iStock-1278391191.jpg
iStock-475323970.jpg

Balearic identity and richness of languages

The question of Balearic identity is a subject rich in debate, in the same way as in Catalonia or the Basque Country. It is in fact strongly linked to language. Since the Balearic Islands became an autonomous community, Catalan has been the official language of the archipelago. Accompanied by Castilian (Spanish), it is, in fact, a co-officiality, according to the terms used in the legal texts. The majority of the islanders claim to understand Catalan, but approximately 30% do not speak it. In reality, the use of Catalan is limited to political institutions. Public schools are supposed to teach in both languages from kindergarten onwards, which would facilitate a professional insertion in Catalonia, or a continuation of university studies on the mainland. But again, the reality is different: in schools, Castilian is the majority language in the classroom, and local dialects (Mallorquí in Mallorca, ibicenco

in Ibiza) are mainly spoken in the playground. These have even become symbols of nationalism for the older generation.

However, this official model has been threatened since 2013 by the reform of the education system of the government of José Ramón Bauzá (PP), which proposes a trilingual Catalan-Castilian-English system, reducing the hours of Catalan in favor of English. Despite its annulment by the Supreme Court in 2014, this reform has been the subject of much debate. Currently, with the Socialist Party in government since June 2015, tempers have calmed and the two languages are expected to regain a balance in schools. As a result of highly developed tourism, some foreign languages (English, German, Italian and French) are spoken quite fluently, in some areas of Mallorca and Ibiza. In Menorca, however, Catalan is still the most widely spoken language, as it is in Formentera, where it remains a linguistic mainstay, with 73% of the population knowing how to speak it and almost 90% understanding it. Although these last two islands have maintained a traditional identity, with age-old customs and traditions, the population has changed considerably in recent years. Formentera, for example, is nowadays very cosmopolitan and has almost 4,000 foreign residents, which is more than a third of the total population of the island.

It must be said that the Balearic Islands are also home to a good number of emigrants, working on all the islands. In 2009, the Balearic Islands were listed as the autonomous community in Spain with the highest percentage of foreigners, with more than 20% of immigrants. In other words, 1 in 5 people in the Balearic Islands is foreign. Mallorcans distinguish between locals and forasters (foreigners): this adjective refers to Spanish families from the peninsula. Strangely enough, tourists are better accepted than Spanish immigrants: a Madrilenian, even one who has lived in the Balearic Islands for more than ten years, will always remain a foraster . Among the main nationalities represented in the archipelago, Germany comes first, followed by Ecuador, Morocco and Argentina. Since 2010, the Balearic Islands have experienced a sharp decline in immigration as a direct result of the crisis. A trend that has been reversed in 2017 with an increase of 33% in the number of foreign immigrants.

Brief history of the hippie movement in Ibiza and Formentera

If Ibiza has acquired an international reputation with the arrival in large numbers of hippies in the 1960s, the island already enjoyed a reputation since the 1930s as a sanctuary of the sweet life. Indeed, many avant-garde European intellectuals and artists, forced to flee authoritarian regimes (the Spanish Civil War in particular), found refuge on the white island. After the Second World War, the world was gradually rebuilt and creativity and freedom became more important, so many artists already accustomed to the island began to flock again, soon joined by young Europeans and Americans, followers of the emerging hippie movement. For these souls in love with freedom and peace, with a healthy relationship with nature, Ibiza - but also its small neighbor Formentera - offers all the ingredients of happiness, so much so that hippie communities are quickly formed from the beginning of the 1960s, mainly in the rural areas of the center of the island.

If San Francisco is considered the cradle of the movement, London and Amsterdam, because of their cosmopolitan and bohemian atmosphere, are also important centers of this emerging culture. Nepal and India, considered suitable for the practice of meditation, are also top destinations. What Ibiza offers to hippies is a direct and simple contact with nature, a mild climate, but also a territory still spared from mass tourism. The inhabitants of the island received this new population with curiosity and kindness, calling them "peluts" ("hairy" in Catalan), because of their shaggy hair, and the coexistence was rather good. During this golden age of hippies in Ibiza (1965-1975), thinkers, artists, idealists and sweet dreamers returning to the land helped popularize the island and soon tourism began to gain ground, gradually diluting the authentic hippie spirit of the early days

... You can still get a taste of what those days were like by going to the Sunday market in Sant Joan, whose stalls of craftsmen are perhaps the most authentic on the island. The small cove of Atlantis or Punta Galera are also spots that still preserve the psychedelic magic of the 1960s. Also worth seeing is the gathering of drummers on the beach of Benirràs, every Sunday in the summer, at dusk. In 2016, a bronze sculpture of a hippie and his child (inspired by a famous photograph of the time) was inaugurated in the Marina d'Eivissa, as a tribute to this fundamental episode in the history and culture of Ibiza.