Real Madrid’s goalie, Kiko Casilla —a native of Alcover, in Catalonia—, was answering questions during the press conference that follows a football match. As is often the case, a reporter from a Catalan news outlet asked him a question in Catalan. I’m detailing this behaviour for the sake of this newspaper’s Spanish readers who —often and unwillingly— tend to view peripheral matters from a monolingual, central standpoint.
So, allow me to say that people speak Catalan in Catalonia. We did so back in the days of King Felipe V, so why stop now with Felipe VI? We broadcast in Catalan. And it is very odd for a Catalan-speaking sportsman to speak Spanish on a Catalan programme. I mean to say that it would be as odd as if Spanish writer Antonio Muñoz Molina answered in English —a language that surely he must love and be proficient in— questions from a Spanish radio station after giving a lecture on Cervantes in NY city. If anyone finds this notion illogical and yet believes that it is logical for Casilla not to speak Catalan to Catalan media, then their issue is not conceptual, but about supremacy. I cannot help them with that, but therapy would.
So, Casilla asked his team’s press officer: “In Catalan?”, to which the Real Madrid official replied: “No, don’t. In Spanish”. Casilla smiled (a timid smile, perhaps embarrassed and childish) and complied with the order. He says that he has not been banned from speaking Catalan and that we have blown things out of proportion. And I am certain that he is right and nobody has “explicitly” prohibited him from speaking Catalan. What is peculiar is that he should need to ask “in Catalan?”. And that he should do as he is told. You cannot expect anybody to be a hero all the time. In Spain it is a provocation for anyone to ask “in Catalan?”. In Spain the Catalan language has become a taboo. A taboo, strictly speaking. An ugly thing that you had better not mention.
