The entry of the justice system into the educational plans of Catalan schools will not only put an end to the linguistic immersion model, which has been a model of success in terms of education and integration, but will also be the death blow for Catalonia's own language. In a way that is very clear for anyone who wants to see it, three things have happened: the judiciary has decided to pursue the matter in depth and the Catalan High Court (TSJC) will not limit itself, as on other occasions, to issuing a ruling and leaving it to the public authorities to comply. Everything indicates that what has been done with the school in Canet de Mar, imposing a 25% quota of teaching hours in Spanish, could end up being the normal procedure, without the school centres themselves having latitude to do anything except to obey what justice orders them to do.
Secondly, both the Spanish Socialists (PSOE), and also the Catalans of the PSC, will not budge from their official position and it is none other than that the court decisions must be complied with. That is why the PSC has had to turn its back on its past, but its electoral strategy might have more influence than anything else. Let me explain. The PSC has, in practice, had a hard time burying Ciudadanos (Cs), which is on its way to extinction. The Socialists don't want to allow Cs the slightest breath of oxygen that might serve for it to win back support, as they need the party led by Inés Arrimadas to disappear from the municipalities on the Barcelona periphery so that they can recover their former hegemony there without others able to challenge them. There are many mayoralties at stake to divert them from their goal. This is now the PSC's priority, not the Catalan language, which will, although this sounds harsh, end up being collateral damage.
And this, before even mentioning the Spanish government, which has even fewer doubts about its stand and continues to demonstrate its support for the family in Canet de Mar, always with a minister or two speaking out, the latest, the head of justice, Pilar Llop, demanding the school's compliance with what the court decreed. Meanwhile, the Madrid press has turned the case into a porn show of colossal dimensions talking about harassment, supremacism and other chestnuts. Those same media that have been extolling Ciudadanos for years and now, with that party practically gone - and debts repaid - they feel strong: there is a Popular Party that continues to wave the flag against immersion in Catalan, there is Vox that does not deceive anyone about its language preferences and there is a Socialist party which is more than comfortable mixing it in this antiquated company to defend a single language, undoing the steps that were taken in Spain's post-Franco transition.
The position of the Catalan government is certainly not easy. Especially when the parties that make it up - and, in part, the CUP too - are allergic to any alliances that would bring their votes together in self-defence. I have said this many times, and thus it will not hurt to say it again: the only language that is understood in imperial Madrid, the Moncloa palace and the parliaments of the Cortes Generales is the one that will bring them a defeat. In this case, in the Congress of Deputies. As long as this is not the case, over and over again, speeches can be made, but the complaints will not get through the epidermis of an establishment that has the hide of an elephant. The realpolitik is this and nothing else. This has always been the case and it is about change, not principles. Not about empathies, nor ideological families. There, when the PSOE and Vox have to agree, they do so. They’re not happy about it, and even less so with the image they present, but they do it. And as well, they mutually praise each other.
Learning this should not be so difficult. If judges act like this, it is because the law allows them to. It would be easier, and this would mean doing politics, to demand a change in the law that really protects Catalan. And, as long as that doesn’t happen, let them lose as many votes as it takes. Because there is no other way. Everything else is a beautiful castle in the air.