I am not a Catalan Prussian Pig, Mr. Hunold!

Some of those who landed in my blog recently may think that I would want to have Catalan as the only language spoken in Catalonia, and I would like it to become second language of choice in USA and China. Nothing further from reality, my approach to language is a very pragmatic one, based on trilingualism for all residents in Catalonia. I am not for segregated schools based on language or any other reason, a single trilingual education system for everyone. You can read a 2 year old summary on my position on language if you click here.
I am a businessman and know that localization is a real pain in the lower back. The ideal situation for businesses is “one size fits all”, global market, single language: English. This reduces costs, accelerates the product roll-out and maximizes the profits. However, there are three reasons why at the end, many companies localize their products: competition, regulation and in some cases, a genuine desire for customer satisfaction.
Languages without a state have it very difficult to reinforce their customer requirements through regulation. For example, Kosovo, that was recognized by Germany and USA as a sovereign nation, three days after their independence proclamation, can now regulate that all products and services rendered in its territory need to be in Albanese, that if products are not labeled in Albanese, they cannot be sold locally, and companies need either to comply or go.
With Catalan, there are several reasons that make the adoption rate of companies much lower than that of other languages with only a fraction of its speakers:
· The fact that all Catalan speakers are bilingual
· The fact that Catalonia is not a sovereign state
· The lack of central government support (unlike other bilingual countries like Malta or Ireland)
· The lack of self-respect of a big portion of the Catalan speakers (around 50%), who would rather go for the cheapest option, instead of paying more for a product where their language is taken into consideration
· The cartels among companies to avoid that if one uses Catalan, the other ones will need to follow to maintain the market share , since the 50% who do care about language, would massively switch to the company which uses their language.

The conclusion is that if you want products or services in your language, you need an own state and ever better, to have a substantial portion of monolingual people. It sounds crazy, but this is the pure reality.
The alternative to that is, on one side, use the market mechanisms to favor those products and companies which use our language, and second have some institutional support to lobby and educate the companies in our territory plus provide legal protection to whistleblowers who expose cartels.
That’s what happened when the Balearic government sent a letter to Air Berlin politely encouraging them to use Catalan in their interaction with its Catalan speaking customers.
Air Berlin could have reacted in many different ways. As for example:
· Saying that they were a low cost carrier and they could not afford it
· Saying that they already have 38 Catalan speaking employees in their offices and that customers could always refer to them
· That they are willing to install pre-recorded announcements in the flights if the Balearian government is prepared to foot the bill
· That the Catalan speaking customers are so smart that they always have a good command of one or several of the languages offered on board
All those would have been acceptable answers, respectful, logical.

However Air Berlin’s CEO, Joachim Hunold decided to make a political statement in the editorial of his inflight magazine, a statement full or inaccuracies, lies and errors, mocking at the Catalan culture, ridiculing its pronunciation (does platja sound so much worst than Achtung?) and inferring that the Balearic islands are where they are today thanks to the European Community and that the Catalans would have never been able to make it happen.
Rajoy, the leader of the conservative Popular Party, could have not done it better, with the only glitch of the implicit pan-Catalan assumptions that Hunold made in his article.

As a Catalan customer of Air Berlin, I did not take the editorial well and I decided that when next time I want to hop from Germany to Barcelona (as I do a couple of times a year), I will use other airlines.
However, what got me furious, was the little cartoon that illustrated the editorial. I got really upset of being called Catalan Prussian Pig, that even though there is not yet consensus whether the Bavarian expression means either Catalan scumbag or Catalan fascist (a euphemistic way of saying the German N word), it is clearly not the way I like to be addressed by a service provider (and Catalonia had, at that point, nothing to do with the whole thing!).

Mr. Hunold showed lack of tact, disrespect, defiance, conceit and vanity, but this did not stop the non Catalan speaking part of Spain, and especially the far right, to applaud and cheer Hunold’s wanton attack.

Today, I just want to say to Mr. Hunold that despite the fact that I love my language with all my heart, no matter how it sounds, and I would have cried of joy if in just one of your flights, one stewardess would have addressed me in Catalan for 5 seconds (in my February flight from Shanghai to Munich with Lufthansa there was a Catalan speaking steward and they announced it), Mr Hunold, I am not a Catalan Prussian Pig. Herr Hunold, ich bin kein Saupreissische Katalaner.

