Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 10:18, 3 November 2005

I removed the sentence

A large, very vocal minority of the inhabitants of the Catalan Countries fervently believe in this concept.

because

1. The meaning of "a large minority" is ambiguous.
2. The remark about fervency does not seem appropriate for an encyclopedia.

I don't see why his article and Catalan independence should be merged. They have different subjects.

confusing sentence

This sentence from the article

This concept is met with significant popular approval in Catalonia, peaceful indifference in the Balearic Islands and with resounding disapproval in the Valencian Community.

either has not much meaning or it is not true. Of course, any political idea is met with different degrees of approval at different places. But everywhere you may find people enthusiastic, indifferent and contrary to it. I understand the idea of the writer of the sentence, but as it is written it is not at all NPOV. In my experience, most Valencians I know are more enthusiastic about the catalan countries than most people from Catalonia. Lacking a rewriting or some justification (real data from somewhere, if it exists), I will remove it.

Don't know whom you know in Valencia, but surely they're not representative of Valencian people. Not having any opinion polls to draw from, I think results of elections are the best pxoy we can use- and PP's absolute mayority in Valencia one election after the other are not quite coherent with your point about Valencian support for the Catalan countries. Out of 89 deputies ellected in the 2003 regional ellections, 0 (zero!) belong to political parties that support the Catalan countries.

I'm not saying at all that most valencians support the catalan countries. It's just that, without appropriate data, the removed sentence held not much meaning. As a side note, I don't understand your point about the number of deputies. There are politicians in several parties with different degrees of support for the catalan countries, for instance in BNV, EU, and even in the PSPV, and this last party governed some years ago.

That is just nationalist propaganda. The reality is that in the Valencian Community, the groups that support the idea of Catalan Countries didn't get enough votes to be represented in the Valencian Parliament. Also in the Balearic Islands they hardly have representation. I restored the sentence as in This concept is met with significant popular approval in Catalonia, indifference in the Balearic Islands and with resounding disapproval in the Valencian Community.

"Support for the catalan countries" does not seem to be a main issue in valencian politics. Thus, it is difficult to measure its support using only electoral results, because the position of each political party is not homogeneous about this issue. Moreover, your claim about the valencian parliement is false. There are 6 deputies of the "entesa" (reference) some of which support the idea of the catalan countries. Also, note that BNV has almost 5% of the votes, which is indeed a significant proportion (albeit not enough to obtain representatives).

It would be nice to have some real data (like a poll asking for support of the idea in the catalan countries) to be able to report encyclopedic facts here. Then, we could forget this kind of discussion, as this is not a political forum. coco

For what is worth, here's a link of a recent polling (October 2005) about it . In short, To the question, Do you think your community belong to the Catalan Countries, the answers were

Community	Against	For	N/A
Balearic Islands	66,2 %	24,6 %	9,2 %
Valencia	81 %	15,2 %	3,8 %

I don't put too much trust on polls, but it does gives some clue --Wllacer 10:18, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Origin of the expression?

I've removed the sentence

"""Like the Germans this extremist movement defines the Catalan Countries from Salses to Guardamar and from Fraga to Maó."""

because the "like the Germans" doesn't make any sense and because I can't find the origin of the expresion. The original form was

"""A popular saying defines the Catalan Countries from Salses to Guardamar and from Fraga to Maó"""

The german ties are evident In the DeutschlandLied : "Von der Maas bis an die Memel/Von der Etsch bis an den Belt ...". But I think is just coincidence --Wllacer 17:05, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Can someone confirm (and provide a link) whether the phrase is indeed popular or if it's tied to nationalistic culture? --Diego Moya 16:06, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

How does one prove that a saying is popular? I've heard it everywhere, but only orally. Maybe we should remove the adjective "popular" until we have a precise definition of it, but meanwhile I recover the sentence. coco

My doubt was wether this saying had extreme nationalist connotations or it was used by general public. If you have heard it everywhere, I think it's safe to recover it.

My first recollection is around 1975, and i have memories of beeing one radical catch-phrase. I have always associated it with Omnium Cultural (don't remember why) and the radical group PSAN who used it in its Propaganda--Wllacer 17:05, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I cannot understand the polemics about this sentence. In some sense, it may be regarded a synonym of Catalan Countries. It is used mainly for emphasizing the geographic limits of the cultural and/or political concept. So, this would be considered as 'extremist' as Catalan Countries term might be. Catalan Countries term usage (and this saying as well) was initially minoritary and is nowadays increasingly widespread. This is because there is being a significant recovery of Catalan culture and also an increasing Catalan nationalism/independentism. Parallelly, nowadays Catalan independentism is mostly focused on Catalan Countries, not in Catalonia. All these facts may be reflected in different related articles.

