Manifestación OFICIALIDÁ

[Carlos]

Pues creo que no los conoces, Art. Por lo menos, no son los que vimos en directo en Avilés.

El gaitero de la izquierda se llama Rubén, y tiene una larga trayectoria en diferentes grupos de música asturiana, y también como músico "de caleya". Actualmente forma parte de Los Ciquitrinos. Eso sí, es de Avilés. Aunque no sale en la imagen, justo detrás iba Valiente, un rapaz de Xixón, miembro de la banda de gaitas Noega. Por cierto, ambos tocando con gaitas en Si bemol construidas por mí.

El grandullón de la barba y el clarinete no sé cómo se llama.

Entre estos dos, al fondo de la imagen y con un sombrero bombín, va Ruma, miembro de Felpeyu, aquí haciendo de percusionista con un bombo.

Y a la derecha de la foto, el de la camiseta a rayas horizontales con gafas es Antón, también miembro de Los Ciquitrinos y de algunas otras formaciones, gran percusionista.

En la manifestación iban un poco más atrás de mí. Desde luego, no eran éstos los únicos músicos presentes, además de los casi 200 gaiteros divididos en dos grupos (uno con gaitas en Si bemol y el otro en Do).

El rapaz que encabezaba la manifestación con una gran bandera asturiana (el que sale en la primera foto) es Llorián, el hijo de un gran amigo mío, "Llábana". El padre encabezó las manifestaciones por la oficialidad durante muchos años con la misma bandera, hasta que tuvo un accidente que le dejó "tocado" un hombro. Ahora es el hijo quien toma el relevo. ¡Tradiciones de familia!

También se puede reconocer, detrás de la pancarta de Xunta Moza (aunque él no es precisamente un chaval) a Chús Pedro, el cantante de Nuberu (el tipo con barba que aparece justo encima de la letra O de OSU). Y muchos otros más que no se ven en las fotos, pero que allí estaban (estábamos).

En el reportaje no se aprecia bien la totalidad de asistentes, realmente la calle Uría estaba repleta de gente. Además, se suponía que la manifestación iba a terminar en la plaza de la catedral, pero el ayuntamiento estaba montando un belén a tamaño natural, así que no hubo otro remedio que acabar en la plaza de Porlier, que es mucho más pequeña.

Es de agradecer a título personal la asistencia de las 4 0 5 personas que portaban una pancarta de CCOO, pero verdaderamente resulta patético que sea a eso a lo que se reduce el supuesto apoyo del supuestamente uno de los dos sindicatos mayoritarios de Asturies.

Y si esta manifestación del sábado 18 te impresiona, tendrías que ver la del miércoles siguiente en defensa de los dos sindicalistas, más gente aún

Saludos

[argayu]

El rapaz que toca'l clarinete ye Inda, si nun m'enquivoco, que taba na primera formación del grupu folk Los Gatos del Fornu.

Yo salgo nuna de les semeyes , pero toi mui feu y nun vos digo en cuál.....
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El chaval lque toca el clarinete es Inda, si no me equivoco, que estaba en la primera formación del grupo de folk de Los Gatos del Fornu.

Yo salgo en una de las fotos , pero estoy muy feo y no os digo en cuál.....

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The young man who plays the clarinet is Inda, if I am not mistaken, who was one of the original members of the group Los Gatos del Fornu.

I am in one of the photos but I am very ugly and I won't tell you in which one.

[is]

This was the first pro-language rights rally that was actually fun. People of all walks of life got together to support granting Asturian and Galician-Asturian a recognized legal status that would save the languages from extinction. The rally was also a show of force (10,000-15,000 people is quite a turnout here) to force local politicians to include linguistic rights in the upcoming reform of the autonomy statute (regional elections will take place in May 2007 and a new statute will be drafted, as has been done in Catalonia). Demonstrators also made a point of championing language rights as a way to bar discrimination at town halls or in the media. The recently created public television for Asturias (TPA) has 0 hours of programming in Asturian or Galician-Asturian, quite a snub to 1 million potential viewers.

Sadly, institutional prejudice and paternalism are deeply engrained in the regional political system. This is partially a legacy of 40 years of dictatorship under Franco. At many levels, the transition here is still ongoing after Franco’s death in the mid 1970s, with the major parties (PSOE and PP) unable to come up with realistic ways of allocating resources or offering a vision of where they see Asturias in 2013, when EU structural funds for disadvantaged areas will come to an end. Politicians like Vicente A. Areces (regional president and a technical engineer by profession) are mere administrators of money from Brussels. He only has hand-me-down ideas about the region’s economic potential. Very little money goes to IT or advanced shipbuilding, just to cite niche sectors where Asturias could be highly competitive. Instead, Areces and his ruling Socialists (PSOE/FSA) are entirely reliant on what they label ‘state investments’, hardly a measure of future competitiveness in a globalized economy. The region’s language specificity, meanwhile, has been channeled by politicians as a harmless regional ‘peculiarity’, rather than as a cultural asset. The asymmetry with Castilian Spanish is devastating.

