literary prizes for Spanish than there are for Catalan).
- Cutting out the small help of 300.000€ for publications in the Balearic Islands' own language.
- The substitution of Catalan toponyms such as Maó or Palma with versions in Spanish using Franco’s dictatorship nomenclature.
- Starting the process for the suppression of the Health Service decree by which users have the right to be attended in the language of their choice.
- Proposal of derogation of the decree stating that 50% of
the education has to be in Catalan.
- The last blow, the hardest one, has been the cancellation of
the requirement to know Catalan for autonomic government workers. It is not
required for state civil or military servants.
As the hunger
striker says, he is not the one who is radical but rather "the attack of the government to
exterminate the language is
radical." In consequence, Jaume Bonet has begun a protest that requires
the maximum support. Today in the Balearic Islands, the future
of our language is being decided: to return to the Spanish fascist past, or to survive.
Spaniards have always killed others to impose their own language. South America is a clear example.
Catalans are determined to die in order to defend our own.
Congratulations on your site.
Please be careful with the use of English though. When you say "substitute A for B" you mean that you "replace B by A", that is, stop using B and start using A. I think you mean the exact opposite. This is a tricky one as I believe in Latin languages it goes the other way.