Internationalism vs Globalism

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Transcript of Internationalism vs Globalism

globalISM VERSUSIntERnatIonalISM

CUltURal dIVERSIty aS a faCtoRIn SoCIal CohESIon and

EConoMIC gRowth

Isidor Marí

Santiago Castellà Surribas

Josep bargalló

Centre Maurice CoppietersCMC papers I 2013 I 2

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Introduction 5

globalisation, cosmopolitanism and universalism 11towards the end of the nation state

w 1. The world has changed and we must change with it 13

w 2. The international society of states, born in Westphalia 14

w 3. The world of sovereignty eroded and diluted 16

w 4. Identity and ownership in a networked world 19

w 5. Conclusions: globalisation, glocalization, cosmopolitanism, 20 and universalism in contemporary international society

towards an equitable, global and local multilingualism 23

w 1. Globalisation: a new and irreversible contect for the future of languages 25

w 2. Who is in charge of globalisation 25

w 3. The universalisation of multilingualism 26

w 4. The evolution of global multilingualism 28

w 5. The inadequate effectiveness of relevant United nations documents 30

w 6. European institutions: a model or a disappointment? 32

w 7. Back to square one? 34

w 8. Multilingual strategies of companies and organisations 35

w 9. The incorporation of newcomers into society 36

w 10. In conclusion 37

References 39

Centre Maurits Coppieters 43

Members of the CMC 46

Colophon 49

SUMMaRy

This publication is financed with the support of the European Parliament (EP). The EP is not responsible for any use made of the content of this publication. The editor of the publication is the sole person liable.

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It is said that talk of globalisation (as a specific term) began around 1930 and that this con-cept covers a multitude of factors and per-spectives for analysis. While it is true that, for many centuries, there have been huge altera-tions in social systems that had impacts that went far beyond the local and regional level and became worldwide phenomena, today (and over the last few decades) the term globalisation has been almost exclusively applied to the neoliberal approach involv-ing economic dislocation and an ever more global economy.

Globalisation (understood within this homog-enising neoliberal perspective) goes beyond its economic motor. It also claims to be a social and cultural phenomenon. As a force, it has been so powerful that even some of the most influential anti-globalisation move-ments over recent decades (who have con-fronted in the most radical way its economic, social and environmental effects) have taken on board, without any critical appraisal, the cultural (and linguistic) homogenisation of an interconnected world whose design is little disposed to the idea of diversity. It is one more demand of the single global market and is as devastating as any social and environmental effects.

This homogenisation (based on a stereotype from the English-speaking world) has never-theless been met head-on by (inter)national-ist movements centred on an insistence on dialogue between nations and identities; the recognition of cultural diversity and the

conviction that adopting and experiencing diversity is the key to social cohesion and a more sustainable and just economic growth; respecting identity as a factor in social justice and interregional peace.

It has been a response that has coincided with the undermining of the more structural effects of the neoliberal interpretation of globalisation. As professor Antoni Castellà concludes in the text that opens this volume, not even the boldest and most solid analyses of the last decades of the 20th century could have foreseen the social complexity which has exploded in these early decades of the 21st; effects, doubtless, of the financial and economic crisis. These include the response of new social movements with a greater and wider appeal than the initial anti-globalisation movements; a real debate between homoge-nising globalisation (which already appears to be an outdated concept) and internationalis-ing diversity (fully renovated and renovating); the expansive force of networks in the World 2.0 and the failure of European institutions having no other response to the crisis than a sham, regressive homogenisation.

In this context, which has been defined as liquid (far removed from that solid notion we had been sold of unquestionable and unwa-vering security and which we were expected to believe we had been experiencing), a com-mitment to pluralism and diversity (overcom-ing the limits of a false uniformity) is the best way to construct new formulas for social (and obviously, cultural) relationships. This is the

IntRodUCtIon

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3. Culture is the starting point for the eco-nomic, industrial and political objectives of a nation.

4. Finally, culture is an instrument for the international recognition of a country. Or, if you prefer to use a term closer to Catalan hearts, a national identity, or, even more precisely, a cultural identity.

What is certain is that there is no genuinely influential country in the world that does not have a powerful cultural industry, or that is not building one, at all costs, conscious of its great importance. Thus, the link between educational, economic, commercial, financial, cultural and foreign policies shapes a planned strategy aimed at internal cohesion, commer-cial expansion and international influence, which become tools for progress from the perspective of sustained social action. With-out this, there is no cultural diplomacy. The sum of all this fashions cultural diplomacy; but not only that.

There is another evident premise, which, as it is, becomes a tautology: external projection is fundamental for any country. A nation (or an identity or a culture) is a nation because it has all the internal conditions to be one, to differ-entiate it from all others, but it is also a nation because the others recognise it as being so.

That is the reason why external promotion is fundamental to any culture and even more so in an essentially global world that is also cul-turally globalised; where one’s own existence is ratified by the recognition of others. It is fundamental for all cultures, but also, perhaps even more so, for a culture that is not seen as belonging to any major state and therefore has no grand political diplomacy batting for its side in foreign promotions. Consequently, cultural diplomacy is key and, leaving perhaps to one side, even more so for cultures lacking their own political diplomatic service.

Professor Paolo Fabbri, at the closing of the ECREA (European Communication Research and Educations Association) Congress, held in Barcelona in 2008, concluded that in order to exist and grow when faced with the chal-lenges of this century, a culture needs two synchronous shaping forces: 1) self-definition: the affirmation of one's own identity; and 2) translation: directing your efforts out to other cultures. This is what Umberto Eco meant when he responded to a question (with a certain dose of bad intent) about which lan-guage would be the greatest in Europe by roundly affirming: “the language of Europe is translation”. It undoubtedly is in the literary field: in the reception of a work by a writer (the next step after creating it) the most important factor is not a critical mass of readers in the language in which it was written, but rather the ability to reach readers in all languages (the more the merrier) through translation. In other words, for a writer like Bernardo Atxaga, writing in Basque (a European language with a limited number of readers) the best way to ensure the greatest reception of his work is not to change language, because his creation would suffer as a result, but rather to ensure (as he has ensured) that a prestigious North American publisher systematically translates his work into English, a Spanish publisher translates him into Castilian, a Catalan firm into Catalan, and so on.

In 2009, the Spanish diplomat Manuel Montobbio, in a seminar on cultural diplo-macy organised by the Catalan Government’s Department of Culture, said: cultural diplo-macy is a translator of identities. It is, without a doubt. Cultural diplomacy ensures what is “ours” is known by others. It also constructs a common “we” with these “others”. At the Frankfurt Book Fair 2007, the Ramon Llull Institute (the organisation charged with the external diffusion of Catalan culture and that of all the territories where Catalan is spoken)

case all over America, Africa and even Europe.The expiry date has passed on the economic, financial, social and cultural formulas of the 19th and 20th centuries. The time of the old Nation States, with their solidity currently deflated, has also passed. This is especially true for those states which still deny the diversity within their frontiers and which have tried to base themselves on homogenisa-tion and immovability. The renewed force of independence movements (especially, at the moment, in Scotland and Catalonia) is one of the social responses that have emerged with greatest force in this convulsive Europe of the second decade of the 21st century. Independ-ence movements offer democratic alterna-tives that are not simply identity-based (they are not even primarily identity-based), but rather offer their own responses and ways for-ward at a time of crisis and liquidity. The Cata-lan instance is particularly significant: popular demonstrations for the right to decide, as well as the Via Soberanista (movement for sover-eignty) aimed at creating a new State (new in many senses), have not only become a mass phenomenon, they are also festive occasions, full of hope, so different from the majority of social mobilisations in Mediterranean Europe, because the search for sovereignty has also had a wide-ranging social and cultural con-tent. It has thus become a realisable option, useful, regenerating and (for a sizeable social majority) necessary. It is no longer a utopian or marginal phenomenon.

In the text below, Antoni Castellà analyses the concept of globalisation and the false dichotomy between cosmopolitanism and universalism, precisely within the context of the changes that have emerged in recent decades, amongst them the decline of the Nation State. The failure of globalisation and homogenisation is also the central focus of the analyses in the articles by Isidor Marí and Antoni Lladó, who, from a sociolinguistic

and cultural management perspective (with strong arguments and data), opt for plural-ity and diversity: equitable multilingualism and the universal projection of creativity and local industry. Finally, Elizabeth Russell, from the methodological and theoretical perspec-tive of innovative identity and gender studies, considers the roots and contributions of the emerging European independence move-ments in Scotland and Catalonia.

Diversity (national, cultural and linguistic, as well as related to gender issues) is a factor for cohesion, justice and peace - as well as eco-nomic growth. Creativity provides a driving force for polyhedral development, which also has its localising results.

A new concept, related to diversity, creativity and growth, has emerged: cultural diplomacy. This involves the propagation of one's own identity based on cultural products and pro-motions, developed by governmental agen-cies participating in the recognition of their diversity, but also, especially, non-govern-mental bodies sharing this resolve.

Disseminating one's own culture abroad is not the same as cultural diplomacy. This might seem obvious, but as the expert Andrés Ordóñez roundly affirms at the beginning of his reflection on the importance of culture in all diplomatic action, it is actually a funda-mental premise1. If we examine his terminol-ogy, we can establish four axes:1. Culture is a structural piece in the eco-

nomic and social development of a nation. Diplomacy, while continuing to be an instrument of external action, should also be used to improve internal conditions.

2. Culture is also a strategic field in this development, as are biotechnology, new technologies and education (Ordóñez also adds the armaments industry, but on this I profoundly disagree with him).

1 Reflections on literature, culture and international policy. Mexico, 2004.

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eral for Education and Culture of the Euro-pean Commission, brings together essen-tially governmental institutions dedicated to foreign cultural promotion, it also has strictly diplomatic delegations. In addition, it main-tains the directive advising a single institute or delegate per member state, without any guidance regarding diversity other than the mere reproduction of the internal attitude of each state. In fact, we are not dealing with a single entity capable of its own action: it is reduced to coordinating the information and the schedule of acts by its members in Euro-pean capitals. At the same time, however, the LAF (Literature Across Frontiers), a European Platform for Literary Exchange, Translation and Policy Debate that also gained the sup-port of the Culture Programme, at least during the period 2008-2013, brings together twenty four institutes and organisations, some of which represent states (Iceland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Portugal, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) but they also have nations without states in their ranks (the Basque country, Catalonia, Scotland and Wales). Despite a proactive attitude involving joint participa-tion in events and the promotion of publica-tions, this cross-border cultural exchange has not managed to involve the major European

states, nor what we might call the strongest cultures. This is probably no accident. Finally, there is PETRA (European Platform for Liter-ary Translations), which basically organises congresses and meetings of writers, uniting writers and translators’ associations through-out the European Union and neighbouring states, 35 in all, without any governmental relationship and without any discrimination as to language used, whether official or not in international organisations.

