That the Spanish state is seeking to get rid of Catalan by eliminating the language immersion policy for school children is an undeniable truth. That Catalonia has failed to stop this judicial, political and media offensive is another. Spain is an unstoppable machine that produces more and more Catalan independence supporters and it knows very well what it has to do: suffocate Catalan demands. Demands that can be summed up in two words: language and money. The Catalan language began to be openly persecuted through Ciudadanos (Cs) and the Madrid-based press.
That battle, with Cs leader Albert Rivera as its greatest exponent, brought together the whole line-up of usual suspects from previous decades and was fought strongly in the Spanish capital, finding that the judiciary was more willing than ever to correct the concessions of the Spanish transition to Catalonia on linguistic issues and was supported by a certain part of the Catalan establishment, eager to return to the Castilian language as soon as possible without any risk of its own preference being pointed out. I remember one or two of those who had even Catalanized their names heaving a sigh of relief because Catalan would be kept alive within the school gates, as if it were English. Or on TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio, but as exceptions, not with the desire to expand Catalonia's own language into the hard-to-reach corners of the vast majority of the media.
The fact that this Tuesday the Supreme Court has agreed to oblige Catalan schools to provide a minimum of 25% of their classes in Spanish is the expected corollary to what has happened in recent years. Dialogue with the Spanish state is impossible because it has decided to de-Catalanize Catalonia and it will not stop until it finds a strong and unequivocal response in its path. The press conferences, political party protests and outraged statements are already accepted as inevitable. These things will not move them at all from their current analysis: Catalonia is dismasted and lost in its fratricidal battles.
And, unfortunately, in recent years, there have been too many cases in which the battle between the pro-independence forces has been exhausting. In fact, lately it has not been getting any less so. Yet, conversely, the strength of Catalonia within Spain does not grow. This has to be turned around as soon as possible, practicing a politics of state and defending the identity of the country if there is any aspiration to one day rebuild it. And, above all, making good use of the existing strengths. In politics, the main asset is when you make yourself essential and the pro-independence forces have thrown this position out of the window to pursue their sterile battles. There is no other way: unity. Because the Spanish state has tapped into a rich vein of division and, in the end, what could happen is that the party that survives the pro-independence parties' internal war may not end up managing an Autonomous Community, but rather will not even have the power of the old civil governors.