I guess I’m obviously a “catalufo”

1 min

In the terminology of Ms. Pibernat Vila, I am clearly an incarnation of the traditional "catalufo" (1) right-winger. It’s an odd thing: someone called Pibernat Vila has insulted several Villatoros (and many named Sánchez, Fernández, and Martínez) by calling us "catalufos".

Those who don’t understand what has been happening in this country might have sooner imagined that if one Pibernat Vila (2) was to call the Fernández of this country any bigoted names, she would have picked "xarnego (3)". But there are people with an aristocratic view of the world (whether on the right or left, aristocratic by blood or of a proletarian aristocracy) who hate those in the middle, the middle classes, the vulgar majority.

Given that many of the people who came from outside Catalonia, as well as their children and grandchildren, have joined the Catalan project, they are unequivocally from here and are part of the broad middle class that is leading the independence movement.

Now some aristocrats on the right and the left, with all their ancient Catalan surnames, are scorning us and calling us “catalufos”. Maybe this is the Catalan miracle, the best thing that has happened in this country: that, on top of all her self-loathing and with a grimace of disgust, one Pibernat Vila should now call us xarnegos “catalufos”.

___________

1 N.T. In Spanish “catalufo” is an offensive, contemptuous term for a Catalan. It was possibly first coined by combining the words “Catalan” and “Pitufo” (“Smurf” in Spanish, the popular cartoon characters called Les Schtroumpfs in the original French).

2 N.T. Both “Pibernat” and “Vila” are surnames of ancient Catalan stock.

3 N.T. “Xarnego” is a derogatory term for people who had immigrated to Catalonia from other parts of Spain and did not speak Catalan.

stats