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Language minorities and stateless nations | Quote: | Skol Veur Yaouankiz Breizh focuses on fundamental rights
Karaez (Carhaix), Breizh, Tuesday, 09 May 2006 by Davyth Hicks
The University for Breton Youth took place over the weekend at the Diwan Lise in Karaez (Carhaix), Brittany, focusing this year on the problems faced by language minorities, stateless nations and their lack of fundamental rights.
The conference opened with a talk from Corsica Nazione chief Jean Guy Talamoni who spoke about the ongoing problems of assimilation: “If we abdicate our culture and our language, then we enter into uniformisation and we then accept our disappearance as a people”.
Speaking to the press represenatatives from Breton civil society spoke about a new block on bilingual education at Beg Avel college by French state education “Its scandalous. Scorning. They are making fun of the parents” said Serge Couteller, responsible for education at Karaez council.
Eurolang’s presentation focused on setting a new agenda for the 21st century based on achieving language rights: “Discriminatory actions by member states against stateless and regional languages need to be condemned and acted against with the same vigour that we today condemn and act against racism. After all an attack against someone’s language and culture, core to one’s self identity and self worth, constitutes a form of racism.”
Considering the differing levels of protection in member states for European linguistic diversity, Eurolang recommended proactive measures to guarantee future language rights and to ensure that languages that are endangered because of hostile member states are protected. These included: a coherent EU language policy enshrining the principle where all languages are equal; an agency or network with legal powers that is able to intervene and monitor to ensure language rights; modifying the existing EU Treaty to favour regional and stateless languages following the failure of the draft constitution; implementation of the Declaration of Linguistic Rights; and to ensure that the new Fundamental Rights Agency to be based in Vienna has an explicit mandate to ensure linguistic human rights.
Eurolang emphasised the importance of active lobbying on behalf of languages at the national/ regional, state and EU level, pointing to what had been achieved for Welsh and Scottish Gaelic.
The conference was sponsored by the Breton Cultural Council and attracted a lot of media attention. It continued with presentations by representatives from the Basque community in the French state, Rumantsch, Kashubians, Galicians and Wallons. (Eurolang 2006)
http://skol-veur.over-blog.org/
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http://www.eurolang.net/index.php...;id=2617&Itemid=1&lang=en
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