Journalist Xabier Fortes had already warned at the presentation of the event that Luis García Montero “is a poet who gets into puddles.” The director of the Cervantes Institute has been invited to an informative breakfast at the New Economy Forum, in Madrid, this Thursday, to talk about the imminent International Congress of the Spanish Language (CILE) in Arequipa (Peru), which will be held from October 13 to 17. However, in a type of meeting that tends to be white glove, García Montero, asked about his relationship with the director of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), Santiago Muñoz Machado, who is known not to be exactly close, has declared: “I have to admit that, as a philologist, I was used to speaking in the RAE with Fernando Lázaro Carreter, Víctor García de la Concha, Darío Villanueva… great philologists and great men of the culture. And now the RAE is in the hands of a professor of Administrative Law who is an expert in running businesses from his (law) office for multimillion-dollar companies. That, personally, creates distances.”
Although he pointed out that the Cervantes, founded in 1991, and the RAE, which has been around for more than three centuries, have “to collaborate,” García Montero elaborated on his relationship with this institution with a second, more subtle dart: “We, by the definition of the institute, feel linked to the diversity of the languages of the State, and we do not understand the closedness of what it means to recognize a wealth. We feel part of a community that, in order to project Spanish, must recognize that We are part of it and that no one should tell others how to speak, but rather maintain unity while respecting each one.” Before these statements, he had said that those who get “into puddles are sometimes the most sensible.” It must be remembered that both institutions organize the CILE of Arequipa together with the Peruvian Government and the Association of Spanish Language Academies (Asale).
In the afternoon, the RAE issued a statement, after the meeting of its plenary session every Thursday, in which it expressed “unanimously its absolute rejection of the incomprehensible statements of Mr. García Montero, completely unfortunate and inopportune on the eve of the beginning of the 10th CILE.”
“This is a fundamental occasion for Spanish culture and language, which brings together representations of all Spanish-speaking nations, which the director of Cervantes has clouded with his statements,” the note adds.
Along these lines, the RAE points out that “the statements are especially regrettable at the beginning of a congress that will be inaugurated by the King and the president of Peru, in which, among other activities, Mario Vargas Llosa will be remembered.” “The RAE and the Association of Language Academies (Asale) are offended by the attack on its director and president, who has carried out extraordinary work in the seven years he has led both institutions,” the harsh statement adds.
García Montero’s personal comment on Muñoz Machado has had this response from the RAE, whose director “has been democratically elected on two occasions by the full body of the institution, and is not only an expert jurist, but one of the most recognized essayists and historians in our country, with awards such as the national essay prize and the national history prize.”
Finally, the RAE also states that “the qualitative differences between the work of the RAE with any other institution that deals with Spanish and its culture in the world are evident.” And a more conciliatory final message: “The RAE has always been very satisfied with its excellent historical relations with the Cervantes Institute and wants them to be maintained in the future.”
After the unexpected and bitter clash, we have to wait to see how this situation may affect the congress and the atmosphere that will be breathed between two people who are going to share numerous events.
In addition, from the RAE, García Montero was asked other questions in the morning. Asked about inclusive language in the round of questions from the attendees, he commented: “Language is a living being that evolves, which reflects the evolution of society. I am for common sense. When I teach, I say students; in this forum I have said friends, I say citizenship, instead of citizens… but, sometimes, the misuse of good intentions turns against. I like inclusion, but without rhetoric, so I don’t like words like weat human”.
He has also been asked about the policies of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, against the use of Spanish in that country. “The United States is becoming a benchmark for authoritarianism. When ‘English only’ is imposed and Spanish is prevented from being spoken in public spaces, respect is lost for the 60 million Americans who have it as their mother tongue.” Given the situations that are being experienced, “such as doctors being told that they cannot treat those who speak it in Spanish,” Cervantes is teaching “special classes” in its US centers so that health professionals can care for Hispanic patients.
Along the way, he commented that in the US “the budgets of Spanish departments are also being cut and universities are threatened with cuts if they do not apply it as well.” Furthermore, he recalled that the United States is the second country in terms of Spanish speakers, about 60 million, after Mexico, which has 120. The third is Colombia and then Spain, which represents “9% of the 500 million who have this language as their mother tongue.”
Nor has he avoided the puddle when asked about what is happening in Gaza: “You must be lacking in any human mercy if you are not moved by what is happening there. Those who do not criticize it are those who are annihilating public health in Madrid or Andalusia or destroying the public university.”
Regarding the work of the Cervantes centers in the world, he highlighted, given the current international situation, that the Cervantes has “a cultural center in Alexandria (Egypt) named after the poet Jaime Gil de Biedma, who was homosexual, in a country where homosexuality is punishable by death.” Or that in Moscow “people can get informed in our center by reading a free press.”
A recurring question for some is whether Valencian is its own language or not. “I trained with philologists like Lázaro Carreter, who said that Valencian was a form of Catalan. I am worried about linguistic manipulation and I say this without wanting to offend any Valencian. Just as I am worried that there are those in Andalusia who say that they speak Andalusian and not Spanish. We speak a common language whose diversity we defend.”
More relaxed has been his comment about Mario Vargas Llosa, who will be widely honored at the language congress in Arequipa, which was his hometown. “Mario once said that García Montero was the only nice communist he knew,” he joked. In passing, he told how Arequipa’s candidacy was forged in the eighth congress, held in Córdoba (Argentina). “He told me that if I could launch the proposal without it being official and before the king’s speech. I told him that if he proposed it, there would be no turning back.”
Another Byzantine discussion is usually whether this language should be called Spanish or Castilian. “As a philologist, who studied its origins, I use the word Spanish.” This led him to talk about the Spanish footprint in America. “Of course atrocities were committed in the 16th century, but we can be happy that compared to other empires that canceled indigenous languages, in Latin America there was a survival of those languages. That is because in Spanish culture there was an important presence of the Catholic Church, which sought to save souls. The missionaries said that to convert someone to Catholicism you had to do it in their language.”
Back at the CILE in Arequipa, he recalled that it is an appointment to “become aware of the importance of Spanish and reflect on what it means to assume that a majority language should not be hegemonic.” In this meeting, one of the central issues will be “clear language” from the Administrations and companies so that citizens can understand it. “It is important for people to regain confidence in politics, and also in the media, because speaking clearly does not mean going off the tongue and filling the media with insults and hoaxes.”