What place does Catalanism have today? Should it be redefined? How can the language be better integrated into a globalized world and be a part of the digital revolution?
These are some of the issues that were addressed yesterday at the Escola del Treball, within the grounds of the Industrial School of Barcelona. The XXI Born Day took place there, the first stone to lay the foundations for the creation of the Nou Congrés de Cultura Catalana, an event that is expected to take place in about two years and which aims to continue the one that took place between 1975 and 1977.
More than 12,000 people and 1,500 entities signed up for different conferences that took place over two years and that sought to set a series of objectives related to the normalization of the language, the defense of people's rights and culture. An unprecedented social movement at a historic moment of the end of the Franco regime.
"That congress meant an before and after in the culture of a country that was drowned during the dictatorship. From there arose, among many others, the Association of Writers in the Catalan Language (AELC). All thanks to popular involvement", reminded La Vanguardia Agustí Alcoberro, president of the Fundació Congrés de Cultura Catalana, who is behind this initiative that promotes repeating the movement almost five decades later.
The challenges facing society today are very different from those back then. “Now, for example, we talk about care and feminism, something that was not even raised in its day. And we are also interested in issues that were unimaginable at the time, such as the presence of Catalan on platforms like Netflix or social networks or the adaptation of words that come from another language. It is for this reason that we have brought together lawyers, editors, writers, doctors and many other professions to share conclusions”, points out Esteve Plantada, director of the Nou Congrés.
Throughout the morning, the attendees participated in different debates in which they analyzed how we maintain ourselves, how we communicate, how we take care of ourselves and how we unite. "Four areas that allow us to draw the path to follow in the coming years," concludes Plantada, who reports that "sooner rather than later" this roadmap will be announced, as well as the date of the new congress.
