Political control of schoolchildren and police in Catalonia

The Catalan government is officially called the Generalitat. Unofficially it is widely known as the Genestapo. In this post we look at how it keeps political control of the schools and the police, two very sensitive areas for totalitarian governments.

Political control of schools 

We have already seen the way in which the Catalangovernment interferes politically in the lives of schoolchildren by spying onthem. Now the children are being asked for their political opinions.

The El Morell secondary school in Tarragona circulated a questionnaire from Lérida University to be completed by the pupils. It contained the questions:

To what extent do you feel:

1 Catalan

2 Spanish

3 Of your country of birth (or that of your family)

To what extent do you feel proud of being:

1 Catalan

2 Spanish

3 Of your country of birth (or that of your family)

To what extent do you identify with:

1 The Catalan language

2 The Spanish language

3 The language of your country of birth (or that of your family)

To what extent do you identify with:

1 Catalan culture

2 Spanish culture

3 The culture of your country of birth (or that of your family)

To what extent do you identify with:

1 The independence movement

2 The non-independence movement

Answers to be given as a score from 1 (never) to 5 (always)

“We don’t understand why the pupils have to be asked these questions,” said one mother. The documentation in the study says that “Participation is voluntary, anonymous and confidential” but parents have said that that was not the case. The school is trying to row back, saying, “We didn’t know the content of the questionnaire,” (yeah, sure, pull the other one) and “We have proposed the individualised return of the questionnaires to the families who ask for them or else collective destruction.” The individualised return of anonymous questionnaire forms – now there’s a thought!

The questionnaire form shown here is presented in Catalan only. That is the only language that can be used in Catalan schools for any purpose at all. Why? Because it ensures that the lower classes will have poor Spanish and will not be able to leave Catalonia. The policy of linguistic immersion is not practised by the  Catalan bourgeoisie. The latest in a long line of hypocritical top Catalans to be discovered avoiding the policy that they impose on the lower orders is a well-known footballer called Pep Guardiola, who sends his children to the American Benjamin Franklin school in Barcelona, a “truly international school” where the teaching “is entirely in English, with language courses offered in Spanish, Catalan and French”. It must be said though that he hasn’t quite worked out quite what a international education is about: “My children go to school with Indian people, black people, normal people …”

Political control of the police

In 2016 Victor Tarradellas was the Secretary for International Relations of CDC, the name at that time of Carles Puigdemont’s party (now JxCat). He was a trusted confidant of former Catalan premier Artur Mas and of Puigdemont at the time when the 2017 illegal referendum was being planned. If a government is planning an illegal action on the scale of a referendum, it obviously has to have the police on its side. It was Victor’s job to find out which senior officers (“comisarios”, like superintendent) of the Mossos (Catalan police) could be trusted.

“Fainthearted separatist”, “comes from the Guardia Civil”, “red”, these are some of his comments, which were accompanied by positive and negative marks against the names. He kept his comments in a notebook that has come to light in the course of a judicial investigation into illegal funding of the party.

He had a list of 45 officers marked on three scales: patriotism and determination, management ability and charisma, and institutional loyalty. His notes praised recently promoted officers while criticising others for having come from the Guardia Civil or for their being close to the Spanish socialist party PSOE. The current chief officer of the Mossos Eduard Sallent had a top score on all three scales with a positive mention of his background in the nationalist student union FNEC. “Very separatist” was the verdict.

Sources

(Spanish)

Diari de Tarragona

Un estudio pregunta a alumnos de El Morell si son independentistas

(A study asks pupils at El Morell if they are separatists)

Mundo deportivo

La polémica frase de Guardiola: “Mis hijos van al colegio con gente india, gente negra, gente normal...”

(Guardiola’s controversial sentence: “My children go to school with Indian people, black people, normal people …”)

El Independiente

Un dirigente de CDC hacía listas de "buenos y malos" comisarios de los Mossos

(A leading member of CDC made lists of “good and bad” senior officers of the Mossos)

(English)

Benjamin Franklin International School