Straight from the source—in English

It is one of the great paradoxes of Catalonia that its language—a key piece of its culture, tradition, and indeed its identity—is also one of the obstacles for telling its story to the world. It's natural for Catalans to tell their stories and discuss issues that are important to them—their self-government, their culture, their history—in their own language—spoken by some 10 million people. And they do so through Catalan-language TV and radio, four major daily print papers and several online news portals, including VilaWeb, that publish in Catalan, and with around 8000 books in Catalan published each year.

But there is a problem: how does Catalonia's story get to the world if is told only in Catalan? And the answer is, mostly it doesn't. Traditionally, foreign correspondents of world-class newspapers in the Spanish state are based in Madrid. Not only are they dependent on and affected by Madrid's view of Catalonia, but because they generally don't know Catalan, they have difficulties contrasting that view with information that comes directly from Catalan sources. It's a bit of a double whammy.
And the effects of this dearth of first-hand information is readily apparent.

If you google Catalonia in the international press, you might think that Catalonia's demands for independence stem from selfishness, a fit of craziness from President Mas alone, or from xenophobic nationalism. But you'd be wrong. Catalonia is a net contributor both to the Spanish State and the EU—contributing 18 times more to Spain than German does to the EU; the independence movement began to gain steam after the Spanish Constitutional Court ruling against the Catalan Statute of Autonomy, and President Mas joined the movement only after the massive grassroots demonstration in favor of independence just 15 months ago; and Catalans are the first to insist that they have nothing against the Spanish, and hope to be good neighbors—they just want to choose their own destiny.

Of course, the story is much more complicated than that. It has to do with a long history, a cultural identity and peace-loving but implacable character that refuses to go away, and a firm belief that democracy is the way to decide a people's future. With a second massive demonstration just a few months ago that had more than 1.6 million people holding hands from one end of Catalonia to the other and the multi-party agreement to hold a referendum on independence on November 9th of this year, the world has suddenly turned its gaze in this direction. It's time we offered information about Catalonia straight from the source, in a language that the whole world understands: English. VilaWeb was the first online news portal in Catalan and our more than 1 million unique visitors each month make us one of the most visited sites for news about Catalonia online. Our new English edition will help explain Catalonia's story—during this particularly interesting year—to this new audience. 

Liz Castro is the coordinator for VilaWeb English. She is also the publisher of Catalonia Press, a small imprint that specializes in books about Catalonia in English, and is a bestselling computer book author. 

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It's time we offered information about Catalonia straight from the source, in a language that the whole world understands: English