Since last Thursdays, the shares of Air Berlin are down by 30%, what has shaved more than 125M Euro in market capitalization. Today the president of the Air Berlin’s Iberian branch has vaguely committed to implementing Catalan somewhere in the future.

Politicians without "cojones"

Some of you still remember that I described Catalonia as a country without "cojones". And the question is where did we lose them? My conclusion is that we never had them, or, at least, our politicians never had them.
When I left Catalonia, 16 years ago, I thought that Catalonia was part of Spain and I never challenged that reality. After 16 years overseas, I have become a Catalan nationalist who would like to see Catalonia as an independent country. Why? I have realized that I do not feel Spanish, I have little to do with the image Spain portrays in the world, I do not want to be identified with that country, I do not feel proud of being from Spain, I try to hide it or euphemistically say, I am from Barcelona (since I positively know that if I say I am from Catalonia, 99% people will think I am from Caledonia). My personal values are different from those who people associate with Spain or the Hispanic people and, in addition to that, I am against bullfighting in Catalonia, I dislike "flamenco", and I feel like vomiting when someone uses one of these symbols to refer to me. You can tell me that what I am saying it is an attack to Spain. I do not think so. You foreigners tell me the truth, which symbols do you associate with Spain. Go ahead. Tell me the truth. Do no be shy. Isn't it flamenco, siesta, bullfighting, conquistador? (I still remember when a group of Swedish customers visited my factory in Barcelona and during the factory tour they asked me where we took the naps. I swear). And now, tell me whether you think of the same symbols when you think about Andorra. You see. And I am much more like Andorra, even if that means that your mind is blank.
The Spanish government has done NOTHING to reverse this. Go to any embassy and you be immersed in a Castilian atmosphere. I feel like a man trapped in a woman's body, I want to be a man, but my ID says I am a woman. I want to be a Catalan, but I am a Spaniard (I have to say that since I became American, I feel much better, but it is impossible to erase decades of mental stress).
If someone wants to understand what a Catalan is (or was, I should say) and which the fundamental differences with the perceived Spanish culture are, I invite you to read Jaume Vicens i Vives's "Noticia de Catalunya" (Catalonia news), a very unbiased and subdued book about us Catalans filtered by the Franco's dictatorship, but deeply Catalan if you read between the lines.
All my internal suffering could have been avoided if years ago, decades ago, centuries ago, a millenium ago, Catalan politicians had had "cojones", but they had NOT. Starting with Ramon Berenguer IV who got engaged to a one year old Petronilla, was appointed regent of Aragon and who never took the title of King, never dared to change his title of count of Barcelona to king of Barcelona or king of Catalonia, and took the cojonessless title of "Count of Barcelona and Prince of Aragon". His son, Ramon Berenguer, the first king of the emerging XII century European power, the combination of the Catalan counties and Aragon, who was only 11 years old when he became count of Barcelona and 13 when his mother renounced her rights in Aragon in his favor and became king, ruled under the name of Alfonso II to PLEASE the Aragonese. Give me a break, he was not called Josep-Lluis, Ramon Berenguer was not so difficult to pronounce, he was the son, grandson, great grandson of Ramon Berenguers, he was born in the outskirts of Barcelona (something I have to change periodically in the Spanish wikipedia, since they always make him a native of Huesca) and he had to change his name to please the Aragonese.
And his grandson, Jaume I, another big disappointment, even though I truely admire him. Despite he has nothing but praise for Catalonia and the Catalans ("And by the faith that we owe to God, since those of Catalonia, which is the best kingdom of Spain, the most honoured, the most noble,...", Llibre dels Feyts), he goes to Majorca and makes them a kingdom, he goes to Valencia and makes them a kingdom, he does not annex them to Catalonia, let it be, but he does not even change the rank of Catalonia to a kingdom, the most noble, the most honoured, the most "gilipollas", that's the truth.

