PRESS RELEASE
Giorgio Pagano addresses Mario Calabresi in Esperanto’s difense
"350 billion euros a year: that’s how much non-English speaking countires spend to "Englishize" themselves, so that Great Britain saves up to 18 million, and GB no longer requires the study of a foreign language at school." Giorgio Pagano, Secretary of the Esperanto Radical Association, states in a letter that he sent to the editor of La Stampa, Mario Calabresi, in light of an article which surfaced, expressing he was in favour of Esperanto, calling it a "linguistic investment" that those who are not English speaking are forced to take part in.
"This way, the ‘strongest language,’ as Ismael Ejarque Doménech calls it, is not considered the strongest due to the fact that it is considered a scientific language or based on how widespread it it, but it is the strongest due to a viscious circle where the Strongest mantains its supremacy, saving money in the process, while others become poorer spending money for his benefit," the letter reads. Pagano has reminded that we are witnessing a moment of transition of the Gelmini Decree and her choice on the Italian teaching department, that obliges everyone who wants to teach in Italy must have a B2 Level of English, in otherwords the University of Cambridge’s First Certificate, a difficult level even for English employees and students.
" The adoption of Esperanto as the international language in European communication (especially within the European Union, where every country should account for a single contact), it would be not only a Cultural European Victory but also a Civil and a Democratic one, but it would put a stop to the stream of funds and human risorse which are going in a single direction during this time of crises."
Pagano closed his letter, remembering that "it’s obvious that knowing how to speak English means you have more advantage than you would knowing Italian, being English is more considered more prestigious than it is to be Italian, but we certainly can’t say this to a generation which feels a severe disomfort and deprived of opportunities, also echoed by our head of state."
Rome, 8th of Jan. 2011