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Spain Government Policies
Franco's policies toward cultural, ethnic, and
linguistic
minorities were directed at the suppression of all
non-Spanish
diversity and at the unification, integration, and
homogenization
of the country
(see Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
, ch. 1). Until 1975 Spain's policy toward its
ethnic
minorities was more highly centralized and unifying than
that of
its neighbor, France, where a liberal democratic framework
allowed private-sector initiatives to keep regional
cultures and
languages alive.
With the restoration of democracy, Spanish elites (many
of
whom come from one of the peripheral ethnic homelands,
especially
Catalonia) were much more tolerant of cultural, ethnic,
and
linguistic differences. Article 2 of the 1978 Constitution
includes this wording: "The Constitution is based on the
indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation, the common and
indivisible fatherland of all Spaniards, and it recognizes
and
guarantees the autonomy of the nationalities and regions
that
comprise it [the Spanish Nation], and the solidarity among
them."
It should be pointed out, however, that the word
"autonomy" is
never defined in the Constitution, leaving a serious
ambiguity in
Spain's treatment of its ethnic minorities
(see Regional Government
, ch. 4). While requiring that Castilian be the
official language throughout the country, the Constitution
also
recognizes the possibility that other languages may be
"co-official" (an ambiguous term that is taken to mean
"having
co-equal status with Castilian for governmental purposes")
in
their respective autonomous communities. By 1988 five
languages
had been accorded such treatment: Catalan, Galician,
Euskera (the
Basque language), Valencian, and Majorcan.
From the vantage point of the state, the Basque, the
Catalan,
and the Galician peoples were "nationalities" within the
larger
and more inclusive Spanish nation. There was only one
nation, and
its capital was Madrid; ethnic minorities were prohibited
from
using the term "nation" in reference to themselves. For
the
Basque or the Catalan nationalist, however, there was no
Spanish
nation, only a Spanish state made up of a number of ethnic
nations, of which theirs was one.
It should be noted that ethno-nationalist sentiment
varied
greatly within and among Spain's important ethnic
minorities,
throughout the years. In other words, not all Basques or
Catalans
felt themselves to be solely Basque or Catalan, and even
those
who did possessed varying levels of identification with,
and
commitment to, their ethnic homeland, depending upon the
circumstances of the moment. For example, a 1979 study by
Goldie
Shabad and Richard Gunther revealed that, in the Basque
provinces
of Alava, Guipuzcoa, and Vizcaya, 28 percent of their
respondents
identified themselves as "Spanish only" or "more Spanish
than
Basque," 24 percent said they were "equally Spanish and
Basque,"
11 percent said they were "more Basque than Spanish," and
37
percent identified themselves as "solely Basque." In the
Basque
province of Navarre, in contrast, 26 percent said they
were
"Spanish only"; 52 percent, "Navarrese only"; and 15
percent,
"Basque only." In Catalonia, the figures were as follows:
"Spanish or more Spanish than Catalan," 38 percent;
"equally
Catalan and Spanish," 36 percent; "more Catalan than
Spanish," 12
percent; and "Catalan only," 15 percent.
Such variation in ethnic identity was related to two
factors:
the migration of non-ethnics into the ethnic homelands
from other
parts of Spain, especially in the economic boom years of
the
1950s and the 1960s; and the impact of industrialization,
modernization, and urbanization on the usage of
non-Castilian
languages. After several decades of migration of
non-ethnics into
the Basque and Catalan regions, the native-born population
represented between one-half and two-thirds of the total;
and in
many working-class neighborhoods and large cities, the
nonethnics were actually in the majority. Whereas many
migrants were
able to learn Catalan because of its close similarity to
Castilian Spanish, the number of migrants who learned the
Basque
language was insignificant because Euskera is not an
Indo-European language. Moreover, the impact of mass
media,
urbanization, and other modernizing mass cultural
influences
gradually weakened the place of the non-Castilian
languages. This
was especially true in the Basque region, where non-Basque
speakers found it pointless to learn a minority language
that
apparently had little utility in the modern world.
For these reasons, the Basque, the Catalan, and the
Galician
autonomous community governments placed the highest
emphasis on
policies to save their respective languages. In each of
these
regions, the local language was declared co-official along
with
Castilian Spanish; residents of the regions came to expect
that
they could communicate with their government in their
native
tongues when dealing with the courts and the police, and
in a
wide variety of other contexts in which citizens
interacted
directly with their state. Trials were conducted in both
languages. The regional parliaments and governments, as
well as
most other institutions of government, were bilingual in
theory
if not in practice. Each government subsidized
native-language
schools through the high-school years and supported a
television
system that broadcasted largely, or, in the Basque case,
entirely, in the native language. The Basque autonomous
government placed great emphasis on recruiting a native
police
force made up of bilingual officers able to interact with
the
local population in the language of their choice
(see The Police System
, ch. 5).
At the end of the 1980s, it was still too early to
assess
whether or not such policies could salvage these minority
languages. Catalan seemed assured of survival, even if as
a
subordinate language to Castilian, but Euskera and
Galician were
spoken by such a small portion of the modern, urbanized
population that their fate would probably not be known for
another generation. Under the best of circumstances, the
representation of such complexity in Spanish society and
politics
will present a major challenge to the country's political
elites
and opinion leaders through the 1990s.
Data as of December 1988
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