Needless to say, in 2006, such an attitude is borderline insulting. I think it’s time for a little poetic justice to seep through in Asturias. All those speakers of Asturian and Galician-Asturian (as well as the ‘neofalantes’, or young people who care enough to learn the standardized language), should have their civil rights recognized. It is just one in many adjustments that Asturias needs to make before moving on. Until a non-ambiguous framework is in place, there are de facto third-class citizens here. Interestingly, in a documentary screened at the Xixon Film Festival this past week (Asturian US), several characters in Spelter (WV) and Donora (PA) used Asturian expressions, words and endings without batting an eye. That’s because there was no systemic check on the language transmitted at home by émigrés from Arnao and Aviles in the last century. They did not go through the Spanish educational system that equated Asturian with a profound lack of education. I myself am often ridiculed…until people here find out I am American.

Particularly in the countryside, both regional languages are spoken by an ageing population that has little contact with the purported ‘modern’ towns of the region’s center. Speakers of Asturian and Galician-Asturian are patronized as quirky throwbacks. There was a case in Villaviciosa in 2005 where children at a private school found to be speaking Asturian were fined a quarter of a euro per word. It reminded me of Brittany, where signs in school recess areas in the early 20th century said ‘Défense de cracher et de parler breton’ (Public spitting and use of the Breton language is forbidden). The same was true of neighboring Galicia—until Galician was granted legal status it was considered a dying peasant language. Now, no one is ashamed of speaking Galician.

Lending weight to the bigotry of local PSOE and PP politicians is the idea that language rights will set off a wave of nationalism. The rally’s diversified base was proof that it was an empty accusation: the non-official cultural elite was there, together with mainstream musicians, university professors, economists, lawyers and even a sign in English! People like Javier Fernandez (the secretary general of the Politburo-style regional Socialist Party) has issued a ‘fatwa’ against Asturian for fear of losing structural power to other parties championing regional identity and language rights. It all boils down to a monopoly of power for Fernandez, a mining engineer with a keen disinterest in his constituents’ culture and an inquisitorial-type personality.

Ana Vanessa Gutierrez, a poet from L’Entregu, read a very nicely balanced speech at the end of the rally in the center of Oviedo (Uvieu in Asturian). Sometimes I feel that Asturias is hopelessly stuck in a perpetually transitional Eastern Europe, a kind of microcosmic Belarus or Ukraine. The mindset is hopelessly out of synch. The politicians here seek a clientele, public tenders are non-transparent and there is no crossing of lines if you belong to either PSOE or PP when it comes to voting. Problems are usually addressed ex post, when they are inefficiently managed. I suspect the same thing is happening with language rights.

[Art]

Thanks for reporting on the march, Is. Do you want to tell us who that person was with the sign in English?

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Gracias para tu reportaje sobre la manisfestación, Is. ¿Quieres decirnos quien tuvo la pancarta en inglés?

[Art]

Gracias, Carlos y Argagu. Umm. Es posible que le vi a Rubén (a la izquierda con la gaita) con un grupo que actuó en la romería de La Fiesta de los Mártires de Insierto en 2003.

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Thanks, Carlos and Argayu. Hmm. It's possible that I saw Rubén (on the left with the gaita) with a group that performed at the romería of the Festival of the Martyrs in Insierto in 2003.

[is]

Allright, Art. It took me 2 days (and alot of latex paint) to come up with a picketing sign that said: 'Norteamericanos de raigañu asturianu pola oficiliadá de la l.lingua ya escontra’l prexuiciu istitucional del PSOE/FSA.' On the reverse in English, it read: 'Language rights=civil rights. Asturian-Americans in favor of making Asturian legal and against institutional prejudice'. The sign caused a few brows to arch and mostly nice reactions along the march. Again, it was fun to be there fighting for a civil right that is not recognized by a supposedly left-leaning regional government.

[Art]

Thanks, Is. Some of us were really pleased that you represented Asturian-Americans in the march!

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Gracias, Is. Algunos de nosotros estábamos orgullosos que representaste a astur-americanos en la manifestación.

[is]

hi Art:

Thanks for your last remark about representing Asturian-Americans at the language rights march. I was very proud to do so. After the fact, I've been toying with an idea.

Thanks to this website, I know there are other like-minded people of Asturian descent who care about Asturias: its cultural heritage, language/-s, landscapes, natural settings, economic development and current politics. I think our voice (that of Asturian-Americans and other diaspora communities) actually can make a difference. As individuals, we can always send letters to the mainstream newspapers (La Nueva, El Comercio, etc) to make our perspective heard. But our voice as individuals will be seen as anecdotal and picturesque. Local policymakers will treat it as a curiosity, distant and empty of effect.

Instead, we could be much more effective as an advocacy group. A grad school friend of mine in Washington founded the National Iranian American Committee (NIAC) a few years ago and it has become a very interesting experiment in politics on the Hill, especially since Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad took over as president and US-Iran relations have deteriorated during the Bush II administration. Not that there are parallels to draw there with Asturias--and yet as a pressure/advocacy group, our voices as Asturian-Americans would be taken more seriously.