The motto of Omnium is 'Llengua, Cultura, País' (Language, Culture, Country). Omnium acts mostly in Catalonia, but it frequently collaborates with analogous organizations in Balearics Islands (Obra Cultural Balear) and Land of Valencia (Acció Cultural del País Valencià). Toniher 11:24, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Meta-discussion

(I've upgraded this from the last entry about the sentence) Probably your're right, the phrase doesn't go beyond the anecdotic (that was the sense i wrote my comment, just personal recolletion) but the fact is that the whole concept of Catalan countries is indeed still very polemic (just remember the show a couple of weeks ago in the "Nou Camp", and the reaction in Valencia). I think the whole entry should be marked as polemic and a thead could be started in the Talk Page about this polemics, to keep the readership informed as long as it keeps on an educated interchange of postures. I would throw then my two cents , What do other contributors think ? --Wllacer 20:35, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I think there is no point in adding such a tag as you are suggesting. It's rather obvious that Spanish nationalists (and French ones) strongly refuse this. If added, such a tag should also be added to Euskal Herria, Kurdistan, Palestine, Israel, etc. or more if we considered all the different POV. I think it's better to further develop the topics I suppose you are suggesting in different articles such as Catalan nationalism, Spanish nationalism, Politics of Spain, Politics of France, etc.

Putting the tag is just a matter of editorial and informational nature, not to take a stance. If one tries to write a NPOV encyclopedia and you have entries about items currently in political/social discussion, i think it's well advised to flag them somehow; esp. for the benefit of readers which don't know anything about: the absolute majority of wikipedia readership (and "leech" sites). We should review how is this done in the rest of wikipedia, and their policies, and act accordingly

The reaction you comment about the celebration of Correllengua during half-part in Camp Nou was from the Valencian government and pro-Spanish parties, groups or media. Spanish nationalism in Land of Valencia is indeed stronger than in Catalonia and also less tolerant than it is in Catalonia (which, as a whole, has generally an Iberianistic trend). But this does not imply that all Valencian people are against it, as some media tend to suggest. Catalan Countries present concept is indeed born in the very Land of Valencia and later exported to the other territories. Just as an annotation as reference: there have been Correllengua events in 128 towns in the very Land of Valencia. It is indeed organized there by ACPV (Acció Cultural del País Valencià). I lament all the offtopic stuff I have written. However, I think this may be used as a starting point or extra information for related articles. Best regards Toniher 01:37, 31 October 2005 (UTC).

I might be wrong, but I have a very distinct feeling about the sentiments in Valencia, and I'm not by any means what's called a "blavero" (valencian anticatalanist). The situation there is (or was, since i'm not living there for years) extremely complex, worthy a lengthly topic. Joan Fuster was more right in discovering the divide between Valencia city and land than perhaps in any other thesis in his "Nosaltres els valencians" (I own a copy one since the 70's), and outside viewers might easly confused on causes and effects. And you might allow me to deeply mistrust any attempt to count the spreading of a normalized language as the support of a political agenda.

Toniher, your's aren't offtopic remarks and I fully appreciate your input, and if only for the sake of wikipedia, let's hope this (and other threads) could give a better understanding of the question. --Wllacer 10:51, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Answering Wllacer's request for opinions, I think that it can be interesting to have a section (instead of a tag) talking about the "acceptance" of the Catalan Countries in the different parts of the territory. However, the knowledge described in that section should be of an encyclopedic nature, and I've found it extremely difficult to find sources for that. I agree with Toniher in that the situation is analogous with te articles on Palestine, Kurdistan, Euskal Herria, etc.coco

I've revised wikipedia's policy, Misplaced Pages:Neutral_point_of_view, and coco is right, and I was wrong. Besides a carefull wording, we must somehow manage to get a "critical evaluation" or "controversy" section. I'd split it in two parts one refering to the cultural concept and one to the political to better reflect the dual nature of the term (at least i think it's worth)-Wllacer 19:51, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

One thing that we must take into account is that this political-cultural dualism is often, de facto, more a continuum than a discrete reality. This is because Catalan nationalism, as a whole, has Catalan language as one of its pilars, Spanish and French ones do as well. There are other cases, such as Irish nationalism, which religion was especially more prominent. Please, see nationalism. Toniher 21:55, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

To make me better undestood, I'll try to explain my view of the "controversy" section, with a (not so casual) analogy. For the cultural aspect, do we speak of "Culture(s) in German language" or "German Culture", when studying german (proper), german-swiss and austrian culture(s)?. Given the second clause, in the most unitary sense, ¿do we want/need a polity unifying all areas covered by the "german culture"?. This is the political question. The last (in my analogy) is settled in the foreseable future, but not the first, at least in Switzerland.

Following the analogy, the different languages in Switzerland do make (at least) four diferent cultures or one (or several transversal) multilingüal culture(s)?. Substitute for the relevant terms (to us), and add a note to the "valencian is not catalan", and you'll have a script for a controversy section --Wllacer 16:57, 2 November 2005 (UTC)