This is a second blog for today. And it will only be relevant to those who not only have an interest in Galician nationalism but who have also read the long comment by Xoan Carlos to my blog of 3 February. In this he made a number of points and I give my immediate response to these below. Tomorrow I will make some more general comments on this theme.

Xoan Carlos, I have abbreviated [for the sake of the readers] some of your comments/queries. But I hope I haven’t done you any injustices. My responses are in italics:-

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION: As a lawyer, I was wondering whether you know much about racial discrimination laws in the U.K.
In a word, No. But the interesting thing – given that definitions are so important but difficult – is to note that some people would not regard the English, Scots and Welsh as being different ‘races’, even if their countries are different nations. As I may have said, American readers have trouble with me referring to the Spanish as a race. One man’s nation is another man’s community. Or even ‘region’.

I doubt Spanish discrimination laws (racial, sexual or other) are as developed, but it does make Roberto Blanco Valdes’ quote (“For Galicia to define itself as a nation would have the same juridical value as if it called itself an Atlantic bonsai or country of the Celts – none.”) seem overly dismissive.
I disagree. He was talking juridically and therefore using ‘nation’ in a commonly accepted way [meaning ‘state’] and not in the culture-centred way you define it. He means, as I’m sure you know, that it would have no legal effect anywhere in the world. Which, though ‘muy seco’, is surely true.

You direct me to Spanish dictionaries to find unflattering terms such as ‘galleguismo’ but I could direct you to the verb ‘to welsh’ in any English dictionary. Despite the race discrimination laws in the UK, this remains as an insult to the welsh. Or would be if they chose to see it that way. If they ever did, they can laugh at it now.

BARBARIC HISPANICS: Regarding the move to amend “barbarically hispanicised” names I should note that my name was barbarically prevented from being “Galicianised” by the Spanish authorities [who] ignore not just my Galician heritage, but my birth certificate.
I have no hesitation in agreeing this is wrong. But is it really anti-Galician or is it just the sort of stupid Spanish bureaucracy which stops people choosing whatever name they like for their children?

GOING GLOBAL GALICIAN: You’re right that I should avoid giving myself as an example of how fluency in Galician is useful outside Galicia. I should therefore probably suggest you go to any of the Galician or Portuguese establishments in the Portobello/Ladbroke Grove areas of west London to see how many Galicians and Portuguese work, live and play together
This is nice but Spanish speakers probably have alternative places in London and elsewhere. And no one is suggesting that anyone be deprived of this pleasure by being prevented from learning Gallego. The issue is not What is intrinsically good or bad? but Which alternative is better in a wider context?

GALICIAN EDUCATION: As I understand it, the new legislation will only require at least 50% of “material” (presumably lessons and text books) to be in Galician as opposed to the prior minimum of 33%.
My understanding is that in selected schools all lessons will be in Gallego.

Given that Galician is still the preferred language for the majority of people in Galicia (~65% of the total) I can’t see what problem Spanish speakers would have
I think you’ll find that 65 % is the figure for the those who say they can understand Gallego. It’s not the percentage of people who prefer to use Gallego in daily life.

As for teachers having to present their lesson plans in Galician, if my children were in school in Galicia, I would be very concerned if a teacher was unable to do this. . . Teachers who have to get translators to translate their lesson plans to Galician aren’t fit for the job
Again, this is not the point. All the teachers I know here can and do speak Gallego. But they choose not to unless they are speaking to people who prefer to talk in Gallego. They regard the imposition of a requirement to produce their plans only in Gallego as the sort of restriction on their freedom that you complain of in respect of your Galician name. So they ‘rebel’ by using a computer program.

FIRE: With regards to fire-fighters, shouldn’t people working with the general public be able to communicate with them, especially where health and safety is concerned.
Once again, not the point. The fireman from Ferrol who was fired in fact routinely spoke Gallego. But he lacked the formal certificate proving this. He was sacked for doctrinaire reasons.

If my monolingual nonagenarian grandmother said to a fireman in her village “Vai axiña que o lume está a bulir pola costa daquele outeiro”, for my grandmother’s safety . . . I would like the fire-fighter to be Galician-speaking.
Last august, fire-fighters came to Galicia from all over Spain. Would you stop them because they couldn’t understand mono-linguists such as your grandmother? Bad cases, as we ex-lawyers say, make bad laws.

U.S.A. I don’t live in the USA [but] even if I did, I don’t understand why you would say that I’d have nothing to tolerate.
I feel you have a more theoretical view of the issues than those fellow Galicians who live and work here. And I think it is driven more by a sense of grievance than anything else.

One huge difference with Catalunia is that here there is a big class divide. I’m sure you know this and maybe it grates with you. But it is a fact and can’t be ignored. Rightly or wrongly, the middle class here regard Gallego as a peasant language and are not going to learn/use it however much they are leant on to do so. Trying to force them to do so is every bit as fascistic as repressing Gallego under Franco. This is not to say that Gallego shouldn’t be promoted, merely that there is a sensible limit to this in the face of local realities. And equities.

WELSH: Any sort of sociolinguistic comparison between Galician and Welsh raises too many differences to say that Galicia should follow the Welsh linguistic model: Galician is the majority in Galician, whereas Welsh is spoken by only ~26% of the population of Wales.
See my previous comments. I seriously doubt that Gallego can ever become what you refer to as the vehicular language. The brutal truth is that, even if 65% favour it, they are the wrong 65%. Contrast Catalunia. Attempts to compel otherwise really do seem to me to be counter-productive.

CATALUÑA: I would like to know what Edith Grossman says in her footnote regarding the use of the Spanish spelling as opposed to the English “Catalonia”. I would suspect that she has done this to distinguish the modern region/nation/autonomous community of Catalonia, from the Eastern half of the Kingdom of Aragon, which at the time of Cervantes’ work probably would have had different borders.
She doesn’t explain anything. She just uses it, as in:-'This was the name for perfectly bilingual Moors who had lived among Christians. They often came from the ancient kingdom of Aragón, which included present-day Aragón, Catalunia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands'. The case rests.

However, if we’re all permitted to start our own trends, applying place names based on tenuous geographical references, do you have any objections to me using the term “Mozarabia” to refer to the rest of Spain excluding Galicia?
None whatsoever. But, unlike in my case, no one would have the slightest idea of where you were talking about.

YORKSHIRE/MERSEYSIDE: Although some of the definitions I’ve used to argue why Galicia is a nation could be applied to Yorkshire, any suggestion that the latter is a nation is more than a little bit churlish. There’s more to the argument than just shared cultural values and identity. Do you think that if a Spanish guy living in Leeds decided to start a Spanish language blog he’d have as broad a debate on Yorkshire’s “nationhood” as you’ve had on your blog? The concept of Galicia’s nationhood is a real one. Yorkshire’s isn’t
Possibly but I am unconvinced that this is anything like a majority view amongst Galicians.

The concept of Galicia as a Nation in its modern sense has a long historical precedence, and contrary to frequent suggestions on your blog, isn’t the exclusive domain of the nationalist parties but an idea that is also shared by many of those voting for the Socialist Party
See my previous comment. No one, of course, is preventing you and others from having this view. What we are really debating is not what happened centuries ago or how many people here feel ‘nationalistic’ or whether it is good or bad to feel proud to be Galician but what is good for Galicia in the future. I am reminded of a comment in one of Steinbeck’s novels along the lines of “I’ve had enough of ‘isms’ and ‘ocracies. Give me facts.”