These platforms (so distinct in their aims and actions) embody the European crossroads: the major states ignoring full recognition of their diversity alongside emerging nations wishing to have their own voice and want-ing to find the loopholes through which they can be heard and be able to help deconstruct a globalisation in the hands of the powerful in order to construct an internationalisation based on creativity and plurality.

That is why there are those who fear these emerging trends and those who view them with hope. Liquid times. Perplexing times and times of commitments to the future. New forms, new models, new languages, new hori-zons. Times for new realities.

chose the slogan: “Catalan culture, singu-lar and universal”. Culture is, therefore, both a symbol of our singular identity and that which makes us more comparable to others and makes us universal. This is because a col-lective identity (national, cultural) is the sum of two axes; a vertical one with realities such as tradition and territory and a horizontal one in which epoch and context figure. Cul-tural diplomacy is, therefore, translation. It is what converts the singular into the universal, that which is interleaved into the universal through its singularity. It is also a channel for internationalisation, that which adds one's own identity to global diversity. It is a factor for internal and external cohesion involving the internationalization of diversity and the diversification of the global.

Also, as I have noted before, cultural diplo-macy is an irreplaceable instrument for a nation without a state, for a culture that is not accepted as its own by any state and for a country without an internationally recog-nised political diplomacy. It also has an added value: there are no criteria involving political frontiers in the recognition of cultural diplo-macy. It is positive action which causes it to be recognised in reality. A paradigmatic example of this is Catalan culture, especially in recent years. It has been the honoured guest at pres-tigious international events: book fairs in Gua-dalajara (2004) and Frankfurt (2007), music and theatre festivals in Guanajuato (2008) and Bogotà (2009), the Expolangues of Paris 2010, etc., and has had its own presence, through a stall, at the Venice Biennial from 2009 (as have Scotland and Wales). In all these cases (and many others), Catalan culture, thanks to a non-governmental organisation, has occu-pied the same space that (in previous edi-tions) cultures accepted by states, or States themselves, have occupied. At the inaugural acts, alongside political authorities from vari-ous areas where Catalan is spoken, ministers

or high-ranking officials of the country in which the event was happening have taken part (with the same level of protocol used when the guests were states). Also, breaking state-sponsored and homogenising stereo-types, the authorities representing culture in Catalan were trans-border representatives, in that they belonged to four different states: Spain (from Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencia region), France (from Northern Catalonia, the region of the Eastern Pyrenees), Italy (from the Sardinian city of Alguer, where Catalan is spoken) and Andorra (a small state in the Pyrenees, the only one in which Catalan is the official language).

This has all been a demonstration of how external cultural action, through deeds, has come to be recognised internationally, with-out having to take into account whether it came from a state or any other reality. It has overcome frontiers, government limitations and the endeavours of the old structures. In short, it has been a demonstration of how internationalisation has triumphed over glo-balisation. A fact that is even more significant in liquid times in search of new solidities.

At this contemporary juncture, European institutions appear stuck between the aged and unstable solidity of states wishing for a globalised, homogenising response from those holding the reins and the emerging force of national identities, which demands its presence in, and its own contribution to, the construction of a new internationalised and diversified Europe of citizens.

As far as external cultural policies are con-cerned, European joint action platforms are, once more, a clear example of the cross-roads at which Europe finds itself. While the EUNIC (European Union National Institutes for Culture), with the full recognition of the Culture Programme of the Directorate Gen-

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globalISatIon, CoSMoPolItanISM and UnIVERSalISM towaRdS thE End of thE natIon StatE

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1. "thE woRld haS ChangEd and wE MUSt ChangE wIth It"

Those who have studied International Law (firmly rooted in established inter-State judi-cial principles and basing its legitimacy on the free will of each State as a maximum expres-sion of its sovereignty) are becoming increas-ingly disconcerted. Today, we can no longer explain the world in terms of States, nor of the classic presuppositions upon which our discipline is based: concepts such as an inter-national community of States, the immunity of the State, the principal position of the State in international society or the will of a State as the only material source of International Law. It is not that these have ceased to be useful, but rather that they do not provide enough information with which to understand the world today. Up to now, from a formal juridical viewpoint, they provided information which, while not complete, was sufficient. They did not provide us with a precise photograph of the formal articulation of political power, but with a negative which, held up to the light, allowed us to outline the larger picture with enough precision. This image lacked colour and hue, but it was sufficient. Today, darkened by the arrival of new overwhelming realities, they are only shadows of a past which, how-ever many voluntarist affirmations are made, will never return. As Obama stated in his acceptance speech, the world has changed and we must change with it.

From the 1970s onwards, after the large-scale process of decolonisation, and especially in the 1990s, which marked the end of a bipo-lar world (substituting it for one that was polyhedral and progressively globalised), the emergence of the principle of the dignity of the human individual (providing a restricted

balance to the principle of state sovereign-ty) became a supposition that was widely accepted by the doctrine. However, since the beginning of the 21st Century, in this first decade, after the latest debate on enlight-ened modernity (in which, paradigmatically, the Habermas–Rawls1 dialogue plays a lead-ing role) International Society can no longer be explained through classic territorial and geographic realities (States, international organisations, peoples and national liberation movements) nor through traditional associa-tive modes (NGOs, multinationals, belligerent factions, etc.).

Today, in order to explain the world, we must turn to networks, to new forms of digital iden-tity, to global cities, to knowledge poles and clusters, to maps of creative flow, to financial movements, to the emerging forms of a new cosmopolitan Law which goes beyond the reality of International Law, to private tech-nical standardisation regulations, to forms of transnational and intergenerational justice. These are all emerging and accelerated reali-ties that are shaping new ways to be an indi-vidual, or a collective, in the world; new ways to construct identity and finally new loyalties which take us from Nation States to networks. Which in turn lead to a world whose territorial base is organised around a scarcity of power and ways to access and share power. It is a networked world, unlimited and distributive, in which different virtual communities may coexist without limiting each other; being generated and growing as well as empow-ering themselves through the net, in a phe-nomenon that someone defined as digital Zionism2.

1 HABERMAS, Jurgen & RAWLS, John: The Debate on Political Liberalism, an Introduction by Fernando Vallespin, Publ. Paidos, Barcelona, 1st Edition, 1998. See also: HABERMAS, J.: “International Law in Transition towards a Post-National Scenario”, Katz Publishing – CCCB, 1st Ed., Barcelona, 2008; and RAWLS, J.: The Rights of Peoples and “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited”, Published by Paidos, Barcelona, 2001.

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Specialists in International Law date the birth of modernity from the critical year 16483, when the peace of Westphalia was signed. This was the moment in which, for the first time, our world (i.e. Europe) became organ-ised into a system of Sovereign States going beyond the difficult balancing act that had existed between the Empire and the Papacy and which had characterised the Res publica Christiana of the Middle Ages.

The birth of modernity, at the hands of protes-tant reformists (and “reclaiming the book”, as an affirmation of the ethical autonomy of indi-viduals) led to the fracture of the unity of Chris-tendom under the Pope, but also to the birth of a new conception of the world, centred on trust in the human being as a reader and inter-preter of the Bible and finally as a direct inter-polator with God. The ethical human being was born, conscious that his salvation relied on him choosing good over evil through his own actions. Human beings became creatures of action, thanks to a new cosmic vision that no longer compelled them to resignation and conformism, which no longer condemned risk and free initiative as activities associated with Judaic usury. Indeed, the new mentality glori-fied work and entrepreneurship as the ethical conditions needed to come closer to the divine will. As Max Webber4 explained so well, the Protestant ethic, puritan reformism and Calvin-ism formed the pillars of the origin of capital-ism and what Macpherson would later call the possessive individualism of the market.

It was also in this paradigmatic moment that the modern concept of Human Rights was born. Effectively, the end of the religious wars was the result (while at the same time contrib-uting to the creation of ) the emergence of the principle of religious tolerance, which would slowly take over from entrenched traditional-ism in the old continent. Progressively, from 1648 onwards, freedom of worship would become central to all constitutional processes from the earliest British laws through the dec-larations of rights and independence (along with the new constitution) of the ex-British colonies of America after their revolution, as well as a cornerstone of financial constitution-alism. The new concept of the Nation State was linked to the idea of a citizenry that had inalienable rights and liberties. Chief among these being the freedom to worship, which would bring with it freedom of thought and conscience, which in turn would lead to civil and political liberties and later the first forms of participatory democracy.

So, finally, the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity signified the breaking out of individuality, to which we will return later. This led to the birth of modern identities and, at the same time, to the organisation of the world known as sovereign States with a terri-torial base. It was the appearance of the West-phalian State, in which the secularised Prince affirmed the State’s exclusivity in exercising sovereign competences over its territory (clearly delimited by frontiers) and its popula-

2. thE IntERnatIonal SoCIEty of StatES, boRn In wEStPhalIa

2 DE UGARTE, David & Others: From nations to networks, Prologue by Josu Jon Imaz. Published by El Cobre, 2009, 162 pages. “The central thesis of this book is that the step from an economic society and decentralised communi-cation (the world of nations) to a world of distributive networks, a child of the Internet and Globalisation, means that people are finding it more difficult to define their identities in national terms. New identities and values are appearing, which, in the long run, will go beyond and subsume a national and state-based vision of the world”, p. 23.3 On 24 October 1648, the treaties of Münster and Osnabrück were signed (the Peace of Westphalia Accords) which put an end to the religious wars which had violently disrupted the whole of Europe since the end of the Middle Ages.4 WEBER, Max: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; Introduction and critical edition by Francisco Gil Villegas, Economic Cultural Fund, Mexico D.F., 1st Edition, 2003.

tion (clearly delimited by laws associated with nationality articulated via bloodlines and/or loyalty to a throne.

