Fa uns dies va aparèixer al diari The Guardian, bastió de l’opinió progressista britànica, un article d’un periodista anglès anomenat Graham Keeley. El senyor Keeley és un periodista freelance, que periòdicament escriu a diaris com The Guardian, The Independent, i d’altres. En Keeley, des de Barcelona, escriu articles d’una qualitat que no sé si els aprovarien a un estudiant de primer de periodisme, i políticament acostuma a mostrar-se molt crític amb qualsevol cosa que faci olor a Catalunya, llengua catalana, immersió lingüística, o normalització nacional. És més, normalment fa d’altaveu de la caverna espanyolista a medis britànics, el qual és òbviament molt nociu per a la respectabilitat de Catalunya en aquell país, on només és notícia per coses negatives o que sonen a pallassada a les mans de gent com en Keeley, que van convertir les subvencions a en Conrad Son en gran notícia que fins i tot va sortir a Bloomberg.
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Lamentablement, aquesta gent escriu dels catalans com si fossin barrufets rabiüts, pallassos provincians que neguen l’evidència de com és de fantàstica i cultural i progressista Espanya, i que girem l’esquena a l’evolució d’aquesta Barcelona multicultural, multiprogre, multiguai, multilingüística (menys el català), miltiètnica, i espanyola, aquest brillant país on hi ha cervesa tan barata, fa sol, i pots comprar una vil·la amb piscina a peu de platja per la meitat del preu d’un pis a Sheffield.
En l’última perla que va publicar en Keeley la setmana passada, criticava que la polèmica pel·lícula del Woody Allen s’estreni en català a Catalunya, privant així de veure-la als espanyols, i tot per culpa d’un conegut “nacionalista” com en Jaume Roures. Si us plau, no em feu riure. Al final del text hi copio aquest mal dit article, que no té ni cap ni peus ni argument ni lògica i que agrairé que algun periodista en faci una crítica formal i d’estil.
Al cap d’uns dies vaig enviar una carta al director al The Guardian, criticant l’article i donant el punt de vista català. Avui m’han dit que no la publicaran, ja que no creuen que sigui un tema prou important per ells, i que l’article tampoc és que sigui (segons ells) necessàriament polèmic.
Adjunto a sota la carta enviada,
Sir- In an article published by your newspaper (Spanish language row over Allen film, 9th April), Graham Keeley again polemicises about Catalan language in Catalonia, using irrelevant, out-of-context, and outdated examples and inconsiderately missing the point of the issue. We regret that a newspaper as serious as The Guardian gives voice to this opinion which only replicates vociferous attacks on Catalan language and culture by a certain conservative, Spanish nationalistic, few Madrid-based media, without providing the arguments for the opposite point of view.
The move by the producers of the latest Woody Allen film, set in Barcelona, of showing it in either Catalan or English is in fact a welcome rarity in Catalonia, where the absolute majority of films are dubbed only in Spanish. Sadly the fact that a film is distributed, in part, in the language of the country it is filmed in, and which is spoken by nearly ten million people, has made it to the news.
What would, in any country, be regarded as normality and an everyday occurrence, in Spain it is attacked as if it was a declaration of independence. And Mr Keeley only replicates these arguments, ignoring the fact that most people in Catalonia could welcome the opportunity of watching the film in their own language. Would Mr Keeley attack it if a film set in Oslo was shown in Norwegian in Norway?
We would really wish that the action taken by the producers in this instance became commonplace, and that the fact that films were dubbed in Catalan in Catalonia would not be turned into easy after-work bland polemicising, reverberated with groundless, biased arguments.
To this day the situation of the Catalan languages is still one of inferiority vis-à-vis that of Castilian in Catalonia. Advertising, TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, cinema, the judiciary, all are mostly expressed in Castilian. It is the will of most of the Catalan people that its own language should be the vehicular commonly used language in society. This is obviously not well received in some circles in the rest of Spain, and by some English commentators.
I l’”article” d’en Keeley:
Spanish language row over Allen film
Graham Keeley
Wednesday April 9, 2008
TheGuardian
Language difficulties … Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Woody Allen’s latest film, starring Scarlett Johansson and Javier Bardem, will not be shown in Spanish in the strongly nationalist region of Catalonia.
Audiences can see Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which is due out in Spain in September, in the original English-language version with Catalan subtitles or dubbed into Catalan.
Jaume Roures, co-producer and head of the powerful media company Mediapro, told Spanish radio station RAC-1 the film will not be shown in Spanish, despite the fact that Spanish is the mother tongue of two of its stars, Penélope Cruz and Bardem.
Elsewhere in Spain, it will be shown in English with Spanish subtitles.
The move is sure to anger some who will see it as politically motivated in a region which sees itself as apart from Spain.
A linguistic law fines companies who do not show signs in Catalan.
The regional government recently announced a €7.4m (£5.9m) film fund to promote Catalan cinema. It also gave a grant of €15,000 to a soft porn producer for three “erotic films” as they would promote the Catalan language.
But despite generous public funding, the 12 Catalan language features produced last year were watched by just 0.8% of the region’s 24 million cinemagoers.
Vicky tells the story of a tourist who goes to Spain.
Roures, who is a Catalan nationalist, said: “Barcelona is filmed as it has never been seen before. People who know Barcelona a little will be keen to see it.”
Allen’s film has already provoked controversy. After filming in Barcelona last year, Roures attacked what he said was the “small-minded attitude” of local politicians and press, who complained that Allen received special treatment. The row began when it was revealed that 10% of the budget for the film would come from Barcelona city hall and Catalan regional taxpayers.
Barcelona provided €1m (£700,000) of funding for the film, which the city expects to recoup from the film’s profits. Regional authorities added another €500,000 to the budget
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La teva reposta em sembla perfecta i te la vull agrair. El teu esforç no serà debades encara que no la publiquin. Per molts motius, però el principal el tens molt proper: la teva dignitat resulta enfortida. I com més catalans siguem que ens mostrem de forma digna, més aviat tindrem el felicç desenllaç.