world conference on linguistic rights

[Piripi.Walker]

>I may have missed it, but I don't recall any discussion or information on
>this list about the 'World Conference in Linguistic Rights' at Barcelona in
>June.
>Were any of you there?\

Kia ora Mari Rhydwen,
Yes. We were there representing Maori from New Zealand ( I and one of our
elders Huirangi Waikerepuru,).

We represented Nga Kaiwhakapumau I Te Reo (The Wellington Maori Language
Board, a peaceful Maori language activist organisation (NGO,) in NZ). Our
Board has carried debt from long legal cases over many years, and has not
been active overseas before. .The organisers offered us assistance for all
costs of one representative and we wish to thank CIEMEN publicly for
this.Thank you to your fellow citizen of Perth, Australia,  Fernand de
Varennes for his help.

We've just written a report on the Conference for Maori audiences in Maori..
which is what it was all about really.
here are some thoughts on the Conference in English.

We found the conference very stimulating. It was not an information and
research sharing conference, but a further point in a consultative and
discussion process among language groups, on a piece of work in progress,
called A Declaration of Linguistic Rights. It seems to us that several years
of writing and refinement has been happening in the Northern Hemisphere on
this piece of work. At this conference, many of us from other continents and
oceans were brought in to the discussion. 

The conference threw new perspectives on the work of protecting rights and
language maintenance in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The achievements of the
Catalans in retaining and developing their language, and their attempts to
create a Catalan speaking territory were  interesting to those of us who
hadn't been there before. The pickets at the conference opening, and later
protests, came from Castilian spanish speakers who can't get access to
Spanish(Castillian) language education. An interesting reversal of roles.
Entre padres y hermanos no metas su manos.

 The Basque situation ( we visited the Basque country afterwards - (thank
you Alan King and Begotxu from this list) appeared in many ways to be quite
similar to our own. 

Has anyone got a report in English? In a  nutshell I was surprised by the
number of activists, authors(PEN groups from all over the world) and
writers, non-governmental groups, intellectuals, (the latter seemed
genuinely street-wise on political action and not simply tame types)
indigenous language groups and others there. I would have preferred it to be
another two days longer, so more people could talk about more topics on the
legal and human rights issues in the context of their own experience.

Our congratulations to the organisers. Not many other conferences would
spend their last available funds on helping poorer cousins with air tickets
and then announce from the chair on the final morning they had run out of
money and there could be no lunch that day. Everyone cheered this news and I
felt it summed up the spirit of the conference.

I understand  the Draft Declaration on Linguistic Rights is intended to
become a United Nations Declaration. ...The document was developed was
developed by International PEN's Committee and translation Rights,  and
CIEMEN et al in the Northern Hemisphere, mostly by the European Language
minorities. Here is an excerpt from the organisers pre-conference material:-

"The VIRTUAL Conference began some time ago when participants received the
draft of the Universal Declaration on Linguistic Rights in order to discuss
it and send proposed to the Committee of Experts. This Committe is now
preparing a new draft, which is a  VIRTUAL doocument before 31 May and will
proclaim it on the first day of the Final Session of the Conference in
Barcelona. Only those NGOs, bodies and institutions which have approved the
final document before 31 May will be invited to the Closing Session.

2.-CLOSING SESSION OF THE WORLD CONFERENCE ON LINGUISTIC RIGHTS.

As  specified in the Internal Regulations, speeches during the working
sessions will provide participants and representatives of organizations
which have taken part in the preparatory process with an opportunity to
comment on the importance of the document as far as possible in order to
facilitate the proceedings and ensure the fruitful outcome of our joint work."

The relationship between European languages and the rest of the
post-colonial world was raised .in particular by Tove Skutnabb Kangas (who I
see posting to this list) who 'put some very good stick about', by Boniface
Sagbohan, the rep from Mali, who was 'choice', as well as the other African
delegates, and Raymond Renard from Belgium who rightly pointed out that is
Governments who  perform linguistic genocide.

A recentJuly 5 newsletter from the organisers tells us the draft is being
placed before the Head of Unesco when he visits Barcelona shortly. I am sure
the organisers at CIEMEN will send a copy of this declaration to anyone
interested electronically, their email address is <ciemen at abaforum.es>. I
have it here in my database at this email address above but it may not be
the exact final version.

You ask about whether it was grassroots.. yes, I think you could use the
word grassroots, I have written a longer personal set of notes about the
conference :-) will send  to people interested if you indicate by email to me.

Any other reports?

Piripi Walker
Director of Language Studies
Te Wananga o Raukawa, a tertiary institution  operated by (Ngati Toa, Ngati
Raukawa, Te Atiawa tribes)
P.O.Box 119
Otaki
New Zealand
Ph  064 -6-36-45-479
Fax 064 -6- 36-45-415