After such a brilliant start, what can we expect now? The worst. On one side, our politicians have adopted all the negative characteristics of our Catalan ancestors, making compromises too quickly, not having "cojones", being low profile, betraying their own (botiflerisme), etc, plus many other new ones that they have quickly absorbed like being corrupt, practicing nepotism, red tape, etc.
The Mas, Carod-Roviras, Puigcercos, Chacons, Corbachos, Vendrells and Montillas of this world will sink Catalonia and will actually erase the few remaining characteristics of our culture, characteristics which survived in its genuine form for more than 1000 years till 1939 and which first through Franco's application of Machiavelli's guidelines that can be concisely found in The Prince ('if you want to dominate a country that has a different language, it is much more effective to send colonies of your own people than big armies' wrote Machiavelli) and later through the even more effective methodology of self-destruction that consists of giving the power to a moron and ask him to represent an "honoured and noble" people.

And I know what you are thinking and you are right. I have to admit it. I do not have "cojones" either.

Carles Rius Çafó and Ildefons Falcons (I)

In the last two months I have been flying a lot, those very long flights that give me the opportunity to finish long and interesting books. Two of those books were written by Barcelona authors. The originals were written in Spanish (not in Catalan), although I decided to read one of them, The Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefolso Falcones in its wonderful translation to Catalan, since I thought it would allow me to get immersed much more easily in the medieval Catalonia. In general, I always try to read books in their original versions, but this time, reading The Cathedral of the Sea in Catalan was really a plus.

I never wrote in the past about the Frankfurt book fair. Now with the perspective that time provides, I have to admit that, in my opinion, it was a blunder, no surprise if we take into consideration that Josep Lluis Carod-Rovira was behind the whole thing.

As a purist, I went back to check how the invitation to Catalonia was phrased in the Frankfurt book fair website. There, they clearly stated that the Catalonia culture was invited, not the Catalonia literature, not the Catalan literature, not the literature in Catalan, but the Catalan culture. For me this is Culture generated by Catalans in any language. Not inviting Catalan authors writing in Spanish was, in my opinion, a big error. They should have positioned the Catalan culture as an open culture with excellent contributions in our mother tongue and also in other languages like Spanish. They could have even tried to find Catalans who write in other languages like English, French, German or Swedish (actually, there is afew of us) and give us a booth too. What about me?, I write in English, am I not considered Catalan culture?, apparently not, at least, for Carod-Rovira.

Frankly speaking, I think that the Catalan politicians do not portray the openness of the Catalan society. They should have taken credit for the contributions of all Catalans, independently of the language they use for their artistic creations, while highlighting the strength of the Catalan language which, in theory and due to its size, should be in the list of endangered languages, but which is still alive, kicking and growing.

Going back to Carlos Ruiz Zafón and Ildefonso Falcones, I think that there is a clear reason why they did not write their books in Catalan and the answer is that I think that they do not have a good enough command of the language to produce works of similar quality. They are both my age and at that time, it was forbidden to learn Catalan at school, and we spent years and years learning Spanish grammar and literature (from the "jarchas" to the Archpriest of Hita, from Cervantes to Pio Baroja, but never ever a single author who wrote in Catalan or a single piece of work written in Catalan). Therefore, I assume that they would have struggled (the same as I do, although I do not give up) to write something good in Catalan and they took the easy way out and it paid, since they are now famous and hopefully wealthy.

In one of my future posts, I will explain why, despite being written in Spanish, there is a thick Catalan subtract in those pieces of work, even in Ruiz Zafon's one.

Woman, Catalan and Pregnant

One of the most powerful Spanish military unions has described the appointment of Carme Chacon as a provocation. They literally declared that the appointment of a woman, who in addition to that is Catalan and pregnant, is an insult to the Army institution.

I remind you that the military have the constitutional duty to guarantee the unity of Spain. So they are tasked with the important duty of keeping Spain as a united country and shoot to kill anyone who may threaten a united Spain even if they come from inside. I may be at risk.
As you can imagine my respect for the Spanish military is zero. They are a bunch of fascists who would like to see the dictator Francisco Franco rise from his ashes like the Phoenix avis.

On the other side, I have to agree with them on something. The new Spanish government is a joke. A random selection of macaques at the Madrid zoo would have yielded an higher average IQ than the one of the new cabinet.
I also have to openly say that it is hard for me to see a Catalan as the head of an Spanish army, which has been openly anti-Catalan and that would not hesitate to shoot anyone who would challenge the unity of Spain, in Barcelona, in Girona or in Maçanet de Cabrenys. I felt like crying when she said that "the Spanish Army, never before, has been better prepared to defend Spain's sovereignity and independence" during yesterday's march-past.