The unity of the ancient International Medie-val Society of the Holy Roman Empire - organ-ised under the revealing slogan of the House of Habsburg: A.E.I.O.U.5 - Austriae est Imper-are Orbi Universo - gave way to a Europe of States, which, perhaps from its very birth, as we will see, carried the seeds of its own deca-dence.

Among the first theoreticians of the new International Society compelled to come up with juridical and political responses to royal desires to claim for themselves the new terri-tories discovered and conquered in America, we find the Dominicans of the Spanish School of theological jurists, headed by Francisco de Vitoria, Francisco de Suarez, Domingo de Soto, Fernando Vazquez and Diego de Covarrubias, etc.6 In these, we find the first magical and alchemical formulation of a complex combi-nation involving belonging to a State reality and Universalism. Perhaps the well-known affirmation of Francisco de Suarez is the best expression of this alchemical combination. He affirmed that “the human species, although divided into different peoples and kingdoms, conserves a certain unspecific unity, if not also a political and moral one” (in De Legibus 2.19). In fact, this is indicative of the subtle change that Francisco de Vitoria had made in reclaim-ing the expression “ius gentium” to refer to it. Not the civil law applicable to those who were not citizens of Imperial Rome in contrast to the “is civile”, but rather a universal human right based on the natural sociability of the human being. Translating this, not as Gayo had done as the rights of man or humanity, but rather as the right of peoples, thus transforming it into

“ius inter gentium”, which would become the first formulation of modern international Law.

This first modern international society, organ-ised by the sovereign and independent states that emerged onto the Post-Westphalian political map, would shape the first and pri-mary international Law understood as Inter-State Law, guaranteeing peaceful coexistence between States based on a society anticipat-ed to exist through the simple juxtaposition of States7.

This logic would determine what the consti-tutive principles of this new order would be, summed up as:1. Scrupulous respect for the territorial limits

of States, enthroned in the concept of the frontier and its sacrosanct nature.

2. The primacy of territorial jurisdiction of States above that of personal principle - which became the basis of the principle of non-intervention in issues which are prin-cipally the internal jurisdiction of a State.

3. Sovereignty as independence and the exclusivity of power (which found in the equality of sovereign States the most clear expression of the plenitude of its power in not recognising any authority superior to that of the State).

4. The free will of a State as the founda-tion for all opposable and exigible norms within the state, as well as the juridical cer-tainty in which the regulations emerging from the will of the State are an obligatory compliment (the principal best-known as pacta sunt servanda).

5. And finally, with respect to the above-mentioned principles, the lack of any need to have recourse to force and war, which would be restricted to actions against any State violating the international order

5 “The destiny of the Austrians is to govern the world”. Which had its German version in “Alles Erdreich ist Ósterreich untertan” (we are all subject to Austria).6 MANGAS MARTIN, A. (Ed.): The Salamanca School and International Law in America. From the Past to the Future. Acts from the Congress of the Spanish Association of Lecturers in International Law and International Relations, Salamanca, 1993.7 See, among others: CARRILLO SALCEDO; Juan Antonio: International Law in Historical Perspective, Publ. Tecnos, Madrid, 1991.

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8 The “Fund for Peace” Think-Tank issues, annually, a Failed States Index, published in the Foreign Policy review. It classifies countries based on a dozen factors, such as growing demographic pressure, massive movements of refugees and internal displacement; group discontent and a desire for vengeance, a chronic and constant popu-lation drain; unequal development between groups; a serious or grave economic crisis; the criminalisation and illegitimisation of the State; a progressive deterioration of public services; widespread violation of Human Rights; a security apparatus that represents a "State within a State"; the rise of factionalised elites and the intervention of other states or external factors.

along with the need for just cause when employing force: iusta causa belli.

This old international order emerging from the earliest example of European modernity, the order of Westphalia, is still trying to main-tain itself today (even if it is now a little pre-carious and weakened) in a radically different international society in which the position of the State in the world has changed. The con-cept of sovereignty has been eroded with the emergence of new protagonists on the

international scene, who, with more agility and dynamism, are increasingly centralising contemporary international relations. This is true above all in a world in which a new con-ception of individual and collective identity has appeared (uncertain, selective and con-structed) along with the dissolution of terri-torial space within the concept of social and political relationships linked by networks. All of this determines a new era which is, as yet, difficult to define, but which is inescapably on the horizon.

3. thE woRld of SoVEREIgnty ERodEd and dIlUtEd

It was not long before the safe and stable world of Westphalia began to show its first contradictions, in the survival of mediaeval forms of exploitation and their successive substitution by the bourgeois societies that emerged from the Industrial Revolution. These articulated the Nation State as a way of legitimising their ownership of the popula-tion and the latter’s loyalty. The population, now free of the coercion of servitude, found in the Romantic forms of national reconstruc-tion mechanisms of cohesion and adscription to the new State realities.

However, the dogma of the sovereign State implicitly contained certain malignant cells that began to reproduce themselves indis-criminately and unstoppably. These included: the difficulties of universalising the Nation State model, the inability of the State to offer a satisfactory answer to the problems of national minorities and groups with dif-ferent ethnic identities, the articulation of the democratic principle of the free deter-mination of peoples, the emergence of the universal principle of human dignity after the Second World War, the processes of supra-

state based economic integration, the limits of national citizenship in an era of migrations and offshoring.

The independence of the British colonies in America brought with it a model of political construction that was radically different from the evolution of the feudal political forms that gave rise to European Nation States. American patriotism was linked to a logic and loyalty that was very different, based as it was on the individualistic and self-sufficient worldview of the first Puritan colonisers which was articulated politically without the burden of traditional identity markers. Peo-ples from widely dissimilar backgrounds and trajectories, belonging to different churches, found themselves in a new hostile world full of opportunities, whose only history was a desire to forget personal pasts: men like Karl Rossman of Franz Kafka’s America. In Cen-tral and Southern America, the processes of national construction led by an elite Creole bourgeoisie were closer to the European Nation State model and reproduced the log-ics of national identities and loyalties, with the only (and not a minor) contradiction that

it ignored the indigenous peoples who, until very recently, became invisible in the new State reality.

However, the most evident result of the fail-ure of the cynically titled “sacred mission to civilise” was the imposition of the Nation State model (carried out under the invocation of the principle of the free determination of peo-ples) in Asia and especially in Africa. The so-called Failed States8 are the clearest expres-sion of the reality of postcolonial domination under less slapdash and camouflaged forms.

The Europe of Versailles, after the First World War, did not understand the liberal con-cept behind the Wilson Doctrine of the free determination of peoples (both as an inter-nal democratic principle and as an external expression of sovereignty). This is because Wilson was proposing it from the point of view of a nation that had been nationally secularised and constructed on reason (and its chilling limits) rather from the snares of an ever present romanticism. He was thinking of a Europe like the United States, federal and democratic. He did not manage to convince the Italians and French to avoid reproducing a political papacy of noves inamovibles in mythologically justified frontiers that would scarcely last two decades. The only thing that did emerge was an international mechanism for protecting national minorities oppressed by the State forms that would substitute the old European Empires, in search of a fragile balance between the powers. The protection of minorities articulated by the League of Nations became a subterfuge under which the European powers tried to maintain the old Westphalian order, which had been over-run socially by the workers movement, popu-larly by universal political participation and in

which State identities had been swamped by ethnic realities and oppressed nationalities. But it was a clear demonstration of the limits of the construction of European Nation States.

The end of the Second World War covered International Society in a solid and apparently unbreakable layer of ice in the Cold War and its resulting bipolar tensions. However, this did not stop the raising of the question of decolonisation on the world political agenda. This would involve the impossible feat of arti-ficially reproducing, all over the world, the Nation State model under the dominance of elites compliant with the Metropolis, camou-flaging, in new formulas, colonial domination. Free determination, far from the Westphalian ideal as a democratic principle and an expres-sion of sovereignty, remained limited to colonial and assimilated countries that were occupied and oppressed. However, the decla-ration of the General Assembly of the United Nations (which in 1970 elevated the principle of free determination of peoples to a princi-ple of international society articulated by the United Nations) cannot avoid (even though they deny the principle of free determination to secessionist movements among peoples already included in a State) contemplating the democratic expression of this idea. Thus, by continuing to affirm that peoples who have already been integrated into an existing State cannot exercise their free will in contra to the territorial integrity of States (denying them the right to secede) they are creating an exceptional exception: known as the clause of representative government. This affirms that peoples who have already been included in a State do not have the right to free determina-tion in contra to the territorial integrity of the State, always given that this State has a gov-ernment representing the entire population.

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These changes in contemporary international society which limit, erode and often question the Westphalian principle of the sovereign State are happening at the same time as a change in the concept of identity. Until recent decades, identities based on ethnicity, nation-ality, language, social class, jobs, sexual ori-entation or gender were assumed, without a second thought in most cases, and character-ised by their global permanence and coher-ence. Birth determined your identity within a closed and coherent pack. Throughout peo-ple's lives, they did the same job, often inher-ited from father to son, there was an obvious sexual identity which coincided with gender, a clear nationality and Fatherland, language, religion and a social class from which it was difficult to break out of.

In the post-industrial networked society, identities are being progressively chosen and shareable. They can even be contradic-tory, hybrid and diffuse9. The great univer-sal shared narrative visions have fractured, definitively, allowing the emergence of à la carte identities. Your place of birth is becom-ing increasingly unimportant when determin-ing identity in people who are geographic, or virtual, nomads, changing their place of residence and establishing profound relation-ships with the place in which they are resid-ing, without the need of an idyllic return to the mother-country. For a large number of the people I know, it is difficult to define their job. They are creative and produce added val-

ue in multiple collaborative and fragmented processes. They are gifted with a plurality of abilities and competences applicable to dif-ferent areas of production and have a great capacity for adapting to changing realities. The appearance of free sexual orientation has undermined clearly delimited hetero-realist conceptions leading to a universe of possibilities in the field of self-definition and self-realisation. Even maternity and paternity have become disconnected from a purely bio-logical phenomenon, now offering multiple formulas for building families. Everybody is speaking a diversity of languages and Eng-lish has become a kind of identity-less lingua franca in the networked global world, making it increasingly difficult to refer to a person’s mother tongue in the singular. Religion, far from being a global response to the great existential questions, has often become a cultural framework for a diffuse and hybrid identification expressed through meditation, yoga or reinvented indigenous practices and rituals. These become mixed with classical forms of religion and personal universes and lead to changing beliefs regarding transcen-dental questions. We could go on for some time outlining all the possible identity mark-ers, including those which are contradictory. Suffice to say they can all be compatible with the burgeoning growth of multiple cultural identities and the joining of virtual communi-ties with cultural elements that are stronger than national loyalties: such as the example of the oft quoted Facebook nation.

