Vernaclism
A referential framework and a path related to identity
“The Utopians learn the sciences in their own language
or vernacular, which is rich, harmonious, and a faithful interpreter of
thought.”
(Utopia, by Thomas More)
Cited by Jordi Salat in the book Vernaclística.
Jordi Salat wrote in a tweet dated 18/05/2024:
Vernaclístic thinking will lead Catalonia and the
genuine ideal of the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon to spearhead the
resurgence and success of natural, original, or genuine nations on an
international level. The path is the Vernaclístic Way.
I don't know whether what Jordi Salat claims will
happen exactly like that, but I do believe that Vernaclism is a philosophy that
must be part of the better future we desire for the Catalan Nation and for all
Humanity.
Surely, in that horizon, the reference frameworks of
thought that will guide us will no longer be a single doctrine against all
others—as has happened until now in a system of closed, mutually exclusive
dogmas—but rather resemble a constellation of diverse philosophical sources
that add up in the same liberating direction, where the Genius Loci
(Spirit of the Place) of each people becomes the true foundation of an
authentic planetary interculturality.
And in this project of liberating nations and peoples,
I believe Vernaclism must occupy a prominent place, because it explains how
things should be if we wish to preserve the wisdom and cultural heritage
accumulated by humankind.
In this sense, Jordi Salat’s book becomes an essential
proposal, because the core of his reflection, once read, can no longer be
ignored.
On this journey proposed by Salat, you can accompany
him far or stay closer—but if you truly dream of the freedom of all the world’s
peoples and cultures, it will be impossible not to wish him well.
As Catalans, it is inevitable to relate Salat’s work
to the reflection on why the outcome of the independence process, which
culminated in the Self-Determination Referendum of October 1, 2017, was so
disappointing.
Today we know that, while supposedly advancing toward
the recovery of freedom for the Catalonia occupied south of the Pyrenees, we
were emptying ourselves of national, cultural, and linguistic substance.
Paradoxically, the closer we came to independence, the
less Catalan we were. And so, the crushing repression by Spain ended up being
like water falling on already soaked ground—watered down by ourselves as we
self-diluted into an unrecognizable, soulless nation, a national nothingness,
while contradictorily claiming independence for a non-existent national
community.
It is here that Jordi Salat’s Vernaclism opens a
horizon of hope to rebuild ourselves as a people in extremis, on the
very eve of disappearing forever.
It fills us with light and reasons to return to our
origins, contemplating the culture of each place as the most natural fact for
imagining a truly human-scale Humanity. It reminds us that the vernacular
language of each land is much more than a communication tool: it is a cultural
and intellectual system of its own, an instrument linked to the habitat and to
nature—from which our creativity emerges and upon which the progress of
Humanity has been built (and where even quantum physics has something to say).
Because where vernacular languages reign—where the Genius
Loci of peoples can be expressed—there is creative freedom. But where
vernacular cultures have been suffocated and made uniform, we speak of
something else: submission and slavery.
Yet to rebuild ourselves nationally, we must know who
we are, where we come from, and where we are headed. And for that, the book Vernaclística
once again offers us an essential, holistic roadmap—where the part is in the
Whole, and the Whole is in the part. For Vernaclism allows us to guide
ourselves in rediscovering who we are: our Catalan being.
A way of being, thinking, and doing that is truly our
own—with a Genius Loci and a singular spirit opposed to the imperialist
spirit that built Spain at the cost of destroying the nations occupied by
Castile.
But the recovery of who we are and where we come from,
as proposed by Salat, goes far beyond an intellectual discovery. It is also a
reclaiming of our stolen self-esteem, an act of love toward ourselves as a historical,
distinct, and distinguishable people.
It is an invitation to once again be a luminous and
influential nation in the international context—not through war, but through
peace. Through the scientific and philosophical thought we can contribute as Catalans
inspired by Ramon Llull, Francesc Pujols, Alexandre Deulofeu, Jacint Verdaguer,
Puig i Cadafalch, Josep Trueta, Antoni Gaudí, and so many others.
However, the fascinating journey into the past that
Vernaclism suggests has no final destination. One can always go further—like
the Journey to Ithaca by Cavafy, set to music by Lluís Llach, one of the
author’s favorite singer-songwriters. Because in the exploration of our past
and in the recovery of a coherent historical cultural path of the Catalan way of
doing—based on freedom, justice, and the ways of reason and seny—the
thread connecting the Catalan Nation with the culture of the Occitans, the
Cathars, the Arian Christians, zodiacalism, Hellenism, the Bellonids, the
Baalites, etc., is no anecdote.
On the contrary, entering this erased tunnel of time
through which the nation has traveled and endured becomes, for Salat, a
necessity—if we wish to grasp the authentic (original) Catalan Spirit and
understand what our mission is in the world.
And indeed, Vernaclística is an exercise in
regaining self-esteem on a path that will take us as far as we are willing to
go, challenging our own culturally self-hating prejudices imposed by
unquestionable mental colonization—the result of centuries of violent
occupation. For Vernaclística connects the recovery of our national
identity, our own Catalan way of being, with the bonds this human community has
woven since the beginning with universal core values that have continued to
express and reproduce themselves over the centuries through the cultural nation
of the Catalans.
From the symbolism of the four elements of nature in
the four bars of the senyera (earth, sea, air, and fire) on a golden
background (the Vernal Point, the creative sun, the apocalypse understood as
revelation or birth), to the Catalans' confederal constitutionalism—almost
unique in the world and an expression of a human organizational model based on
equitable agreement and respect for the other’s freedom (vernaclistic freedom).
And in between, as an indestructible glue, the recovery of the triad of
Truth-Goodness-Beauty as a human guide of immutable principles that defines the
universal spirit of a people.
And as for where we are going? Regarding our spiritual
mission in the planetary future, Jordi Salat offers a final answer grounded in
what is scientific and natural and self-evident: the vernaclístic
nationalism that Catalans desire for ourselves is, in line with our confederal
approach, the same that we demand for the rest of the peoples of the Earth: a
new vernaclístic world order.
That is, a universal confederation of vernacular
nations.
And if anyone still isn’t convinced to climb this
ladder toward liberating understanding, know this: this is serious—and at the
top, there is a tree and a flag.
Miquel
R.
Wifala flag
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