The publication in Spain's Official State Gazette (BOE) of a series of place names of Catalan counties translated into Spanish in a ridiculous way and even including unjustifiable inventions is not just any old mistake that can be solved over a few laughs and an apology from the official on duty that day. It is contempt for the Catalan language and the confirmation that this whole concept of co-official languages is no more than a convenient slogan and that there, in Madrid, there is no other language than Spanish, and no other power than that which emerges from the Moncloa government palace. They say that there will be a correction made in the gazette and this goes without saying, because the Spanish agriculture ministry actually named a series of non-existent counties with reference to the storm that struck last April. The Pyrenean county of Pallars Jussà appears in the BOE as Pajares de Yuso, the Baix Camp in Catalonia's south is cited as Bajo Campo, the Pla d'Urgell is written as Plana de Urgel and the Moianès as Moyanés, to mention the imaginative names given to a few counties.
If this had happened in the equivalent publication in Catalonia, the Official Journal of the Generalitat (DOGC), I cannot even imagine how certain politicians and media would have reacted and the casus belli they would have ended up finding. The rivers of ink that would have flowed and the demands that would have been made from the editorial offices of the Madrid press. Because the BOE is not just any means of communication but, having official status, it establishes beyond all legal doubt the facts that had previously been certified in a meeting of the Spanish cabinet or the precise details of a resolution made by a certain ministry, in this case the assistance given in response to a storm.
However, everything can be altered and there are no limits to this, something which can also be seen in the modification of a Wikipedia entry in which, conveniently, the details of the police violence of 1st October, 2017 in Alcarràs on the day of the independence referendum were modified, coinciding with the nomination of director Carla Simón's film to represent Spain in the best international movie category at the Oscars in Hollywood. Since changes made to the online encyclopedia leave a footprint, it has emerged that this was carried out from an IP address belonging to the Spanish ministry of defence, in Segovia, who must have a great interest in keeping police violence out of reach of international public opinion. Of course, there is also the search for the official who carried out the action, now that he has been detected. As if anyone is likely to believe that in both of these cases the problem is an excess of bureaucratic zeal.
The zero linguistic sensitivity demonstrated with the unreal translation of the names of the counties into Spanish is part of the problem, because, at root, it exudes a certain type of mentality found in a monolingual state. It is precisely here where the real problem lies, and with the repeated attempts to smother other languages in any kind of public debate. We see this regularly in the Spanish houses of parliament, where speaking Catalan is not permitted, either in the Congress of Deputies or the Senate. Something that could be rectified simply by economic means in order to reflect Spain's linguistic reality and that, as a first step, should be passed quickly by the Senate, given that it is the territorial chamber. This would not create, as it is contemptuously speculated from Madrid, a linguistic tower of Babel, but rather, would simply allow people to express themselves in their own languages. Why does something that works for the European Parliament not work for the Spanish Parliament? I don't see anyone laughing in the slightest at the fact that different languages are spoken in Brussels and Strasbourg when, to save money, they could require the use of English as the only language.