<< | Índex | >>

Juan Ferrando Badía

Ferrando Badía

Juan Ferrando Badía (Foios [Horta Nord] 1926 - València 2007) personifies perfectly Valencian self-hatred and the Blaverists' background of Castilianism. He was man from the Valencian upper class, and he also made a career as a Professor of Political and Constitutional Law in Castilian lands (Madrid, Valladolid, Salamanca).

It is said that he was one of those who had the "idea" of creating anti-Catalanism in the Valencian Country together with the aforementioned Fernando Abril Martorell and Gustavo Villapalos (who we will talk about), gathered in a cabal meeting in Madrid.

The truth is that this man devoted himself fully to the anti-Catalanist task from all the forums he could, all favored by his definitive arrival at the University of València in 1979. Thus from his own classes, from his repetitive and obsessive articles in "Las Provincias" to his participation in the Valencian Council of Culture, this individual spread anti-Catalanism as much as he could.

During the Spanish transition, he also actively collaborated with the GAV and protected, through his contacts in the legal world, violent young anti-Catalan ultra-rightists, such as Sergio Pérez Antón, who, this way, despite having a sinister history of anti-Catalan violence, was never arrested or condemned.

After retiring from the University, he suffered from severe mental illness due to Alzheimer's disease, and died in December 2007.

We have found a complete biographical profile of him, with special attention to his participation in the nascent anti-Catalanism, in the book "La Pesta Blava", by Vicent Bello (València. Ed. Tres i Quatre. 1988. 331). Let's see what it tells us (though the information refers to the year of publication of that book):

"Juan Ferrando Badía és catedràtic de Dret Polític a la Universitat de València. Actiu militant blaver, és col.laborador de la revista del GAV Som. Està considerat un hereu ideològic del franquista Diego Sevilla Andrés. Se l'ha vinculat a l'Opus Dei, però existeixen raons que fan poc probable que pogués ser-ne membre de dret. Manté certa classe de contactes internacionals, que són uns dels motius pels quals viatja de tant en tant a Amèrica Llatina. Relacionat, des de fa anys, amb el Departament d'Estat USA, ha estat membre del Council of Scholars de la Biblioteca del Congrés de Washington (Levante, 2-2-1982, p.1) i pertany a l'Associació Americana de Ciències Polítiques. Amb tota probabilitat, Juan Ferrando Badía va ser una de les persones que, per mitjà d'informacions sui generis sobre la situació al País Valencià, en els anys de la transició a la democràcia, va cooperar perquè el Departament d'Estat USA realitzàs una valoració falsa sobre la situació social i política als Països Catalans, tot exagerant fantàsticament el factor independentista. Probablement tampoc no era aliena a aquest objectiu la línia informativa del diari Las Provincias, que publicava enquestes en què el percentatge d'opinió independentista havia estat umflat. Tot això, òbviament, aniria destinat a obtenir una disposició favorable al naixement del blaverisme des del Departament d'Estat USA i des de l'Estat espanyol que governava UCD. Un altre vaticanista de dreta dura, amic de Ferrando Badía, de Baltasar Bueno i d'Eduardo Chuliá (líder del carlisme de dreta valencià) és Gustavo Villapalos. catedràtic d'Història del Dret que des de 1987 és rector de la Universitat Complutense de Madrid" [Pp. 157-8 n. 6).

"Juan Ferrando Badía is a professor of Political Law at the University of València. An active militant Blaverist, he collaborates with the GAV's magazine, Som. He is considered an ideological heir of the Francoist Diego Sevilla Andrés. He has been linked to Opus Dei, but there are reasons why he is unlikely to be a full member. He maintains some kind of international contacts, which is one of the reasons why he travels to Latin America from time to time. He has been linked, for many years, to the U.S. Department of State, he has been a member of the Council of Scholars of the Washington Library of Congress (Levante, 2-2-1982, p. 1) and belongs to the American Political Science Association. Juan Ferrando Badía was most likely one of the people who, through sui generis information on the situation in the Valencian Country, in the years of the Spanish transition to democracy, cooperated so that the U.S. State Department could make a false assessment of the social and political situation in the Catalan Countries, fantastically exaggerating the pro-independence factor. The information line of the newspaper Las Provincias, which published polls in which the percentage of pro-independence opinion had been inflated, was probably not alien to this goal either. All this, obviously, would be aimed at obtaining a favorable disposition to the birth of Blaverism from the U.S. State Department and from the Spanish state governed by the UCD. Another hard-right Vaticanist, a friend of Ferrando Badía, Baltasar Bueno and Eduardo Chuliá (leader of Valencian right-wing Carlism) is Gustavo Villapalos, professor of History of Law who since 1987 has been the dean of the Complutense University of Madrid "`[Pp. 157-8 n. 6).

Here are two small examples of his anti-Catalan style. His first article recalls, in its arguments, Manuel Broseta's "La paella dels Països Catalans", that we have already seen. In the other article, Ferrando, without being a philologist, makes forays into this field and ventures to assert the existence of a Valencian language different to Catalan based on an erroneous deduction, which we have already refuted (different denomination = different language [1]).

We must comment on a serious mistake that Ferrando makes in the second article (something logical, since he enters a field of study that is not his own one and that he does not control), and at the same time, a certain manipulation must be pointed out. At the beginning, he makes an incomplete transcription of the conclusion of the prologue in Francesc Eiximenis' "Regiment de la Cosa Pública", in the part that interests him. We, in honor of the truth, are going to completely transcribe this part:

"Per totes aquestes coses e raons ha volgut Nostre Senyor Déu que poble valencià sia poble especial e elet entre los altres de tota Espanya. Car com sia vengut e eixit, per la major partida, de Catalunya, e li sia al costat, emperò no es nomena poble català, ans per especial privilegi ha propri nom e es nomena poble valencià"

"For all these things and reasons, Our Lord God has wanted the people of Valencia to be a special and chosen people among others from all over Spain. Since it has come, for the most part, from Catalonia, and it backs Catalonia, however it is not called Catalan people, but by special privilege it has its own name and it is called Valencian people"

But what's more. The eminent Swiss researcher Curt Wittlin has shown in his magnificent article (published in a Valencian magazine by the way) "The 1499 edition of the Regiment de la Cosa Pública. The revisions and amplifications to the text, the dedicatory and the farewell written by Francesc Eiximenis in 1383 " [Bulletin of the Castellonense Society of Culture. V. 69, Notebook IV. 1993. 441-59] that much of the prologue to this work is apocryphal. It means that it was not written directly by Eiximenis. Specifically, we refer to the "twenty difficulties", the "thirty-two beauties of the city of València" and the conclusion of this prologue (where this piece must be located). This intercalation was probably written by one (or some) Valencian (-s) of the 15th century, when an incunable edition of this work was made in València in 1499 (which on the other hand is the only edition that has arrived to us from this work). All this tells us several things:

1. The Valencians of the 15th century still recognized and loved their immediate Catalan ancestry.
2. Eiximenis (who was from Girona), therefore, does not make this statement, which has been the core of Ferrando's anti-Catalan dissertation.

This mistake in Ferrando's dissertation is motivated, therefore, by Ferrando's opinion on a field of study (Philology) that is not his own one(Political Law). This is a very common thing in Blaverists: to deal with topics (especially philological) where they are not experts and/or they do not know.