Let me know where you would like me to open this topic for everyone else ('Political Discussions'?), or perhaps we should consider opening a new heading titled 'Advocacy Group'.

As an example, our community of Asturian-Americans could join the 200+ groups that have signed up with the CAO (Conceyu Abiertu pola Oficialida), which reflects a consensus across Asturian society in support of making Asturian and Galician-Asturian official languages, along with Castilian Spanish. That would lend CAO more credence politically and would turn us into more active players, a kind of AsturiasWatch, to provide inputs to local policymaking. Again, tell me what you think. Thanks,

Is

[Art]

That's an interesting idea, Is.

Have you seen this thread?
http://www.asturianus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6584

I've emailed Trabanco to see what he thinks and for an update on ASUSA. Maybe we'd be more effective if we join forces with ASUSA.

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Eso es una idea interesante, Is.

¿Has visto este hilo?
http://www.asturianus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6584

He enviado un emilio a Trabanco para averiguar lo que piensa y para una actualización sobre ASUSA. Quizás seríamos más eficaces si afiliamos con ASUSA.

[Terechu]

Art, the guy playing the bagpipe was the bandleader (?) lead singer and MC of Los Ciquitrinos, the group we saw together in Avilés's Celtic Music Festival. I believe they played right after the "Gaiteru de Veriña" and he was very entertaining and amusing.

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Art, el que está tocando la gaita era el líder (?), vocalista y maestro de ceremonias de Los Ciquitrinos, el grupo que vimos juntos en el festival de música celta de Avilés. Creo recordar que tocaron inmediatamente despues del Gaiteru de Veriña y estuvo muy ameno y divertido.

[Art]

Ah! So I did see him! I remember him being a really powerful performer. Thanks, Terechu.

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¡Oh! ¡Entonces lo vi de verdad! Lo recuerdo ser un ejecutante impactante. Gracias, Terechu.

[is]

Thanks for forwarding the thread on 'New Immigration', Art. I saw the ASUSA description and Trabanco's description on the right margin of the ASMA page. However, I was thinking more in public advocacy terms.

Check out www.niacouncil.org if you have a minute. Trita Parsi, a SAIS classmate, started NIAC in 2003. The social network has grown into an important piece in US policymaking vis a vis Iran, with regular appearances in front of the Foreign Relations Committee of Congress. Before NIAC, Iranian Americans were largely invisible.

With elections coming up in Asturias in May 2007, I think we (Asturian Americans) can offer unique insights that can help check some of the business-as-usual-type politicking that takes place. One of them being language rights, but also extensive to investment policies, economic planning or the protection of archaeological sites, just to cite a few examples.

I think ASUSA has a different, perhaps more cultural and networking type of mandate. Either way, do you think we should open a new heading titled 'Public Advocacy' to discuss this with other AsturianUS members?

Is

[Chris]

Art creo que Is tiene muy buenas ideas y que poner un hilo donde se puedan hablar de esto también es una buena idea. Crear una asociación en representación vuestra os ayuda a tener voz y a que juntos seáis más fuertes
y como descendientes de asturianos también tenéis derecho a decir muchas cosas y opiniones sobre Asturias. Yo le digo a Is que adelante. Este foro que fue el que empezó todo sobre la comunidad asturiana en internet solamente fue el primer paso.

[Art]

I've discussed Is and Chris' suggestions with the other moderators. All of those who responded appeared to me to be supportive of the cause but were concerned that it would be contrary to one of the strengths of AsturianUS.org: its inclusiveness. We have members from all across the political spectrum. I suspect that it would be inaccurate for us to claim that AsturianUS.org suppports any political cause.

I'm sure, though, that some of our members would join the organization Is has proposed.

Our members are free to publicize the work of an advocacy group they support. I expect that this reporting would be followed with great interest. If the number of posts grow sufficiently, we could also open a new section of the forum, as Is and Chris have suggested.

How does that sound?

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He discutido las sugerencias de Is y Chris con los otros moderadores. Todos los que respondieron me aparecían ser de apoyo de la causa pero fueron preocupados que sería contrario a una de las virtudes de AsturianUS.org: que incluye a todos. Tenemos miembros de todos puntos del espectro político. Sospecho que sería inexacto afirmar que AsturianUS.org apoya a cualquier causa política.

Soy seguro, sin embargo, que algunos de nuestros socios se afiliarían a la organización Is ha propuesto.

Nuestros miembros pueden publicar los esfuerzos de un grupo que apoyan. Cuento con que esta reportaje se seguiría con gran interés. Si el número de postes crece suficientemente, podríamos también abrir una nueva sección del foro, como Is y Chris han sugerido.

¿Cómo os lo parece?

[Chris]

La verdad que una de las cosas buenas de asturianUS.org es que no esta politizada meterse ahora en política no seria recomendable. Yo me refería en tener voz es en que podáis como agrupación tener la posibilidad de definir vuestros deseos de que Asturias alcance una bonanza económica, cultural y social. Yo creo que todo esto esta fuera de el amplio rango que existe de usuarios con diferencias ideológicas ya que lo que se quiere es el qué. Del cómo se lo dejamos a los políticos