Human Interest

7 activists arrested by Spanish police for insulting king felipe

Prior to Catalon’s attempt to gain independence from Spain last year, I was unaware that there was a region of Spain that was so culturally not Spanish.  This article then introduced me to the Catalonian people living in Italy.  In Italy, the Catalon culture is not even close to as widespread and important as it is in Spain.  The language is scarcely used in the one region (Alghero) where it was most prevalent a century ago— in fact only about 25% of people here speak Catalon as their primary language.  The article explains that the Catalon culture is dying off in Alghero, unlike in Spain where people are so passionate that they want independence.  One of the biggest reasons the article atributes this to is the fact that Italy’s government has not been oppressive of Alghero’s population.  There are signs, menus, and people who have spoken the language with no government opposition, so people do not feel the need to protect the culture.  On the contrary, the Spanish government strongly pushes Spanish culture onto the Catalonians, which is why they fight for independence.  Catalonians feel threatened in Spain and try to defend, whereas in Italy the Catalonians don’t feel threatened and don’t have a reason to cling so strongly to their culture.  Younger people in Alghero speak almost exclusively Italian and education in Catalon is very rare.  This is interesting to me, because unlike the physical connection that Catalonia has with the rest of Spain, Alghero is quite distanced from the rest of Italy.  

The Mediterranean region is a good example of the fact that borders do not always indicate identity, a concept I looked at in a few articles on North America.  Due to trade relationships that date back thousands of years, cultures were dispersed and blended throughout the Mediterranean.  This has led to some interesting things, such as Catalan being spoken in Alghero, on the Italian island of Sardinia.