The Catalan and Spanish language issue, from the comments

There are many issues to this Catalan predicament

Bob has been providing arguments to a more nuanced view. He has said that “Spanish is not all that far from being banned from public schools” in Catalonia. That is true, but to put it into context provides additional knowledge. The reality is much worse. 60% of Catalan children has the Spanish language as mother tongue (30%, Catalan language) All primary and secondary schools use Catalan as vehicular teaching language (with an hour a week of Spanish… or nothing) Basically, in practice, you are not allowed to decide in which language do you want your children to be taught. I am sure most of you will think that this cannot be true in a democratic country.

As the United Nations recognizes (21st of February, day of the mother tongue) children should be schooled in the mother tongue whenever possible. But 60% of Catalan children are denied this right by successive Catalan regional governments… 30 years and counting. This has produced a situation in which two generations of Catalan children with Spanish as mother tongue have systematically been denied the possibility to develop his potential mental abilities to the upmost, with the consequences that Tyler, in other contests, has commented regularly. They will forever occupy the lowest range of jobs in the Catalan economy. This is cultural supremacy to the core. You will not find this in any other democratic country… nor by a mile. I will leave for other time, perhaps, which characteristics the teachers and principals of the schools share.

The Spanish Constitutional Court has ruled several times against this discrimination, instructing the Catalan government to remedy the situation. To no avail. The regional government pays not attention, neither the central government or the civil society doing much. Civil society movements, very prominent in Catalonia, are basically arms of separatist parties. Still, the threat of the Constitutional Court is there, so better to get rid of this nuisance declaring independence.

That is from a guy named Felix.  Here are data from the government of Catalonia (pdf).

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