"I was expelled from the Spanish Parliament for speaking Catalan"

My name is Alfred Bosch, I am a Catalan and I am member of  Parliament at the Spanish Congress, representing a pro-independence coalition, headed by the Catalan Republican Left.

On April 11^th, our three representatives were expelled from the Spanish parliament. Why? Because we were speaking our native tongue, we were speaking in Catalan.

The President of the chamber had warned us that the rules of the Spanish Congress did not allow us to speak in Catalan. We argued that there are no such rules. And that is the truth: there is no rule in Spanish Congress which talks about Catalan, or Spanish or any other language. It simply does not exist.

Now, how can they expel us if that is not foreseen in the rules of the chamber? The problem is that, to this day, the people in power in Spain do not tolerate diversity. They will just not accept the reality that there are different languages and nations within Spain’s boundaries. And that's why, partly, we demand our own independent state. We want a Catalan Republic.

Now, why did we speak Catalan in the Spanish congress? First of all, because it is our right, it is our language and it should be accepted, naturally. Secondly, as a response to a recent ruling by the Spanish Court about language in Catalan schools. According to this, if just one kid asks that the lesson be in Spanish, everybody, all the other students in the class, should switch language and start speaking in Spanish. After 30 years of teaching kids in Catalan, our language has begun to regain some ground. In the past it had been banned, but now it is spoken by everyone, because it's our common language, and it feels natural. This simple fact is apparently very difficult to accept by some people in Spain, and that's why we are protesting about the situation.

This is a serious situation because out of hundreds of thousands of students in Catalonia, only seventeen families have requested that their children study in Spanish. Only 17, out of hundreds of thousands. The Spanish courts are favoring these seventeen families above all the other hundreds of thousands. They understand that the school system belongs to Spain and they will do anything to support the imposition of Spanish. That is a serious problem for us and it is becoming a source of grivance.

What reason can the Spanish power structures have to place the interests of 17 families above that of hundreds of thousands? Well, that's politics. The only explanation is the abuse of power by the Spanish government. And that's also one of the reasons that lead us to believe that we would be better off, we would enjoy a greater degree of freedom and democracy, if we had our own free Catalan Republic.

Alfred Bosch

Member of  Parliament at the Spanish Congress