How do we interpret this, given the times in which we live? Well, an important part of the doctrine identifies this clause with the emer-gence of the right to political autonomy. In other words, if there is a part of the popula-tion that desires self-governance of its own affairs, we can only speak of a representative government if this government respects this desire. If we change the right to self-govern-ment for federalism or for shared sovereignty, we have a modern formulation of the old Wil-son doctrine.

Finally, there is the idea of a United States of Europe, which the process of European con-struction does not appear to satisfy, especially when it comes to having exchanged political cohesion for a larger market with the accel-erated process of enlargement to the cur-rent 27. The fact is that the States that have ceded sovereign competences to Europe (at the same time as they have shared them out internally in federal processes involving their sub-states) have finally become too small in Europe to legislate on subjects of great mag-nitude (we are increasingly moving towards a cosmopolitan law with the same universal matrix): the environment, energy resources, the use of force, international commerce, etc. Simultaneously, they have become too big to efficiently develop and apply European regulations to local realities. States which are too big and yet too small. One more example of the imaginatively named “glocalization”, which is causing European states to look increasingly obsolete. The post-constitutional Europe of the Lisbon Treaty, in enthroning as an ordinary legislative procedure the idea of co-decision, gave equal weight to Parliament and the Council, organising the European iter legis in a bicameral logic similar to that of the US (where Parliament as a direct popular representation is equivalent to the House of Representatives or Congress; while the Coun-cil, as a representative of territorial States, is equivalent to the Senate). We are missing the federal component. In a context in which the States, as has been noted, have become too small, yet too big, the Council should become a true territorial Representative Chamber

looking after the interests of European sub-states. However, the profound economic cri-sis, which has affected most of Europe, has become, at the moment, an excuse for sub-jecting, more than ever before, the legislative process to the control of States, subject to the logic of an unnecessary unanimity. Perhaps this Europe of States has reached its nadir.

Nevertheless, Europe has been pre-eminent in affirming another of the tendencies erod-ing the old Westphalian state: European citi-zenry. Historically, citizenry was conceptually linked to the idea of nationality and therefore to the exclusion of the other, the foreigner, from rights of full political participation. Citi-zenry thus remained the exclusive privilege of those who arbitrarily enjoyed the pedigree of nationality. Regulations covering European citizenry represent the first time that the his-toric link between citizenship and nationality has been broken. They permit active and pas-sive rights of suffrage in a person's place of residence, independent of their nationality (as long as they are Europeans). For the first time, the most important element of citizenship is residency and not nationality. This opens up a sea of possibilities for debilitating the classic Nation State in favour of a universal sociability of cosmopolitan citizens.

All this within a context (from the end of the Second World War and the bringing to light of the barbarities experienced during it) in which the dignity of each human being - the corner-stone on which the universal protection of Human Rights has been built and expanded - has emerged as a constitutive principle of international Law, in tense and constant equi-librium with the principle of sovereignty. The dignity of the individual, and its concretions from an extensive and progressive interpreta-tion, has ceased to be an issue that was essen-tially viewed as one pertaining to the internal jurisdiction of States. The entire international order, up to now based exclusively on the principle of sovereignty, is trembling when faced with the appearance of a cosmopolitan right to peace, development, democracy and a healthy environment, etc.

4. IdEntIty and ownERShIP In a nEtwoRkEd woRld

9 See BEJAR, Helena: Uncertain identities; Zygmunt Bauman, Herder, Barcelona, 2007.

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10 HELD, David: Democracy, the nation-state and the global system; in Economy and Society, Vol. 2, No. 20, 1991, p. 161.11 BECK, Ulrich: What is globalisation? Fallacies about globalisation, responses to globalisation. Publ. Paidos, Bar-celona, 1st Ed., 1999, p. 3212 “On a political map, the limits between countries are as clear as ever. But on a competitive map, a map which shows the real flows of financial and industrial activity, these limits almost completely disappear”, OHMAE, Kenichi: The World without Frontiers: Power and Strategy in an Interconnected Economy, MacGraw-Hill, 1991, Barcelona, 248 pp.13 “Conveyed in bestselling books, in articles written by journalists and sociologists, these ’popularize’ a mistaken opinion, which when universalised becomes unquestionable –Thus, we become prisoners of a set of metaphors - ’global Village‘, ’networked society‘, ’access society‘, ’world without frontiers‘, which certainly reveal certain aspects of contemporary reality, but also occult others”, ORTIZ, Renato: Globalisation: Knowledge and Beliefs, Gedisa Pub-lishers, Barcelona, 2005, p. 11.14 “Globalisation does not imply the ’end‘ of the Nation State, but it does imply a crisis in an institution which no longer possesses the autonomy and independence that it enjoyed previously”, ORTIZ, Renato: Globalisation: Knowledge and Beliefs, Op. Cit.. Chapter: “Globalised Commonsense” p. 4515 ORTIZ, Renato: Globalisation: Knowledge and Beliefs, Op. Cit. p. 79.16 ORTIZ, Renato: Globalisation: Knowledge and Beliefs, Op. Cit. p. 82.

17 “In this world, local identities and cultures are losing their roots and being substituted by commercial symbols from the world of advertising as well as the icons of multinational companies. Essence has become converted into design, and the whole world accepts this.” BECK, U.: What is globalisation?, OP. Cit. P. 72. “In short, we can say that there has been a renaissance of non-traditional local issues when local particularities have been globally ’translocalised‘ and within this framework renovated in a controversial way. Speaking Bavarian ironically, if we have no other option than to speak about a (white) sausage, then we can speak about the (white) sausage of Hawaii. Ibid. p. 7718 Roland Robertson, Globalization – Social Theory and Global Culture - SAGE Publications, London, 1992.19 BECK, U.: What is globalisation?, OP. Cit. p. 50.20 RIFKIN, Jeremy: The Era of Access - The Revolution of the New Economy, Publ. Paidos, Barcelona, 2001.21 CASTELLS, Manuel: The Information Era: Economy, Society and Culture. The Power of Identity, Generalitat of Catalonia, Barcelona, June 2003, Vol. II, p. 410.

5. ConClUSIonS: globalISatIon, gloCalIzatIon, CoSMoPolItanISM and UnIVERSalISM In ContEMPoRaRy IntERnatIonal SoCIEty

Today the world can no longer be explained from the sole perspective of States. David Held speaks of the coexistence of this system of sovereign states with a set of structures involving a plurality of authorities; although he doubts its efficiency in resolving the prob-lems that it raises10. However, these multilat-eral structures by no means resolve the disso-lution of state power, given that we are faced with an effective dissolution and not a mere transference of power to supra or infra-state structures. This is why Ulrich Beck can affirm that “... globalisation also means: an absence of a World State; more concretely: a world-wide society without a World State and with-out a World Government” 11.

It is this international context of globalisation (understood as a process of growing inter-communication and interdependence among the different political and citizen-based com-munities) that is generating an inexorable weakening of the Nation State model. This is associated not only with trans-border trade and the dismantling of frontiers to economic relationships12, but also principally with the progressive dissolution of power and pub-

lic space, determined by the naissance of a networked society13, characterised by the absence of instances of control and govern-ability. Indeed, it lacks centres of power due to a process involving the blurring of power across dispersed, but interconnected nodes across a global network14.

The definition of a global public space will respond, in the end, to the logics of social and political construction which have nothing to do with the classical forms of national con-struction. Again, according to Renato Ortiz: “When we talk about global public space, it is often forgotten that some of its charac-teristics change. First, a rupture of the privi-leged link between the public and the state occurs”15 and later, when he affirms that “the idea of representation, essential within the ambit of the Nation State, has no equivalent in the transnational plan” 16.

The most important and determining char-acteristic of the new moment is the deterri-torialization of social relationships, which are abandoning territories in favour of exploring networks. This is not necessarily the end of

the concept of local17, but rather its recon-version into that which has been called “glo-calization”18. The annulling of territory, which is giving birth to what Ulrich Beck has called transnational social spaces19. It all leads to a networked society which propitiates the emergence of new values (authenticity, col-laboration, sustainability, post-abundance, de-growth, simplicity, etc.) which perhaps have as their original nucleus what Jeremy Rifkin has defined as “The Era of Access” where the challenge is not to possess, but rather to access information and services20.

What is certain is that globalisation can no longer be simply identified with the ideology of depredatory neo-liberalism, understood as a thing to be fought, nor can it be identified directly with universalism. The universal net-worked society will be both Universalist and non-Universalist. That is to say that as a global continent it will be universal, but it could be

marked by a consubstantial absence of insti-tutions and governments and by a capacity to generate a universal public space with shared values, or on the contrary, the first signs of what some have called a cosmopolitan inter-national Law which could allow us to start thinking about a universalist globalisation in line with neo-Kantianism.

Thus, at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st Century, we are beginning to intuit a changing dimension that is greater than we had suspected at the end of the 20th Century. Manuel Castells affirmed, a little over a dec-ade ago, that “the real operative unit of politi-cal management in a globalised world will be an integrated networked state comprising Nation States, international institutions, asso-ciations of Nation States, regional and local governments and non-governmental organi-sations"21, and we can now appreciate that this is the current reality.

23

PaRt II

towaRdS an EQUItablE, global and loCal MUltIlIngUalISM

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The set of processes known as globalisation (involving changes in economics, technology, communications, culture, demographics and politics) has had a profound effect on every aspect of our lives and has substantially modi-fied sociolinguistic circumstances across the entire world.

In fact, it has not only meant a rapid and pro-found transformation of the social context, but it has also become a kind of “legitimising myth” for a particular way of understanding the shape of the future of humanity. Globali-sation is often presented (and widely accept-ed) as inexorable and positive and it has only been in the crisis (or crises) of recent years that questions have arisen as to whether these pre-suppositions merit our blind confidence. As Anthony D. Smith (2003) says, global culture is eclectic, universal extemporal and technical. It is clearly a culture constructed artificially, but based on the many national cultural traditions which humanity has built up since its begin-nings. So, we need to ask ourselves up to what point the insistence on the "imaginary"

or "invented" nature of national cultural tradi-tions (Anderson, 1983; Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1984) has become a pretext for legitimising their absorption in the new global culture.

