Thousands of people took part yesterday in a massive rally in Palma against the linguistic shift in the Balearic Islands to the detriment of Catalan promoted by the Government of Marga Prohens and with prior notice from the convening entity: the Balearic Cultural Work (OCB) warned that there will be a permanent mobilization if the Balearic president does not rectify her policies. The rally was one of the largest in recent years and the organizers spoke of 40,000 attendees, a figure that the local police reduced to 7,000. In any case, the forecasts of the organizers, who were expecting around 5,000 people, were greatly exceeded.
With this show of strength, the OCB recovered the language day, a festive event that was suspended as a result of the pandemic and which has returned with new vigor boosted by the language policy of the Government of Prohens, pushed in turn by vox The president of the OCB, Antoni Llabrés, asked Marga Prohens not to pay attention to the policies promoted by her members in order to continue in the Government at any cost. The organization for the defense of Catalan in the islands has already promoted an appeal before the Constitutional Court against the decision of Prohens to suppress the Catalan requirement to work in public health. At the same time, Prohens is working on a pilot plan so that schools that wish can incorporate the choice of language in the classrooms.
These two measures have caused a huge rejection among the opposition parties and in the entities in defense of the Catalan language, such as the OCB, who fear a reversal and that the new proposals to corner Catalan will go further because of the pressure from Vox on Prohens. The agreement with Vox includes the creation of an office for the defense of the Spanish language, which will depend on Parliament and which will control the far-right party.
“President Prohens, that’s enough; rectify”, asked the president of the OCB, Antoni Llabrés. “Punishing and persecuting our language is the price the PP pays to stay in power, executing the language policy set by Vox”, he denounced. Llabrés quoted Prohens as choosing to be with the defense of Catalan and with the social majority of the Islands or “kneeling before fascism”. Llabrés warned that, if there is no rectification, the way is open to a “permanent” mobilization.
Llabrés referred to the “obsessions” of Vox that condition the policy of the Balearic Government and recalled that the Catalan language is suffering a process of decline, especially among young people, which is why he claimed that, in this context, s ‘attend to what the Balearic Statute of Autonomy says, which obliges the public authorities to defend and promote its use, which is exactly the opposite of what Prohens is doing, as he denounced.
Representing Joves de Mallorca per la Llengua, the singer Miquela Lladó read a manifesto in which she reminded Prohens that “using Catalan is a right but maintaining it is a duty”. “We are the heirs of the thousands of citizens who have defended our language in difficult times, much more difficult than the current ones, and that is why we have a moral duty to work to preserve it and make future generations live it normally”. added.
The manifesto denounces the restrictions, impositions and prohibitions that Catalan speakers have suffered for years and defends Islands where the Catalan language is a tool of social cohesion, which can be used?without fears or complexes, with more means of communication in Catalan and more support for those who are there and with a commitment to the full recovery of the language by the institutions and the abandonment of “hate” policies and “attacks” towards Catalan.
Yesterday’s rally was preceded by an event in defense of Catalan that has been held throughout the weekend in different municipalities of the Balearic Islands. The organization Joves de Mallorca per la Llengua promoted the Correllengua during these days in which around 20,000 citizens have participated, according to one of its organizers.
