In this turbulent world we live in, there can be few certainties about what may contribute to a better understanding between the peoples of this earth- but I would personally put language and culture high up on my list- if, that is. both are freed from the stifling intolerance of politics.
The news that the Spanish government is to close the Instituto Cervantes in Gibraltar is a backward step in term of engagement between British and Spanish people, given the role it had begun to played in helping new generations of Gibraltarians improve their Spanish –together with English, the most popular language in the world- but also as acting as a venue for greater understanding of arts, history and literature of the Hispanic world.
José Manuel Garcia Margallo announced the decision to close the iconic institute in Gibraltar explaining that there was no need to have such a thing on “what is considered to be Spanish territory”.
The Cervantes Institute was opened on the Rock in 2011 following the historic Cordoba agreement forged by the tripartite forum between the UK, Spain and Gibraltar. But the agreement and subsequent tripartite talks were shelved when the PP government of Mariano Rajoy came to power at the end of 2011.
“To have a Cervantes (Institute) there (in Gibraltar) is a contradiction in terms,” Margallo told a parliamentary commission on Wednesday in reference to Spain´s sovereignty claims over the territory that sits at its south-western tip. He questioned the need for opening a centre designed to teach Spanish on what “was considered national territory”.
And yet culture and language in their most noble and universal expression- and there I would include, by way of example, the plays of Shakespeare as well as Don Quixote, the paintings of Turner and Constable along with those of Goya and Sorolla, the poetry of Robert Burns and TS Eliot along with that of Becquer and Lorca-should be above politics, nationalisms, and territorial claim and counter claim.
Gibraltar’s impressive annual literary festival last autumn generously welcomed Spanish writers and academics alongside British ones. While The Instituto Cervantes was not one of the venues , it could have been, and there was talk of it being invited to participate at this year’s festival. I was told that among the language students at the Cervantes were some of the members of the Gibraltarian administration.
Meanwhile, by way of contrast, the British Council in Madrid- set up before World War Two by the legendary Anglo-Irish hispanist Walter Starkie- is an enduring example of bicultural and bilingual English-Spanish education, thankfully freed from political interference, which is making an important contribution to preparing new generations of British and Spaniards for work opportunities in a global world. One hopes that such a spirit of human engagement between the peoples of Britain and Spain will prevail ever more widely above and beyond the posturing of politicians in an election year.
Have you read this book?
This is the book the late Graham Greene managed to read in manuscript form on his way to Moscow to visit his old friend Kim Philby. Greene – always generous with young aspiring authors – subsequently wrote to me saying: “You can quote me as saying this is a required book for anyone who wishes to understand the Argentine situation before and after the Falklands War.’
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