Unfortunately, there have not been alterna-tive projects consistent enough or gener-ally accepted. There is no doubt that another world is possible, as the slogan affirms, but we still need to better define what it would con-sist of, how it can be built and what its social basis would be, if we are to build it in reality.

In this text we will attempt to outline how we can advance towards a global linguistic order in which equitable multilingualism is a reality, both for humanity as a whole and in each of the societies of which humanity is comprised. As we will see, this is the universalist and glob-al perspective that has always guided Catalo-nian nationalism: the realization of a world order that respects the diversity of languages and cultures of all peoples, while at the same time combating social inequalities.

1. globalISatIon: a nEw and IRREVERSIblE ContExt foR thE fUtURE of langUagES.

2. who IS In ChaRgE of globalISatIon?

Other sections of this work deal with the eco-nomic, political, technological, social or cul-tural aspects of globalisation. We are going to focus on the sociolinguistic repercussions of all of these transformations. At the same time, we must not forget that we are deal-ing with inseparable processes. To start with, language is present in all human activities and cannot be reduced to a footnote in these general and profound changes. But, above all, because language (languages) has taken on a central role in the construction of what

has been called "the Global Knowledge So-ciety". Languages are a key part of the work-ings (and breakdowns) of the global society. Curiously, this primordial role is hardly ever recognised (consciously or unconsciously). Decisions about the new world linguistic or-der are too often considered of secondary im-portance. It is not only about recognising that the equitable organisation of multilingualism constitutes a central element in achieving an authentic pluralist democracy, but rather of acknowledging that languages have become

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an inherent factor in the new knowledge and culture economy (Williams, 2005; Heller, 2003). The value of the intercultural and mul-tilingual competence of each person (along with the human capital of each society) has become a decisive factor in the competitive-ness of society today.

At the moment, the effects of this recogni-tion have only been noticed in the area of the competiveness of companies and pro-fessionals in the international market. As a response to which European Union policies in the field of education have set as an objective, within educational systems, the attainment of competences in 1 + 2 languages. It has also become important in the field of company multilingualism1. A commitment to an equi-table future for linguistic diversity worldwide seems to be less evident.

In effect, the direction in which globalisation is taking us is guided by the economic priori-ties of the great worldwide power houses. For many years now, it has been taken for granted that globalisation has to be directed by mar-kets, which are supposed to self-regulate for the benefit of everyone. The question then is

how to define exactly what these "markets" consist of and what the complex relationships are that they maintain with the other principal agents of globalisation in the field of informa-tion technologies and communication, in the cultural and communications market, or at the different levels of political governance, which is where we need to find an expecta-tion that everything is evolving in the general interest of humanity.

It is in this opaque conglomerate (which is difficult for the great majority of citizens of the world to understand) that sociolinguistic transformations take place. It is therefore evi-dent that the attainment of equitable global multilingualism will only be possible if those managing the globalisation process corre-spond to a system of governance capable of defending the general interest on a world-wide, nationwide and local level.

Given these preliminary considerations (not all of which are obvious) we can now ap-proach the sociolinguistic dimension of glo-balisation and examine how it is possible to manage linguistic and cultural diversity in an equitable way.

1 See http://ec.europa.eu/languages/languages-of-europe/languages-for-business_en.htm (accessed May 2013).

3. thE UnIVERSalISatIon of MUltIlIngUalISM

As we have said from the beginning, one of the most visible manifestations of globalisa-tion is that diversity (both linguistic and cul-tural) has always been present in every part of the world and in all the varied ways in which life has been organised.

Today almost everybody has an increas-ingly frequent contact with other languages: through new communications media, as a consequence of large-scale population move-ments and also due to an increase in interna-tional commerce. Multilingualism is present in the majority of local communities, which only fifty years ago were generally monolingual.

This new context has modified the pre-exist-ing sociolinguistic workings of human com-munities. Many local languages have even been displaced (often unnecessarily) by lan-guages with a greater reach. The latter have taken on larger roles in people’s relationships or occupations and have soaked up more of their time. Naturally, all of this has effects on the future of linguistic communities, on the languages themselves and on the social cohe-sion among members of each society, wheth-er at a local scale or within the linguistic com-munity as a whole, within particular States.

Transmission of languages via simple inter-generational inheritance (along with the sense of belonging to a community) is losing potency in favour of new processes of selec-tive adoption of linguistic and cultural prac-tices from all over. It goes without saying that these new practices are not always adopted due to an individual's free, critical and con-scious choice, but rather are often tied up with a mimetic tendency induced commercially.

In general terms, it is a fact that the increas-ing ease with which we can interconnect (in real time) with any other part of the world and the delocalisation of social relationships (both of which have inarguable advantages) bring with them a significant decrease in the use of traditional and immediate social relationship networks involving local languages. In con-trast, they open the way for ever-increasing interactions with other cultures in different languages. It has been observed (Castells, 2004; Tomlinson, 2000) that globalisation has also produced an effect which has reactivat-ed or reaffirmed local identities (a renewed resurgence of traditional cultural practices of a participatory character and with a strong, direct, interactive component). Cyberspace has also seen a swift increase in extensive social networks which bring users of the same language together, no matter how far apart they are physically. Languages will be, then, the new demarcations for cultural spaces in a virtual map of the digital world (Warschauer, 2001; Gifreu, 2003).

Whatever happens, at this moment in time we cannot predict if these phenomena are strong enough to counter the standardizing dynam-ics of globalisation, or whether they will have a merely reactive and temporal character. In short, we still do not know what weight these processes of local interaction (and these new virtual networks) will have over the linguistic future of humanity. Confronting them are the large scale communication tools promoted by powerful centres of diffusion, driven by transnational markets and by State structures. Which reality will become predominant will doubtlessly depend on the system of global governance which emerges.

28 29

Obviously, globalisation implies the expan-sion of some languages, the extension of multilingualism and the appearance of trans-lation needs which form part (with their cor-responding organisations and technologies) of the framework of cultural infrastructures at a trans-regional, transcontinental and global scale. Nevertheless, tendencies towards glob-al linguistic diversity merit very different eval-uations, depending on whether we accept that the expansion of dominant languages is positive, or whether we consider that we need to find a complementary balance between languages used for local, regional or transcon-tinental communication.

Abram De Swann (2001), for example, noted that in the global linguistic system, made up of some 6000 languages, there are only a dozen languages which are spoken as a first language by more than 60% of the world's population. Some of these (Japanese, Ger-man and Bengali) have an area of influence that does not go much beyond the territory of its native speakers. Among the others, there are those that act as a lingua franca in a rela-tively wide area: Arab, Malay, Hindi, Russian and Chinese, but which are not currently in expansion. The languages with the greatest worldwide spread are the old imperial, colo-nial, European languages: English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Among these, Eng-lish is the language which has a central role in the global linguistic system as a lingua franca par excellence (Crystal, 2003).

Joshua Fishman (2001), however, qualified this global supremacy of English. The trend towards a global inter-language has been accompanied by the consolidation of regional

or local languages in such a way that there has been no other moment in history in which there have been so many standardising languages as there are today: approximately 1,200. There are many simultaneous process-es buttressing regional languages and local languages, which are often those more root-ed in the immediate social environment and conserve their practical usefulness. In many social interactions these are more significant for people than instrumental transactions undertaken in English. According to Fishman, globalisation, regionalisation and localisation are happening simultaneously and compen-sate each other. In addition, these three pro-cesses coincide with apparent polyglot trends towards multilingualism.

He goes on to state that the more probable trend is an evolution towards a multilingual society in which diverse languages exercise specific and complementary functions. This coexistence of languages does not have to be conflictive if there is no rivalry between two or more languages in the same social function.

The threat of extinction of smaller languages probably constitutes the main source of con-flict: "On the global scene, smaller languag-es become oppressed by their immediate regional neighbours on the one hand, and by English on the other. The great majority of purely local languages (those that have less than a million speakers) will be threatened with extinction during the coming century. For this reason, numerous minority commu-nities have not only tried to promote their languages, but have also tried to limit the invasion of the more powerful surrounding languages."2

4. thE EVolUtIon of global MUltIlIngUalISM As far as the Internet is concerned, the inter-national hegemony of English has tended to be progressively contrasted by the presence of other languages as the number of people using the Internet across the world grows.More recently, David Graddol (2006) analysed the complexity of this global linguistic system in which English occupies a central role and came to different conclusions. According to him, we must take into account the fact that the ten languages with the highest number of first-language speakers in the world together only represent half of the world's population. This means that all languages are minority languages, on a global scale; however para-doxical this might appear and however much it is refuted by the pretensions of universality and self-sufficiency that some of these lan-guages claim. This contrast between realities based on legitimising myths of supremacy in globalisation merits a second look that is hardly ever carried out. Such an examination would allow us to negotiate a global linguis-tic order from more reasonable and equitable positions. According to Graddol, it is probable that we will go through a period of confusion,

for some fifteen years, in which four types of change will coincide:1. Ephemeral changes: rapid changes in lin-

guistic behaviour, which are never con-solidated. The language used by young people sending digital messages would be an example.

2. Transitory changes: these would happen during a period of adaptation, such as the adoption of multilingual strategies by international commerce.

3. The decline of the old paradigm: the grad-ual dissipation of ideas, policies and tradi-tional practices that will continue to hold sway for a time.

4. The emergence of a new paradigm: in which new values and ways of organising multilingualism will appear and the cur-rent preference for native English will give way to a new international English.

We can assume that we are, in effect, in a period of confusion. However, it is not at all evidence that we are building a new equitable multilingual system on a global scale.

2 Some NGOs promote linguistic diversity: The Foundation for Endangered Languages: http://www.ogmios.org/; Terralingua: http://www.terralingua.org/; The Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights http://www.linguistic-declaration.org/; Ethnologue: http://www.ethnologue.com/ ; CIRAL: http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/; Linguapax: http://www.unescocat.org/ca/departaments/diversitat-linguistica-linguapax.

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In the last few years, a prediction by UNESCO has been doing the rounds. According to this, half of the languages in the world may find themselves at risk of extinction during the 21st century3. Has there been a proportional reaction to the magnitude of this threat? The facts indicate that in this field, as in many oth-ers, the equitable future of humanity is by no means guaranteed.

