Manuel Trallero is a rather ironic fellow whom I often disagree with--he does a good bit of America-bashing--but who can't stand the current Catalan government, either. Here's his bit in today's Vanguardia about Convergence and Union "conseller en cap" Artur Mas and the reprehensible proposal on immigration that he made in Quebec the other day. I'll let Trallero explain it.

Artur Mas, on his recent trip to Canada, requested the power to stamp the seal of approval on immigrants' papers, and that they then go to the window that says "Spain" to take care of the rest. The conseller en cap wants them with their Spanish and Catalan well-learned. I really don't think that's too much to ask. I think they should arrive already knowing "El virolai" by heart, eating "mongetes amb botifarra", playing dominoes, knowing what a caganer is, and being able to identify the Barça forward line that one season won the Five Cups. Dancing sardanas, giving a rose and a book on St. Jordi's Day, and watching Buenafuente's TV program get a better score.

We want hand-picked immigrants, nice and showered, and if possible baptized and converted to the true faith that created Europe. It doesn't matter if their names are Mohammed and Fatima as long as their children are named Jordi and Montse. From what we've seen, this and only this is what so-called integration consists of. This is a policy that has had wonderful results in the Francophone province of Canada. Thanks to the vote of the immigrants--to their vote against, of course--Quebec has lost one after another the successive referendums for independence. So, it seems, we Catalans, as usual, do it our way and fail again.

It is, without a doubt, a great achievement that, to carry out such a selection, Catalonia will have its own foreign representatives. And it's an even greater achievement, if that's possible, to have named the same gentleman who left the Republican Left with the contents of the strongbox to found another party, the PI, which he abandoned after an unprecented electoral disaster, to reappear now in a third, Convergence and Union, to become nothing more and nothing less than our man in Morocco. It is at the very least curious that those who wish to enjoy the alleged benefits of the Catalan dream may come to think that all of us Catalans are like Mr. Ángel Colom, a real example for children.

To sum up, we want immigrants who are perfect to preserve our national identity, when, precisely, Catalonia's national identity has consisted of "I tripped and fell here, I guess I'll stay here", as far as the 21st century, which is not just turkey snot. But what does not seem fine to me is that only immigrants have to be perfect, and the rest of the citizens, what about them? So, therefore, I'm anxiously awaiting the day that our authorities pass out certificates of perfect Catalanity, just like you used to have to get a certificate of good conduct in order to get a passport or a drivers' license. They'll probably make me repeat the course in September.

Someone mentioned my Catalan wife. See, my wife is a Catalan girl from the country. She laughs at the idea of anyone handing out certificates of Catalanity because no one could possibly deny her one. She doesn't think Barcelona is a really Catalan city; Catalan people, to her, are from the country and the small towns. She is always polite, but she snickers behind their backs at people who always go around trying to prove they're more Catalan than you. Those people, you see, all have a Castilian surname sometime in their recent genealogy. She doesn't. She's got nothing to prove to anybody. Also, here in Barcelona, a lot of people don't understand country Catalan. What they speak here is an either an educated, artificial "RP Catalan" dialect, like the one they use on TV Catalunya--Remei's friend Gemma, for example, uses that dialect--or a popular dialect heavily influenced in vocabulary and pronunciation by Spanish.

Watching Remei interact with other people in Barcelona is interesting. (In the country, she just uses Catalan.) When we go into a shop, there's always a little bit of feeling the other person out. If the other person seems to be a natural Catalan speaker, Remei instantly goes into country Catalan and you can see the other person's eyes light up a little--"One of us!" If the other person uses Spanish or not-very-good Catalan, she seamlessly flows into Spanish. I am convinced she doesn't do this consciously. I know she doesn't discriminate either, but I note we return to places where they speak Catalan--the basket shop down by the market, the bathroom fittings shop on Providencia, the lighting shop up on the Travessera de Dalt.

One important thing is that country people in Catalonia are pretty much the same as country people anywhere else in northeastern and north central Spain, as in Aragon or Old Castile or Navarra. They just speak a different language, but they think in similar ways--except politically--and they do similar things and live in a similar way. The food is a little different, OK, but that's about it. They're more like one another than either is like the country people of Andalusia to the south or the country people of France to the north. It's the city people, the "we've gotta-prove-we're more-Catalan-than-you" folks, who seize on minor or even invented regional customs (dancing sardanas, building human towers, holding correfocs) and regional foods (escudella i carn d'olla, tomato bread, all i oli, calçots) and declare them the heart and soul of Catalanity. Country people blow all that stuff off (except for the food) and watch the Barça and Spanish TV variety shows while listening to Spanish and international pop music.

Country people even have insulting names for Barcelona people; they are "quemacus", because they always say "Que maco!" (Wow, that's beautiful") when shown something countryish like, say, a field, or they are "pixapins" (pine-pissers), because they stop their cars by the side of the road to take a leak. Barcelona is "Can Fanga", "Mudville". I occasionally refer to Barcelona as Mudville on this blog; that's why. Girona, by the way, is "Can Fums", "Smoketown". Hey, Jesús Gil, next time Barça comes to play in Atlético's stadium, you guys ought to make a big banner telling the Barça players to go back to Can Fanga. Rhyme it with "pachanga". That would "meter un gol a" the Barça fans, since that's a name used only in rural Catalonia. The players wouldn't get it because they're all from Holland and Argentina.