Marzal, Antonio

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert

O P I N I O N  
CATALONiA AS 
A C I V I L  S O C I E T Y  
here is no doubt that Catalonia is made up of 
many things. But if there is anything that identifies 
it and differentiates it within the context of Spain, 
it is the consistent, penistent fad  of its being a 
society of people. More than anything else, over 
and above anything else, Catalonia, as a cultural 
and historical reality, as a people, is, can only be 
described as, a civil socieiy. 
This fad  is not an insignifiCant one. Nowadays, 
the fadon in a modern society which are most highly valued by 
al1 are, on the one hand, differentiation, and on the other, co- 
existente. In my opinion, this is exactly the case in Catalonia, 
precisely because, above al1 else, it is a society of people: a 
society of people and, as such, different from others; a society of 
people and, as such, able to co-exist with othen. 
Modern Catalan historiography has -with excessive ideological 
content, in my opinion- centred on the question of whether 
present-day Catalonia was created by the bourgeoisie or by the 
popular classes. The debate centres around the arguments of 
bourgeois industrial revolution or anarcliist tradition. What no- 
one seems to question, however, is that, whether popular or 
bourgeois, Catalonia is an independent produd of its own 
population's social demands. And here the bourgeois and the 
anarchist arguments go hand in hand and are both equally valid. 
Language, and its cultural expression in the form of linguistic 
culture, culture derived from and supported by language, is a 
poweríul differentiating fador in Catalonia, they soy. But an even 
more poweríul differentiating factor, although less often 
mentioned, is Catalonia as a socieiy of people, and its cultural 
expression, this time in the anthropologists' sense of the term, of a 
culture derived from and built on the memben of the society 
themselves. 
It is possible to imagine the loss of the language of Catalonia. In 
this purely hypothetical case, it is probable that Catalan socieiy 
itself would eventually reconstrud it. Long experience of a history 
of aggression against the language on the pari of political power 
and of a civil resistance able to reconstrud and recreate new 
splendoun guarantee this. On the other hand, if the Catalan 
people's society as a culture were to be lost, it is difficult to 
imagine that the language would be able to reconstrud it. 
Whatever the linguists soy, Catalan can be spoken with a strange 
accent, that is to soy, with a different way of perceiving and 
evaluating the stimuli received by a given society, which is how, as 
a society, it is born and constituted. 
My intention is not to confront culture as a 
linguistic cultural expression and culture as an 
anthropological cultural expression thus defined. 
I simply wish to take a fresh look, from a different 
viewpoint, but one which, in my opinion, is more 
valid, at this imporiant fad  that Catalonia is a 
society made up of people, by nature open to 
differentiation and co-existente. 1 believe that Pla 
meant precisely this when, pointing at the fields 
of the Ernpordb, he said that Catalonia had been created by 
notaries public. 
Also, I look at it in this way for another reason. This Catalan civil 
society, which for so long has shown its consistence and its 
penistence, is today besieged by a serious threat; that of its own 
political autonomy. I am not, of coune, opposed to this autonomy, 
only against a ceriain way of undentanding it, against the 
temptation to plan the strudure of Catalonia as a political 
supentrudure, substituting civil society, through political mimicry 
of the Spanish context, in which Catalonia -the resistant Catalan 
society- has always managed to survive. Barcelona should not 
be turned into a ~olitical imitation of Madrid. What should be 
done, on the other hand, is to teach Madrid form Barcelona - o r  
better still, from Catalonia- to plan and reform its policies and 
put them at the service of the civil society so as to strengthen it. 
Less ministies and more civil agencies would be my formula, my 
ideal model for Catalan ~olitical administration. 
Some people with nationalist outlooks misundentand rny words, 
because they share the Hegelian concept that a nation's single 
pumose is to be the embrvo of a State. Either we become a state 
o rbe  cease to be a natioi, they think. To me, this argument 
smacks of the disquisitions of the nineteenth century canonists, 
who regarded the Church as a peded socieiy, and for that 
reason wanted to make it conform to the model of the modern 
State. But historically the Church has always been more consistent 
-apar t  from older- than the modern State. And one could 
preach something similar in the case of nations. The concept of 
State is much more recent than that of nation. In my opinion, the 
concept of Nation is an essentially civil concept (in terms of 
cultural anthropology), is earlier than that of State (in terms of 
time) and more consistent than that of State (in terms of social 
applicability). History, recent history, is full of examples of this. 
That is why I put the more rigid nationalists' arguments back to 
front. Either Catalonia/nation is a civil socieiy or it ceases to be a 
nation. It could even cease to be Catalonia. 
ANTONIO M A R Z A L  A U T O N O M O U S  U N I V E R S I T Y  O F  B A R C E L O N A  


Catalonia as a Civil Society

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Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert