Today, October 12th, is Día de la Hispanidad. A 'Spanishness' forced to us, who live in Spain. And I say forced not from despite, but from what the History tells us, and from how this Spanishness is understood by its main defenders.
We don't have to go way back, to the days of the Imperio, to see that this kind of mentality still survives in Spain. Sure, the Spanish Empire was one of the great Empires that colonized the Americas and other parts of the world. By force. In 2001, the former King Juan Carlos, said:
"Nunca fue la nuestra, lengua de imposición, sino de encuentro; a nadie se le obligó nunca a hablar en castellano: fueron los pueblos más diversos quienes hicieron suya, por voluntad libérrima, la lengua de Cervantes".
Translation: "Our language never was imposed, but it was used to meet. Nobody was ever forced to speak in Spanish: They were the most diverse cultures whom they made it theirs, by their own will, Cervantes language."
Anybody who knows anything about Spanish or Latinoamerican history knows about the prosecution of local languages by different Spanish administrations. I'm not talking only about Franquismo, the regime that killed several journalists under suspicion to be "rojos" or "masones", my great-grandfather among them, a poet who used to wrote his poems in a Catalan magazine. I'm talking about the 1716 "Decreto de Nueva Planta", forbidding any language other than Spanish. I'm talking about the abuses of Spain towards its colonies in the Americas, using language as the most efective weapon of the dominant caste.
Even nowadays, when you want to talk with some public servants in Catalan it's common to get barked rudely with a "A mí me hablas en español!" (translation: "You must speak to me in Spanish!"). I'm meaning public servants as inclined to serve as the police force or teachers at the public school. I understand that these people may come to cover their current positions in Catalonia from another place of Spain, where they did not learn Catalan. That's normal and understandable, but it was necessary this anger towards me, simply for trying to speak the language my parents gave me and the one I use on a daily basis, in an administrative building of my hometown? That's the kind of treatment we, as Catalans, receive from Spain.
Last year, the whole world saw how Spain understands Catalonia: Under their boots. They may use any subterfuge to hide this truth, but for me is too late. And now, today, they have a celebration, with military parade included. Sorry, but not me. I have nothing to celebrate.
There is your Hispanidad. Repression and denial.