Concerns about the future of linguistic diver-sity have become evident on an international scale, above all since the last decade of the 20th century. In 1992 the UN4 approved the Declaration on the Rights of Persons belong-ing to National or Ethnic, Religious and Lin-guistic Minorities, which, up to now, repre-sents the most efficient legal instrument for protecting linguistic diversity. In the same year, the Council of Europe approved the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

The following year, the UN General Assembly initiated the Endangered Languages Project and in 1994 the Council of Europe approved the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. In 1995, UNESCO pub-lished its report Our Creative Diversity, and at the University of Tokyo the International Clearing House for Endangered Languages was constituted; in the USA the Endangered Language Fund was founded, while in the UK the Foundation for Endangered Languages

was set up. In the Catalan speaking area this preoccupation had already been manifest from the beginnings of the Linguapax project (1987). This was linked from its beginnings to UNESCO and later broadened the range of its actions both thematically (from multilingual education to multilingualism in general) and geographically, having broadcasting facilities in all continents.

The high point of the Catalan project defend-ing global multilingualism came in 1996 with the celebration of the World Congress on Linguistic Rights, held in Barcelona under the auspices of UNESCO, led at the time by the Catalan Federico Mayor Zaragoza. Promoted by the International PEN club and the Catalan NGO CIEMEN, it involved the participation of 44 PEN centres, 65 other organisations and 61 experts from 90 countries around the world. It proclaimed a Universal Declaration of Lin-guistic Rights which, while it did not manage approval by the General Assembly of UNESCO, did have a broad international impact as a ref-erence document.

Later approaches to the UN on the question of cultural and linguistic diversity accepted its problematic character, even though the effi-ciency of decisions adopted is still very lim-ited, even today.

The UNESCO global report on culture in 2000 dealt with Cultural Diversity, Conflict and Plu-

5. thE InadEQUatE EffECtIVEnESS of RElEVant UnItEd natIonS doCUMEntS

3 See http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/endangered-languages/ (accessed May 2013).4 Evidently, we must not forget the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) which referred to language in Art. 2, nor the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, which, in Article 27 recognises that in States where minority languages exist the people belonging to these language groups cannot be denied the right to their own cultural life and to using their language in common with other members of their group. Nevertheless, we are talking about protections of a limited efficiency. The most significant has perhaps been the agreement by the Human Rights Committee (47th session; Communication No. 359/1989, par. 11.2) according to which the members of a state majority cannot invoke the rights of linguistic minorities. The protection of Art. 27 of the Inter-national Pact on Political and Civil Rights "refers to minorities in States [...] and not minorities within any province. A group may constitute a majority in a province but still be a minority in a State and thus be entitled to the benefits of Article 27”.

3 Consultable in several languages at http://www.ilo.org/fairglobalization/report/lang--en/index.htm (accessed May 2013).

ralism. The following year they approved the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity which recognised for the first time "the speci-ficity of cultural goods and services which, as vectors of identity, values and meaning, must not be treated as mere commodities or con-sumer goods". (Art. 8)

Shortly afterwards, the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) was agreed which expressly referred to language as “a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage" (Art. 2.2) and the Recom-mendation Concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace that same year dealing with a crucial aspect of linguistic diversity in the world; though still without any type of obliga-tory action being required.

A similar observation can be made with respect to the UN report on human devel-opment in 2004 entitled Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World. The evidence of multi-lingualism in the majority of States (some 200 States encompass the 6000 languages of the world) demands the general adoption of state policies, of an equitable character, on the sub-ject of multiculturalism and multilingualism. The document proposes policies which would make compatible “the twin objectives of unity and diversity by adopting two or three lan-guages” (p. 9), since “while it is possible and even desirable for a state to remain ‘neutral’ on ethnicity and religion, this is impractical for language”. (p.60) It also argues for combin-ing the knowledge and use of an international language, a regional lingua franca and the local language of each group.

Another report from the same year, 2004, in this case by the ILO entitled A fair globalisa-tion: creating opportunities for all5, recog-nised that "the protection of a diversity of cultures, values and languages takes place at

a local level" (n. 296) and expresses concern about the expansion of English at the expense of other languages (n. 575). As a result, it advocates empowering the autonomy of local authorities (n. 302) and clearly states the need to “recognise and defend the rights of indig-enous and tribal peoples to preserve their territories and resources, their culture and identity, their traditional knowledge and their right to self-determination”. (n. 311)

However, it also recognises that the problem is to bridge the gap between principles and practices (n. 44) and that "The protagonists of globalisation (States, civil society, businesses, unions, international organisations and indi-viduals) should draw on those values when taking on their own responsibilities, as well as give a public account of the way in which they are respected in all their transactions. The rich and powerful (whether States or compa-nies) have special responsibilities, since their actions have greater repercussions on global welfare" (n. 46).

Even the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expres-sions (2005) which came into force on 18th March 2007 and proposes establishing an instrument of international law which could achieve an equitable balance between the deregulation proposed in WTO agreements and cultural policies in different countries (and within the European Union) seems to have had little effectiveness (Burri, 2013). Dis-cord still persists between commercial inter-ests in the cultural market (headed by the United States) and the defence of the cultural diversity and specificity of cultural products and services by the European Union. The lin-guistic consequences of each position are clearly incongruent.

So, it would appear that there is little effec-tiveness in articles which could have consider-

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able force in preserving linguistic areas, such as Art. 6 of the Convention: “Each Party may adopt measures aimed at protecting and pro-moting the diversity of cultural expressions within its territory...including provisions relat-ing to the language used for cultural activities, goods and services.”

UNESCO nominating 2008 as the Internation-al Year of Languages6 had a merely symbolic character. Some eminent linguists, such as David Crystal, even ironically noted the coin-cidence of the same year with UNESCO's Inter-national Year of the Potato .7

6 See http://www.un.org/events/iyl/ (accessed May 2013).7 See http://www.potato2008.org/ (accessed May 2013).8 I referred to this critically, based on the idea that the treatment the Catalan language has received is a test of the credibility of European multilingualism: http://www.uoc.edu/humfil/articles/cat/mari0303/mari0303.html9 Petitions for official status by the Parliaments of the Balearic Islands (1987) and Catalonia (1988). New petitions of the Parliaments of Catalonia (2001) and the Balearics (2002).

10 I have recently checked (May 2013) and I found no information is available about the possibility of using Catalan, Galician or Basque in the Spanish version of the Website of the European Ombudsman http://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/es/atyourservice/couldhehelpyou.faces;jsessionid=A407E6CFEC34B62D1F1130128B30767B#hl5.11 All of the reports and recommendations can be consulted at http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/minlang/Report/ (accessed May 2013).

6. EURoPEan InStItUtIonS: a ModEl oR a dISaPPoIntMEnt?

It was once believed that the European Union would signify, on the international scene, an example of "integral multilingualism" and would be offered up as exemplary to other interstate entities and as a model worth uni-versalising. However, the development of multilingual policy in the EU has not satisfied those expectations. Its behaviour towards the aspirations of Catalan speaking Europeans makes this manifest. If Catalonia, a politically autonomous entity with its own language spoken by some ten million people (and which controls important spheres of govern-ment) has been incapable of developing a linguistic policy guaranteeing its continuity in egalitarian terms, how could smaller and more marginalised communities possibly be able to maintain their language without a strong empowerment process.8

From this perspective, we turn to look at the four great aspects of multilingual policy in the European Union:

a. The linguistic regime of institutions and other establishments (official and work-ing languages) demonstrates inequalities and important deficiencies. For a time, aspirations for official status of Catalan in EU9 were denied through a legal formal-ism. With only a single official language in each member state, legal security was sat-isfactory. Leaving to one side the fact that the consequences of being an official lan-guage, or not, go far beyond simple legal security, the argument lost all credibil-ity when Irish Gaelic and Maltese became official EU languages, even though English is still official throughout the territories of Ireland and Malta.

In 2003, the Catalan convention for the Future of the European Union (hundreds of representations from the public at large coordinated by the Catalan Parliament) made quite a reasonable proposal, which did not merit the least attention. The offi-

cial languages in its territory (with the same number of speakers, or even more than in other states of the EU) should be official in the EU. Only scarcely justifiable political motives would oppose an egali-tarian deal such as this.

The most flagrant case, however, has been the inefficiency of agreements established by the Kingdom of Spain with European institutions, since the Conclusions of the Council of Europe (13th June 2005), according to which citizens can address themselves to European institutions in Catalan, Galician or Basque and expect to receive a response in the same language.

I personally presented a complaint to the European Ombudsman against the Ombudsman himself, because he did not even inform people of that possibility. The response I received dismissed the idea of a complaint against the Ombudsman himself (then who should be protecting European citizens better than him?). He excused the failure to keep the terms of the convention that had been signed, add-ing that the Spanish government would not accept the costs of translation (!)10.

b. Sectoral programmes and actions. As a consequence of the lack of official sta-tus, participation in projects centred on languages such as Catalan turn out to be clearly restricted (they are not "eligible" languages, even when languages from other countries are).

c. The effects of community law on territo-rial languages. Despite being the official

language of millions of European citizens, European regulations marginalise the use of Catalan in its own territory, as is the case of the so-called labelling languages, which according to some regulations must be chosen only from among official EU languages.

d. Foreign policy of the EU with regard to cultural diversity and global linguistics. In this case, the initial support of the EU for the UNESCO Convention of 2005, which we have referred to previously, has weak-ened over time in the face of economic doctrines from the Anglo-American block. The EU, which in many other areas is at a low point, is not making the best of this opportunity to serve as a global reference for an equitable multilingual organisation. This has consequences that go far beyond language. Edgar Morin was right when he affirmed in his essay Penser l’Europe (1987) that the global influence of our continent throughout history has been due, in large part, to its capacity to converse in diver-sity. To forget this is to accept that we lose protagonism in tomorrow's world.

If we turn now to the Council of Europe, we concede the interest raised by the European Charter on Regional and Minor-ity Languages, but we also note the disap-pointing inefficiency of the Recommenda-tion of the Committee of Ministers to the Spanish governments asking them to hon-our commitments which (let us not forget) the Kingdom of Spain freely took on. I do not know if in other cases they have so flagrantly not fulfilled their obligations11.

