Wednesday, August 20, 2008

'The Future is Mine', I'm pretty sure he said in his own language

I was reading some rubbish in the comments section of a Spanish webpage called Meneame (Stir Me Up) at http://meneame.net/ which collects stuff from the Internet of note to its editors and brings it to the attention of its readers, which apparently include a generous sprinkling of those small-minded nationalists and thin-skinned patriots who are eternally worried that Spain might lose face in some august journal printed elsewhere in the world.
And why not, every service and inclination is available on the Internet, from the Screwsden's pornography site Contactsonline dot es to Why I Hate the President dot nit. I mean net.
The particular rubbish alluded to started with an article about nationalisms and regional languages and quickly descended into what turds we, the Brits are. Drunk, useless, ignorant, monolingual and the rest of it. Well, the literally hundreds of comments on this fascinating topic were written – I have to say (contentiously) – by under-educated trolls and bored teenagers who need to get out more. I make no more apologies for them.
But Gibraltar came up. Anything to do with a discussion about the English always ends up with some pathetic attack against Gibraltar ('The English’ as they are known here rather than ‘The British’, since it is abundantly clear that the rest of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are obviously all under the Jackboot of Westminster).
‘Gibraltar is a colony and should be Spanish’.
Sounds good to me. Let me walk you though what would happen.

1 Gibraltar becomes part of Spain. English is by necessity added to Spanish, Galego, Euskara, Valenciano, and Català as another official language of the Spanish State.
2 Gibraltar sues for independence from Spain, supported by the Basques, the Galicians, the Catalonians, the Mallorcans, (some of) the Valencians, the people from Cartagena in Murcia and the Olivencians. And, of course, by the British.
3 Gibraltar, currently a bi-lingual society, decides to remove castellano from its school curriculum.
4 Manuel Chaves, the Robert Mugabe of Europe, decides that Andalucía must become an independent state and he crowns himself emperor. The andaluces are forced to learn ninth century Arabic.
5 Those of us who wish to remain living in Spain will eventually be obliged to move to one of the only two areas which will never (ever) reject their true loyalty to the King and the orange and yellow flag. Ceuta and Melilla.

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