Mr Zapatero's cabinet is pathetic. I thought that after 20 years global experience in executive positions in 4 continents, I may not be yet ready for a cabinet position in the Catalan government. Today I think that I may be overqualified.

I am today in Hong Hong and I wanted to talk about trilingual countries (Cantonese, Mandarin anf English here). I will leave this for my next posting.

I didn't do it !!!

Since my vacation, I have not been in the mood of writing anything. The result of the last Spanish elections was so disappointing that I felt like giving up my political blogging endeavor. After a couple of years of chaos in our infrastructures, a trimmed down "Estatut", the deployment of which never starts, continuous threats of boycott, captive airports, etc, etc. etc. and we go and vote for the Socialists. Unbelievable!. It's obvious that personally I have no future in the Catalan political landscape.

The last straw was the additional House representative that the Popular Party got in Barcelona thanks to the votes of overseas Catalans. I promise, I was not the one, I would not vote for the Popular Party in any circumstance because they are simply anti-Catalan, whereas the Socialist party is merely sloppy and incompetent.

You may want to know whom I voted for. I voted for CiU, just because it is the least of all evils. You know I lean towards the right, and that I am a Catalan nationalist, so despite the fact that I believe that CiU lead politicians and especially Duran-i-Lleida and Mas are a bunch of "botiflers" (traitors) and that the former is, in addition to that, corrupt, I decided to vote for the idealistic concept of a competent center-right Catalan nationalistic party, rather than giving my vote away to the enemies of my nation.

The debacle of ERC is also remarkable and shows two things, that the current leaders of ERC (Carod-Rovira, Puigcercos, etc.) are literally morons, not bad people, simply they have not been blessed with an IQ that would allow them to conduct a normal job, and therefore they had no option but to become politicians where no credentials are required and that people do not forgive their slave-like submission to the Socialist party.

If Catalonia does not get a solid, mainstream, serious left wing party, we will continue to be a scoff, an object of mockery and derision. When the PSC becomes the equivalent of the Catalan Popular Party, the party from the Spanish nationalist left wing minority in Catalonia and left wing Catalans vote massively for ERC, then we have a chance of success. But this will only be possible if ERC distances itself from anti-system positions, recruit high level politicians and becomes something similar to the British labor party.

Unfortunately the chances of that happening are slim, and I foresee a decade of flat ECG politicians in the Catalan landscape that will sink our country and make us the benchmark of mediocrity and idiocy.

I am suggesting to the Catalan political leaders to adopt other methods to, at least, keep the people awake until I return in 2017.
I enclose videoclips with the methods used by politicians in other geographies, some of those politicians as dull as ours. The first one is a debate between the Japanese politicians of the autonomous region of Hokkaido (*) (Kalod-Lovila, Puigzelkos and at, the end of the clip, Dulan-i-Yeida) and the other one is an Obama supporter trying to make us forget about his controversial priest (*).


- The most popular videos are here



(*) Totally invented statements

Bahama mama

These couple of weeks have been tough on me. Since I decided to keep my personal and business lives totally separated, I will not elaborate on it, maybe I will do so in 2017, but not now.
However I decided, impromptu, to take a vacation with my family and go to the Bahamas. Someone had recommended me a resort in Paradise Island, near Nassau, called Atlantis and so far, it has been no disappointment, despite the $600 a night. It is the right place to relax, you do not have to leave the compound for an entire week, it's a hotel, aquarium, waterpark and tropical beach in a single location.
The Bahamas is a funny place. This former Spanish territory discovered by Colombus in his first trip is now a predominantly black nation. The Spaniards eradicated the local tribes, the Lucayans, through slavery and disease, and left the islands practically uninhabited. As usual, about 150 later, the British took them over. I have been in many countries in 5 continents (I should say 6, since the Americans consider North and South America as two different continents), but I never went thorough Immigration and Customs with a live Reggae band playing in the background.
As I said, my kids loved the place, the water slides ending through the sting ray and shark filled pools are a real hit and the half and hour rapids are a lot of fun. To tell you the truth, personally I prefer the Costa Brava, where the food is 100 times better or a 10 dollar a night Kampung type of hotel in the Riau archipelago (Indonesian islands in the Malaka strait), but an upscale vacation from time to time is not bad either if you can afford it. I will consider it, a birthday present, because, yes, today February 22nd 2008, is my birthday (same birth date as George Washington) and I am celebrating it drinking a Bahama Mama at the pool while listening to, of course, a live reggae band and typing on my laptop. And what about Catalonia, OK, OK, my Bahama Mama had a good shot of Bacardí rum, a real good one, and the founder of the Bacardí dynasty was born in Sitges (Barcelona). Unfortunately, no one knows about it (but me) and they all make him Italian and pronounce it as Bacàrdi. Again, no pride, no "cojones"!!!

Note: the pictures are not catalog pics, I took them.

Dos fills de puta

Today I would like to teach you a little bit of Catalan. I will start with the expression "fill de puta" or its plural "fills de puta". The translation is son(s) of a bitch, or as DJ Salinger would write, sonuvabitch. It is used as synonim of idiot, moron or asshole and not in reference to its literal meaning. In general, son of a bitch's mothers are nice women who do not deserve the kind of kids they raised.
As you all know, there are sons of a bitch everywhere, but the percentage seems to be much higher among Catalan journalists. The biggest dickheads are Enric Vila and Salvador Sostres.
With the false pretext to defend the Catalan language, these misguided individuals have developed a strategy to continuously insult immigrants who do not speak Catalan using a xenofobic and racist language which I find unacceptable.
As an example, Enric Vila recently recommended to those people (immigrants who do not speak Catalan) "to go back to their shitty countries with their shitty people, who have not been able to create or defend a minimum level of harmony". Three of four years ago, Salvador Sostres said in an article published in Avui referring to those who spoke Spanish: "only poor people, rednecks and analphabets speak a language which sounds so horrendously when pronouncing the letter j".
However, this kind of language is not exclusive of Catalonia. I have heard similar things in USA and Germany, and actually I once left a meeting when I suggested to hire some Spanish speaking people to deal with Mexican customers and someone said, Spanish is only useful to talk to my cleaning woman and my gardener.
Maybe I am too sensitive, because I am also an immigrant. When I went to Singapore, I only spoke English, but not Mandarin, Malay or Tamil (I learnt Malay while there) and in China, I did not speak Mandarin or Suzhouese when I arrived (while there, I learnt Mandarin and I was able to understand Suzhouese when I left), but I can assure you that I would have not lasted much as a waiter if I had had to wait in any of those languages. Despite this, I made great contributions to those countries and I continuously promote them and their culture. And no one ever told me to go back to my shitty country with my shitty people, much to the contrary.

However, I also want to promote my language, but with respect and education. Only Catalans are to blame for the decline in our language and we could turn things around if we wanted. These are the reasons why Catalan does not make progress:

• Catalan business owners do not want to spend a cent to satisfy customers. They should make sure that there is always Catalan speaking personnel to attend to customers who want to be waited in Catalan. However, the only thing they want is to make money and they hire those who are willing to work for less and in addition to that, they do not provide them with training to improve their language and job skills


• We, Catalan consumers are lazy and do not fight for our rights. If we want service in Catalan and it is not available, we should demand it to the manager or the owner and leave the restaurant if it is not available. But we should always treat the staff with education, they were hired as they are, and it is not their responsibility if they cannot meet the customer needs. If Catalans would only patronize stores or restaurants where service is offered in Catalan, very soon, all businesses would offer it, but we are, in general and including myself, a bunch of sheep. Remember my post “zom una nazió”


• Many Catalan people do not want to work hard. In USA, many waiters and waitresses in restaurants or hotels are college or high school students who work part time to pay for school, car, or vacation. In Catalonia, there are hardly any students who work, they prefer to get allowance from their parents until they are 30 years old. If all university students would work evenings, weekends or summers, the need of foreign labor for service activities would decline and most of the businesses would be able to offer service in Catalan.

But let me tell you that people like Vila and Sostres are a minority. There's sons of bitch everywhere and Catalonia is no exception. Unfortunately people like them cause a lot of damage to the Catalan national cause. We should not blame the weak and the needy. We should only blame ourselves for where we are.