34 35

It will be very difficult, but no less essential, to promote an international mobilisation which forms part of a globalisation project at the service of equality and justice among the people and peoples of the earth. This would require that international governing institutions take on principles that are widely shared. It is worth noting here that not only the aforementioned Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights of Barcelona (1996) but most other efforts towards the principle of equi-table multilingualism share many common features.

One of the Catalan sociolinguists who has reflected most on this eco-linguistic equi-librium is Albert Bastardas (1996, 2005). He proposes four principles as the basis for an equitable multilingual world. The first two are archetypal:• The territorial principle: complete recogni-

tion of the official status of each language in the area in which it has been spoken his-torically by a particular community.

• The personal principle: each individual has the right to certain linguistic services, some universal and others restricted to a particular area, such as often happens in shared public services in areas in which several languages have been spoken for centuries.

He adds two more, very reasonable, princi-ples:• The principle of subsidiarity: social func-

tions that can be covered by a local lan-

guage (in internal communications) should not be exercised by a (external) majority language.

• The principle of functional sufficiency: each local language should retain a core set of important social functions neces-sary for the whole community and which allow the language to develop and inno-vate.

A recent study by Philippe Van Parijs (2011) noted, in its conclusions, some other condi-tions for achieving an equitable international linguistic world:• Respect for the adoption of a lingua franca:

it is not fair that the cost of learning major-ity languages should fall on the shoulders of speakers of minority languages.

• Principles of equitable cooperation: it is not fair that speakers of majority lan-guages have more advantages (e.g. in the labour market) without establishing com-pensations.

• Respecting the principle of parity: it is not fair that majority languages have prefer-ence, in many areas of life, over other lan-guages. In fact, no majority should be able to decide the fate of a linguistic minority.

• In the education field: "The most effective way of achieving linguistic justice (under-stood as parity of respect) consists of guaranteeing each linguistic community the right to establish its own language as a means of instruction and public commu-nication in a territory; always given that it assumes the cost of doing so."

If we find ourselves in the context of a market led globalisation, it would seem logical that one of the areas we should take special care of (in the establishment of criteria for equita-ble multilingualism) should be the companies and corporations involved.

The scant attention that respect for linguistic diversity and language rights has received in the movements for worldwide corporate social responsibility is revealing. If we accept that transnational corporations are leading agents of globalization, and that languages are an essential part of cultural diversity, the existence of a system of equitable princi-ples for the management of multilingualism becomes an obvious necessity; not only in terms of communications between compa-nies and their customers, but also for the lan-guages used in marketing products or servic-es. It would also demonstrate a basic respect for multilingual staff. Do we find this trend in current documents and commitments to corporate social responsibility? References to linguistic diversity in one of the first actions in this area, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)12, which started in 1997, are impercep-tible.

The highest and most comprehensive frame-work for corporate social responsibility is undoubtedly the Global Compact13, defined as "a voluntary international corporate citizen-ship network initiated to support the partici-pation of the private sector and other stake-holders in promoting corporate responsibility and universal social and environmental princi-

ples to meet the challenges of globalization”. However, here too, references with respect to linguistic diversity are thin on the ground14. The same can be said about the guidelines dealing with corporate social responsibil-ity published by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in A Guide for Integrating Human Rights into Business Management15 and about the information resources on the subject which it recommends16.

As we have said previously, European policy on company multilingualism is also centred on competitiveness, without paying much attention to respecting linguistic diversity in local markets. We still need a great deal of effort to get to the point where we can see visible progress in this direction, but it is an indispensable effort in the construction of an equitable multilingual world.

Both the European study ELAN and its coun-terpart for Catalonia ELAN.cat demonstrate the importance of encouraging and regulat-ing the two great axes of multilingual strategy in companies:

• Communication languages used with customers and suppliers and languages used in internal relationships. Compa-nies and professionals dealing directly with the public should be able to do so in the official language (or languages) of each territory. In addition, they should have some skills in the languages of cus-tomers from other areas, especially in the case of tourism, but also in other services.

7. baCk to SQUaRE onE? 8. MUltIlIngUal StRatEgIES of CoMPanIES and oRganISatIonS

12 http://www.globalreporting.org/ (accessed May 2013).europa.eu/es/atyourservice/couldhehelpyou.faces;jsessionid=A407E6CFEC34B62D1F1130128B30767B#hl5.13 http://www.unglobalcompact.org/ (accessed May 2013).14 See http://www.unglobalcompact.org/NetworksAroundTheWorld/Guidelines_and_Recommendations.html (accessed May 2013).15 http://www.integrating-humanrights.org (accessed May 2013).15 http://www.business-humanrights.org/Documents/Discriminationdiversity (accessed May 2013).

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• Staff linguistic skills: valuation, selec-tion, training. With the multilingual and multicultural workforce present in society today, we need to adopt policies similar to the Australian "productive diversity" policy. This recognises that profession-als who have native competences in for-eign languages and cultures are the best economic and cultural interlocutors in an international market. Recognising the

value of the multilingual and intercultural competences of immigrants furthers their identification with the host society and promotes intercultural cohesion: another aspect that merits our maximum atten-tion.

These are the objectives that inspired the Catalan Consumer Code.

9. thE InCoRPoRatIon of nEwCoMERS Into SoCIEty

10. In ConClUSIon

One of our most important collective objec-tives should be to build (with the greatest par-ticipation possible) an adequate integration model for each society. A model that would have to have characteristics similar to those outlined below:

• An intercultural focus. We must go beyond the simple idea of being multicultural or of cultural diversity, which could be understood as a simple juxtaposition of isolated cultural groups, or as a mix in which the hegemonic culture dissolves all the others. We need a public commitment to constructing together a framework for coexistence that is valid for everyone.

• Sustainable cultural pluralism. Just as in the ecological field we know that it is not enough to merely ensure the survival of each species (since we also need to ensure the survival of the ecosystem that sup-ports the species) so, in the cultural field, every culture must have primacy within its own historic territory, in order to guar-antee its continuity within a framework of pluralist principles that also respect the cultural options of individuals.

• A pluralist concept of citizenry. From the first moment, newcomers have to feel that they form part of an "us" that includes them and fights with them against ine-

qualities. This is the starting point for this basic identification. From it we can advance towards a new sense of belong-ing, centred on the language and culture of the host country and open to the free incorporation of a new, adopted identity.

• A reasonable adaptation of public spaces to diversity. As much as possible, public services must adapt, gradually, to the lan-guages, religions and customs of the new-comers, in the same way that newcomers must gradually adapt to the language cul-ture and society of the host country.

• A joint claim for authority and resources for intercultural policies. Without financial and political capability, it is not possible to come up with an efficient intercultural policy. The new citizens and the host soci-ety have an interest that coincides: obtain-ing equitably distributed resources that are proportional to their needs. This is the starting point for a joint project.

• A project and commitment to reciprocal recognition. As the host society makes an effort to overcome inequalities and rec-ognise diversity, it legitimizes demands made on new citizens for a reciprocal engagement with democratic institutions, the autonomous government and the future of the language in society as a com-mon language for public use.

Throughout our text we have shown, in gen-eral, the shortcomings and progress in con-structing an equitable multilingualism on a local and global scale - taking as a reference, in this case, the Catalan example. We are con-scious that the brevity of this contribution has not allowed us to give enough attention to some important areas that are vital for the future of global linguistic diversity, such as multilingual education or family and school issues, to mention only a few crucial areas.

Our conclusion would be, as we have hinted throughout this article, that the achievement of equitable multilingualism is as difficult as it is indispensable, if we wish to arrive at a future worth having for the whole of humanity.

What is the key to the process of moving towards this objective? It is almost certainly in

the ability to ensure, in this as in many other fields, that the social movements favourable to a just globalisation (one which respects diversity and is committed to overcoming ine-qualities) become capable of building a dem-ocratic system of governance that unequivo-cally responds in the general interest, right up from local organisational levels to global ones. Unfortunately, one of the main obsta-cles to achieving this will be the interposition of a network of national and supranational political powers that are more committed to financial, economic and media powers, than to representing the democratic will of their respective peoples.

The task will not be easy; but it will have been worth it when it has been achieved.

These are the principles that made the Cata-lonia Hosting Act (Law 10/2010 and other policies carried out in this field) crucial for

the construction of a cohesive society that respects pluralism.

38 39

REfEREnCES

anderson, benedict. 1983Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.London: Verso

bastardas, albert. 1996Ecologia de les llengües. Medi, contactes i dinàmica sociolingüísticaBarcelona, Proa

----- 2005Cap a una sostenibilitat lingüísticaBarcelona, Angle 2005

burri, Mira. 2013The UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity: An appraisal five years after its entry into force. Working paper No 2013/1. February 2013 (consultable on line at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2223922 – accessed May 2013)

Castells, Manuel"Globalització i identitat. Una perspectiva comparada". Idees (Barcelona), No. 21 (January-March 2004), pp. 17-28

Crystal, david. 2003English as a Global Language.Cambridge University Press, 1997, Reed

de Swaan, abram. 2001Words of the World: The Global Language System. Cambridge: Polity Press

fishman, Joshua. 2001The New Linguistic Order. In Digit·HVM, The Digital Review of Humanities, No. 3

gifreu, Josep. 2003"Digitalització, comunicació i identitat en temps de crisi". Idees, n. 18. pp. 24-31

graddol, david. 2006English Next. London: British Council.http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-research-english-next.pdf

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heller, Monica. 2003"Globalization, the new economy and the commodification of language and identity"Journal of Sociolinguistics, n. 7/4, pp. 473-492

hobsbawm, Ericand Ranger, terence. 1984The Invention of TraditionCambridge University Press

Morin, Edgar. 1987Penser l'EuropeParis: Gallimard

Smith, anthony d. 2003Envers una cultura global? In Global i local. L’impacte de la globalització en els sistemes territorials, eds. Francesc Morata and John Etherington, Barcelona: CETC-Pòrtic, P. 162 and ss.Tomlinson, John. 2000. "Globalization and Cultural Identity". The Global Transformations Reader. David Held & Anthony McGrew (eds.)Cambridge: Polity Press. Pp. 269-277

Van Parijs, Philippe. 2011Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the WorldOxford University Press

warschauer, Mark. 2001"Language, identity and the Internet". Mots pluriels, n. 19. http://motspluriels.arts.uwa.edu.au/MP1901index.html (accessed November 2011)

williams, glyn. 2005"Language and the new economy". La Utopia digital en els mitjans de comunicació: dels discursos als fets: un balanç / III Congrés Internacional Comunicació i Realitat. Pere Masip, Josep Rom (eds.)Barcelona: Faculty of Communication Sciences Blanquerna-URL. Pp. 963-974

42 43

CEntRE MaURItSCoPPIEtERS

The European Parliament recognized the Centre Maurits Coppieters (CMC) as a Politi-cal Foundation at a European Level in 2007. Since then the CMC has developed political research focusing on European issues, also in the fields of multilevel governance, man-agement of cultural and linguistic diversity in complex (multi-national) societies, decen-tralization, state and constitutional reform, succession of states, conflict resolution and protection of human rights.

