The integration to a people by Oriol de Marcos

Original article in Catalan published in 2022: La integració a un poble

Edited Machine Translation

In 1964 Els altres catalans (The other Catalans) was published, a book in which Francesc Candel addresses the Catalan reader of the time to make him understand the perspective of the Castilian immigrants who had arrived in Catalonia during the 20th century. The book was an immediate success. It touched on an unresolved issue in Catalan society at that time and offered a rather optimistic perspective, describing how the second generations of immigrants grow up knowing how to speak Catalan and identifying to a greater or lesser extent with the land where their parents had emigrated parents Candel's implicit thesis is that time dissolves the identity of the first generations and increases the sense of belonging among the new ones.

The demographic reality has changed over the course of the last sixty years, but we still haven't been able to solve the enigma of integration. Today, there is still a range of conceptions about what it means to be Catalan. On the extreme left, it is proclaimed that anyone who lives and works in Catalonia is Catalan, an exclusively geographical conception of Catalanness. On the extreme right, there are those who believe that being part of a nation is only a matter of lineage. Between these two points is probably the majority opinion, which in one way or another would affirm that anyone who speaks Catalan is Catalan. Each of the aforementioned perspectives, despite being partially true, lacks the vital element of a sense of belonging: fidelity.

A more complete and fruitful paradigm than the previous ones can be found in our own spiritual heritage. The book of Ruth, the eighth of the Old Testament, illustrates the biblical conception of how to become part of a people in which you were not born. The book narrates how Naomi, a woman from Bethlehem, escapes hunger with her family and settles in a foreign land, where her children marry local women. After the death of her children, Naomi decides to return to Bethlehem alone, but Rut, one of her beloved daughters-in-law, decides to accompany her. Ruth says to Naomi some words that still resonate: "Don't force me to leave you and move away from your side; where you go, I will go; I will live where you live; your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die, and that's where I want to be buried."

Ruth's words encapsulate the essence of what it means to be part of a new people. They start with the most primary human bond, the need to be close to one another. They continue with the affirmation of wanting to belong and to make their own identity for the first time. He invokes loyalty to what his new people hold sacred, and finally intertwines his personal destiny with the collective destiny, declaring that the commitment will stand until his last day. Ruth, at that moment, becomes the first outsider to become part of the Hebrew people. The fruit of his marriage with a prohom from Bethlehem will be the grandfather of King David.

The book of Ruth offers a solid paradigm, with a transcendent sense of belonging, because it focuses on the concrete and particular relationship of the newcomer with the country and not on abstractions and superficial criteria. In the Catalan context, it teaches us that the fact of living in Catalonia and speaking the language are not qualifications that need to be proven in order to receive the approval of the sentinel who guards the portal of Catalanity, but are manifestations of a previous commitment that has altered the identity of a person and that has welded their future with that of the Catalan people.

The passage from outside to inside, right now, is gradual and informal, even instinctive. There is no specific moment when the change occurs and no ceremony to formalize it. Other collectives, such as religions and states, have ritualized the process to establish a border between the outside and the inside of the group. Through baptism a person becomes part of the Church and from one moment to the next, suddenly, his soul opens to salvation. Among the secular examples, the naturalization ceremony of England stands out, in which one swears allegiance to the Queen, affirms the adoption of English values and, after welcoming the new citizen, plays the national anthem. Today, thanks to the internet, we have access to thousands of recordings of these rituals. You almost don't even have to pay attention to realize that emotions, on these occasions, are running high, and those who embark on a path like this feel that the ceremony is the culminating point. The Catalan people, without a State or a national religion, do not count - for now - with anything that comes close. Does Catalan culture have enough vitality to embark on an attempt to formalize the naturalization process in our people?

Be that as it may, the conceptual framework offered by the book of Ruth can be the stone on which to build a new approach to integration. An approach that fills the current void, that imposes itself on the taboos that bind us and that has enough strength to become the starting point of concrete policies.