What Congress has left us: furious, debates, laughter and emotions for memory

Everything ends at the end. And sometimes: better than that. The VIIIth International Congress of the Spanish Language, this mega-event that has made the city of Córdoba a network of cultural activities, academic tables and political and philosophical reflections, was completed yesterday after the speech Closing of the Córdoba Writer María Teresa Andruetto, the authorities, both the Cervantes Institute and the Argentine Academy of Letters and the municipality, have put the last point. Argentina is the first country to be hosted: after Rosario 2004, Córdoba arrived in 2019.

The Congress of Languages ​​functioned as an epicenter on a diagonal map, because different events were woven into it, which allowed us to think a little better about the world of language and speech. The previous two days, a seminar on journalism and communication was held at the National University of Córdoba. Simultaneously, a counter-congress – the International Meeting: Language Rights as Human Rights – has made problematic the alleviation of hegemony. In addition, the Festival of the Word, a cycle of several days with artistic activities and calendar of activities of the Ministry of Culture of the Nation.

What does this congress leave? What can we say exceptional, exceptional, interesting? Then a little overview of everything that happened.

On Wednesday mid-morning, while Governor Juan Schiaretti called the Teatro San Martín outside of the "Coliseum of Cordoba", a demonstration of social movements protested and a woman waved a banner carrying the same name. inscription "Gracias Macri Fuerza", the opening ceremony was held. After the arrival of the King and Queen of Spain, the Argentine President, the First Lady, the Governor and his wife all stand up to applaud. The speeches were sober – although Mauricio Macri He took the opportunity to praise his own government and anticipated the tone that Congress would have: solemnity, reflection and the need to defend our language.

A furcio with ironic consumption

There was no laughing, of course, but smiled accomplices. When the King of Spain, Felipe VIhe gave his speech, something went wrong. The monarch quoted the greatest referent of Argentine literature – we are precisely in Argentina – but with nonsense: "It remains to José Luis Borges that language is not only an instrument of communication, but also a tradition and a destiny ". As it always happens in these cases, social networks have not been slow to generate a lot of memes, scathing comments, jokes and everything that happened in the congressional motives of a consumer. ironic.

It was in this inaugural act, the last speech, that of the writer Mario Vargas Llosa – Nobel Prize for Literature 2010 and Cervantes 1994 – recalling the letter of the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López ObradorHe sent him to the King of Spain – there, present at the Teatro San Martín, listening to him – and asked him to apologize for the "crimes and abuses" committed during the Conquest, five hundred years ago, by his crown. Without a doubt, the great controversy of every day.

"I have the impression that the Mexican President has deceived the recipient, since this letter must send him to himself and answer, or answer, the question of why the Mexico, which for 200 years is independent and sovereign, still has so many millions of marginalized, poor, ignorant and exploited Indians, "he said, adding:" It's a question that all Latin American presidents may pose because no one has been able to solve the proverbial injustice against the Indians ".

Contracongreso, an opposition

Sometimes identities arise from opposition, that is, from the rejection of dominance and hegemony. The first international meeting: Language rights as human rights – or counter-congress – has this spirit. Organized by the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities of the National University of Córdoba and parallel to the Congress of Languages, a comprehensive and plural program of conferences, debates, artistic and cultural activities has been set up in order to defend Linguistic Rights Latin American Perspective. Far from being a simple declamation, it had its purpose and its development.

There was a Mapuche poetry workshop, another cardboard edition, a tribute to Osvaldo Bayer and a symposium on human rights, to name just a few examples of the grid. They participated Horacio Gonzalez, Graciela Bialet, Diego Tatian, Liliana Herrero, Naty Menstrual, Camila Sosa Villada, Maria Teresa Andruetto -The official, moreover, to deliver the closing speech of the Congress of Language-, Eduardo Mattio and María Morenoamong many others. All that was missing or missing in the mega-event organized by the Royal Spanish Academy was predominant here: protagonism of indigenous peoples, advocacy of women's voices and inclusive language.

Claudia Piñeiro, the most acclaimed speech

Thursday afternoon, at Teatro San Martín, in a panel dedicated to "Literature, Orality and Folklore", Claudia Piñeiro She took the microphone and, looking at the pile of leaves on the table, began: "I am not an academic, I am a writer." He then badured that "the Spanish language in the Americas is an imposed language" and, later, that "in future editions, this congress should perhaps be called the Spanish-American Language Congress". In addition, he spoke about inclusive language, the need to legalize abortion and recited songs from Mariana Carrizo, Charo Bogarín and Miss Bolivia, "women who do not accept, in the 21st century, a conqueror". The audience broke applause several times. Alejandro Dolina, present in the panel, has stopped to applaud it. Piñeiro, in front of the public agitation, raised his fist in the air, wrapped in the green handkerchief.

From cinema to literature: 10 years of "The secret of their eyes"

The writer and screenwriter Eduardo Sacheri He gave a masterclbad at the Cinéclub Municipal Hugo del Carril, in San Juan Street, in the heart of Nueva Córdoba. The Nation's Culture Secretariat organized it with the INCAA and held it the day before the start of the Congress. How is a literary work carried in cinematographic language ?, was the initial question to which it was answered by its own experience. In 2005, he wrote the novel The question of his eyes and four years later Juan José CampanellaSacheri and all her team of actors, producers and technicians took her to the cinema. Ten years after this film, which has become one of the most important Argentine films in history thanks to its unprecedented mbad, but also to the Oscar for best foreign film, the writer tells secrets and stories little known.

Journalism, according to Caparrós and Villoro

The day before the congress, as part of the journalism and communication seminar, Martín Caparrós and Juan Villoro They reflected on the sinuous ways that journalism takes. The conference was held in the huge Hall of the Americas of the National University of Cordoba. "The ideologization of information, its permanent editorial and its opinion constitute a disturbing distortion," was one of the most remarkable sentences uttered by the Mexican author, as well as: " Social networks have brought speed, but also an informative short-circuit, an overdose.On the other hand, the Argentine said that "with clicks, written journalism has entered the logic of the rating, publishers have fallen into the temptation to do what readers want, and there is nothing worse than that. "

The mbadivity of luthiers

If the congress lacked a link with the general public, it was done by humor. Wednesday night Luthiers He gave his expected show at the entrance of the National University of Cordoba. More than 24,000 people attended the event: a sea of ​​people who stretched to the bottom without specifying the end. Many with companion and thermos in hand, others with a beer can, enjoyed what it was: a real popular show. At the time of leaving, the villagers were selling choripan, hamburgers and stuff like that. People withdrew recollecting the jokes, the songs, a gag that they could not get out of their heads. Without a doubt, the great spectacle of this linguistic congress of 2019.

On Friday in San Martin, a large number of people gathered to listen to poetry. Not only that, but also the poet in question: Joaquín Sabina. "In the meantime, poet and academic, I feel a bit like an impostor, but I've always liked to feel it this way," he told a panel where they also participated. Rafael Oteriño, María Negroni, José Mármol, Carlos Schilling and Elvira Sastre. When the singer-songwriter appeared on the scene, all the theater burst with applause and cheers. Leather jacket, shirt underneath and discreet stride, as if I was traveling to New York in the eighties. This is how Sabina arrived, who read in turn a prose poem and several rhyme verses.

"I am not at all gifted for theory and erudition," he confessed, "although, with the rise of small nationalisms, we unfortunately suffer in the world, I consider myself a country much bigger, which is my language, spanish.I think it's a miracle you met today to hear poetry and hear words, words filled with magic because the same language used to fight with someone in a bar or for anything to give them a little magic. "