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ALL LANGUAGES EQUAL BEFORE A FREE EUROPE

EHE,CYMUNED,MDL,CAL | 13.10.2004 14:39 | European Social Forum | Culture | London

We want to make a call to those groups who seek the normalization of minorized languages for a better world; civil movements, parties and trade-unions, just to work all together in favour of the linguistic diversity. This diversity still exists nowadays in


ALL LANGUAGES EQUAL BEFORE A FREE EUROPE

One of the damages caused by the Neoliberal globalization is the reduction of linguistic diversity and the oppression of the linguistic rights in different countries. Every time a language disappears or it is put on the verge of disappearing, it also disappears all that richness, all that diversity. The linguistic contact leads to dependency situations as a consequence of the competition among linguistic communities. Globalization narrows more and more linguistic rights of citizens from nations without state and from many regions in Europe. This situation has been repeating constantly along the history, but globalization has multiplied it and it has become it huge fast.

The defence of linguistic rights and linguistic normalization is closely related to civil movements work and fight. It binds more and more with this movement that it is rising up against globalization and in favour of a new better world. Because, inside this movement, they are fighting for the defence of linguistic diversity. Meanwhile Neoliberal globalization condemns to death more and more languages.

The European construction made by the plans of the European Constitution follows this globalization’s logic. It is not taken into account the existence of oppressed linguistic rights of nations without state and large regions. They have turned their back on the rights and necessities of the citizens of these regions. On one side, the draft of the constitution has been presented without giving the citizens any right to discuss about it. So, it has been consequently developed in an imperative way. It has been done completely against the democratic way, completely against the participation of European citizens. This construction is being done following the interest of the States. It is driven by the politic and economic interests of them.

They are building in front of our eyes the Europe of the Merchants. This Europe does not join with oppressed countries and workers. It is absolutely opposed to the development of the cultures and languages in equality. This agreement represents the solidarity among the states and the jail for the countries and cultures without state.

The Constitution has big sounding statements on languages and cultures, but it puts some over the others. Some languages will be named official and the other will be considered second class languages. There will another group that will not be considered even as a language. Consequently it will be discriminatory.

We want to make a call to those groups who seek the normalization of minorized languages for a better world; civil movements, parties and trade-unions, just to work all together in favour of the linguistic diversity. This diversity still exists nowadays in Europe, so we must ask the fully official status of all languages, for the linguistic rights of all citizens, so that all languages live in equality. So that the coming generations receive this patrimony.

We also demanded, the officially in the European Union of the languages Catalan, Basque, Welsh, for any pourpose, the recognisance of the linguistic unity Gallego-Portuguese and the recognisance as national languages in their respective communities. In this way, we defend the right of European citizenship of each linguistic community so that relations with the European institutions are made in their respective national languages, regardless where they are.


CYMUNED(CYMRU/WALES)
EUSKAL HERRIAN EUSKARAZ (Euskal Herria)
MOVIMENTO EN DEFENSA DA LINGUA (Galiza)
CAL (Catalunya)



EHE,CYMUNED,MDL,CAL
- e-mail: eheb@euskalnet.net
- Homepage: http://https://ehe.euskalerria.org

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Margot Wallstrom ignorant

13.10.2004 15:46

The European Commissioner of Institional Relations, Margot Wallstrom, (email:  margot.wallstrom@cec.eu.int )recently opposed that the Catalan language had the same status as other European languages, even thought that the Catalan language is spoken more than 8 official languages in the EU (Lithuanina,Slovenian,Swedish,Finnish...)

Given that that woman is Swedish herself, we should support banning the Swedish language from the EU, as it has less speakers that other EU languages not recognised.

NO THE EU CONSTITUTION!

melic


.

13.10.2004 16:30

Official recognition of Catalan could be the first step towards Catalonia leaving Spain and becoming an independent nation and member of the EU in its own right. And Spain wouldn't have any of that. Swedish people don't have any reason to object to Catalan being an official EU language - rather this bureaucrat is acting on behalf of the Spanish government, no doubt in return for Spain bestowing some other favour on Sweden. It's all about making deals dontcha know.

.


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