So far, every little step has been important to the steady consolidation and growth of the Centre, that’s why I’m especially proud of this publication. Indeed, it undoubtedly rep-resents a crucial contribution to the current state of affairs and will certainly have a notori-ous impact both in the Academia and among

European decision makers in a broad sense, including European Institutions (like the European commission, European Parliament, Council and Committee of the Regions), oth-er political actors, think tanks, research cent-ers and contributors to the European integra-tion process.

On behalf of the Centre Maurits Coppieters and our partners I sincerely wish to thank the author of the report for his groundbreaking approach to the subject and his passionate, conceptually robust and well structured fac-tual presentation.

Finally I also wish to thank you (the reader) for your interest in our organization and for reviewing our modest contribution to a much wider European political debate in this area.

Günther DauwenSecretary of Centre Maurits Coppieterswww.ideasforeurope.eu

44 45

w Observing, analysing and contributing to the debate on European public policy issues with a special focus on the role of nationalist and regionalist movements and the process of European integration;

w Serving as framework for national or regional think tanks, political foundations and academics to work together at Euro-pean level;

w Gather and manage information for scien-tific purposes on all nationalist and region-alist movements, organisations, struc-tures,… in all its appearances situated in a European context;

w Making available information to the public on the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity in a context of a Europe of the Regions;

w Promoting scientific research on the func-tioning and the history of all national and regional movements in the EU and making the results public to as many people as possible;

w Developing actions to open information sources and historical information sources in a structured and controlled way with the aim to build a common data network on issues of Nationalism and Regionalism in Europe;

w Maintaining contacts with all organisations who are active in national movements and with the Institutions of the EU;

The Centre Maurits Coppieters asbl-vzw takes all the necessary actions to promote and achieve the higher stated goals always observing the principles on which the Euro-pean Union is founded, namely the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.

goalS of thE EURoPEan PolItICal foUndatIon CEntRE MaURItS CoPPIEtERS (CMC)

According to its general regulations, the Centre Maurits Coppieters asbl-vzw persues the following objectives and references:

The Fleming Maurits Coppieters studied his-tory and later became a Doctor of Laws and obtained a master’s degree in East European studies. During the Second World War, he refused to work for the German occupier. After many years as a teacher, he worked as a lawyer for a while. He was one of the people who re-established the Vlaamse Volksbeweg-ing (Flemish People’s Movement), of which he was the President from 1957-1963.

Coppieters’ political career began when he became a member of the Flemish-nationalist party Volksunie (VU) which was formed in 1954. With the exception of two years, Cop-pieters was a town councillor between 1964 and 1983. He was also elected as a member of the Belgian Chamber (1965-1971) and Sen-ate (1971-1979). At the same time, Coppieters became President of the newly formed ‘Cul-tuurraad voor de Nederlandstalige Cultuurge-meenschap’ (Cultural Council for the Dutch-speaking Community, from which later the Flemish Parliament emanated), when the VU formed part of the government. In 1979, Cop-pieters was moreover elected during the first direct elections for the European Parliament.

As a regionalist, he became a member of the Group for Technical Coordination and Defence of Independent Groupings and Members in the European Parliament (TCDI). Among other things, he made a name for himself when he championed the cause of the Corsicans. In the meantime, Coppieters also played a pioneering role in the forma-tion of the European Free Alliance, of which he became the Honorary President and in whose expansion he continued to play a role, even after he said farewell to active politics in 1981. In 1996, Coppieters joined forces with the president of the Flemish Parliament, Nor-bert De Batselier, to promote ‘Het Sienjaal’, a project with a view to achieve political revival beyond the party boundaries. Coppieters died on November 11, 2005.

Among other things, Coppieters was the author of: ‘Het jaar van de Klaproos’; ‘Ik was een Europees Parlementslid’; ‘De Schone en het Beest’. He is Honorary member of the EFA.

MaURItS CoPPIEtERS

46 47

CMC MEMbRES

Arritti5, Bd de Montera, 20200 BASTIA, CorsicaMember since 2008www.p-n-c.eu

Fundación Alkartasuna FundazioaPortuetxe 23, 1º, 20018, Donostia/San Sebastian, Euskadi Member since 2008www.alkartasunafundazioa.org

Fundació Emili DarderIsidoro Antillon 9, Palma de MallorcaIles BalearesMember since 2008www.fundacioemilidarder.cat

Fundació Josep IrlaCalàbria 166, 08015 Barcelona, CatalunyaMember since 2008www.irla.cat

Fundacion Aragonesista 29 de junio, Conde de Aranda 14-16, 1°, 50003 Zaragoza, Aragon

Member since 2008www.chunta.org/29j.php

Fundación Galiza SempreAv. Rodriguez de Viguri 16, Baixo 15702 Santiago de Compostela, GaliciaMember since 2008www.galizasempre.org

Home of the Macedonian CultureStefanou Dragoumi 11, P.O. BOX 51, 53100 FlorinaMember since 2008

Le Peuple BretonBrittanyMember since 2013www.peuplebreton.net

Welsh Nationalism Foundation Wales Member since 2008

www.welshnationalismfoundation.eu

aSSoCIatEd MEMbERS

Kurdish Institute of BrusselsRue Bonneelsstraat 16, 1210 Brussels

Member since 2010www.kurdishinstitute.be

Transylvanian MonitorStr. J. Calvin 1, 410210 Oradea, Romania

Member since 2009www.emnt.org

Centre International Escarré per lesMinories Ètniques i les NacionsC/Rocafort, 242, bis08029 Barcelona, Catalunya

Member since 2011www.ciemen.cat

Istituto Camillo BellieniVia Maddalena, 35 07100 Sassari

Member since 2012www.istituto-bellieni.it

Free State of Rijeka AssociationUžarska 2/351000 Rijeka – Fiume

Member since 2012

49

ColoPhon CMC PAPERS | 2013 | 2

EditorialCentre Maurits Coppieters (asbl-vzw), Boomkwekerijstraat 1, 1000 Brusselswww.ideasforeurope.eu

Publication date2013

Publication series and numberCMC PAPERS | 2013 | 2

authorsJosep Bargalló - Isidor Marí - Santiago Castellà Surribas

CoordinationIgnasi Centelles and Arnau Albert

Editorial boardXabier MacíasGünther DauwenJosé Miguel Marinez TomeyAlan SandryJosep VallRoccu Garoby

Scientific boardAlan Sandry Advisor on the field of Political Science. (Scientific Board member since 2008)

Luc Boeva Advisor on the field of History of Nationalism. (Scientific Board member since 2008)

Xosé Manoel Nuñez-Seixas Advisor on the field of Contemporary History. (Scientific Board member since 2008)

Carmen Gallego Advisor in the field of Anthropology. (Scientific Board member since 2012)

Josep Huguet Advisor in the fields of Contemporary history and Public governance. (Scientific Board member since 2012)

Jaume Garau Advisor in the fields of economic development and promotion. (Scientific Board member since 2012)

Daniel Turp Advisor in the fields of international law and self-determination (Scientific Board member since 2013)

graphics and layoutWils&Peeters - Lier

translationDobra Forma

Printing Drukkerij De Bie - Duffel

© CMC, Centre Maurits Coppieters - asbl, Brussels, November 2013No items of this publication can in any way be copied or used without the explicit permission of the author or editor.

50 51

Previous Centre Maurits Coppieters studies

CMC 2013 — An alternative economic governance for the European Union By Xavier Vence, Alberto Turnes and Alba Noguera

CMC 2012 — The Future of Europe An integrated youth approach

CMC 2012 — The Ascent of Autonomous Nations 2nd edition The institutional advantages of being an EU member state, by Matthew Bumford In a joint effort with the Welsh Nationalism Foundation

CMC 2012 — Variations autour du concept d’empreinte culturelle Définition du concept et metodes de Mesure, by Elna Roig Madorran et Jordi Baltà Potolés

CMC 2011 — Approaches to a cultural footprint Proposal for the concept and ways to measure it, by Elna Roig Madorran and Jordi Baltà Potolés

CMC 2010 — The Internal Enlargement of the European Union 3rd edition Analysis of the legal and political consequences in the event of secession or dissolution of a Member State, by Jordi Matas, Alfonso Gonzalez, Jordi Jaria and Laura Roman. In a joint effort with Fundació Josep Irla

CMC 2009 — Electoral contestability and the representation of regionalist and nationalist parties in Europe, by Simon Toubeau

CMC 2008 — A different kind of kinetics Establishing a network of heritage and research institutions for the (historical) study of national and regional movements in Europe, by Luc Boeva

Previous Centre Maurits Coppieters policy papers CMC 2013 | 2 — Globalism vs Internationalism. By Josep Bargallón Isidor Marí and Santiago Castellà

CMC 2013 | 1 — Law and Legitimacy: the denial of the Catalan voice. By Huw Evans

CMC 2012 | 3 — Making ideas spread New Media, Social Networks, Political Communication, advocacy and campaigns, by Jorge Luis Salzedo Maldonado

CMC 2012 | 2 — The size of states and Economic Performance in the European Union, by Albert Castellanos i Maduell, Elisenda Paluzie I Hernàndez and Daniel Tirado i Fabregat. In a joint effort with Fundació Josep Irla

CMC 2012 | 1 — 2014-2020 Un autre cadre financier pluriannuel pour une nouvelle Europe: Pour une Europe des peuples, by Roccu Garoby. In a joint effort with Arritti

CMC 2011 | 3 — From Nations to Member States, by Lieven Tack, Alan Sandry and Alfonso González

CMC 2011 | 2 — Diversité linguistique un défi pour l’Europe

CMC 2011 | 1 — Tourism and identity, by Marien AndréIn a joint effort with Fundació Josep Irla

CMC 2010 | 1 — Language Diversity a challenge for Europe