The reasons to write

Hello everybody.

My name is Jordi Arrufat, I'm from a medium sized town called Tortosa located in southern Catalonia and the Center of the Catalan Countries (Països Catalans) in what most of you would call North East Spain or Spanish Eastern Mediterranean Coast.

My native language is catalan, and catalan is the language which I have used in my last blog about my experience living and working in Northern Africa and in my current blog about globalization, catalan independentism and current social and political events in Tortosa and its surrounding area, the Ebre Land (in catalan "Terres de l'Ebre").

However, as the impact of globalization grows constantly day after day and the forecasted Spanish General Elections approach (Next March the 9th) I felt the need to let the world know what my land is and what do we want to be and what we certainly do NOT want to be. And this means to write in other languages than catalan.

As a Spanish citizen (or at least that's what my passport says) I'm fluent in Spanish and I will use this language to let people know from non-catalan speaking territories of Spain, why do we some catalans wish to create a separate state as most of the times the Catalan separatist ideas are written only in Catalan and then they are translated, or even worse, interpreted, by some parcial commentators who modify the original ideas we wanted to communicate.
An independent Catalonia, even if included as the 26th member of the European Union, could not be understood without Spanish support. So even if today most of the Spanish society doesn't support the idea to see its country split I'm convinced that if we reach independence by pacific and democratic ways we could find then (and only then) some way or other to pact with Spain. But the way must start to be paved today opening channels of discussion, debate and communication. And that's what my blog mainly pretends, to open debate positive-built debate.


As a former student in France thanks to Erasmus program and former resident in Algeria and Morocco I can also communicate quite well in French. France is, with no doubt, the second most important neighbour Catalonia has after Spain. The liberal ideas much more present today in Catalonia that in the rest of Spain arrived from France in the XIX century, as the Industrial Revolution did. And it was in France where most of the catalan elite fled after the Spanish Civil War to avoid death or prison. A litlle portion of my nation is included in France, in today's "Department 66" or what we catalans call "Rosselló". An independen catalan nation could not walk in the current world without French support that's why I will also intent to write some of my posts in French.


Then there's English, the language I'm using in this post. No need to say how important it's to have a good command of English in today's world (Even if quite surely tomorrow's world might be lead by Chinese language). With English I know I can be read and understood from California to Japan via London, Cape Town, Moscow, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, Dubai, Teheran and Hong Kong. What our cause lacks at communication level is that we are not a English speaking nation as Scotland or located in a English speaking country as Quebec in Canada.


Finally I will use the three mentioned languages to talk you about my homeland, the Ebre Land, which I love so much and it's unfairly unknown despite our rich history, our diversified landscape and our central position between Barcelona and Valencia. Because the Ebre Land cannot be understood to the Ebre river (Ebro in Spanish) I want you to make you know wich are the current challenges our land must face being placed in a dry part of the world as the Iberian Peninsula is.


The importance Catalan Language has for us, native catalan speakers, resides in the fact that we can see that in the current world some languages grow in importance we see how minority languages decrease in their social use being replaced by major world languages (call it English, Chinese, Russian, French, Arabic or Spanish to mention a few). Catalan has luck enough to be the most used and spoken European Minor Language and its even the only official language in tiny Andorra. But this is not enough to survive, everywhere in the world we see how minor languages tend to be forgotten or let apart as major languages are more "useful".
This is not even enough for Popes in Vatican who dismiss our language at the Cristhmas blessing or for the European Union which considers our language, spoken by around 6 milion people, less important than Maltese or Irish Gaelic.

That's why I will keep writing my other blog in Catalan, because it's the language in which I dream, I love and I think and I want future generations to continue to do so but that's also at the same time the reason for which I do pretend to keep this new blog alive. I want to hear your comments and heat up the debate.



Benvinguts. Bienvenidos. Welcome. Bienvenue.