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Chile inaugurates the first Mapuche language academy
Mapudungun, the language spoken by the Mapuche, as of Friday, will have a new tool for its protection and promotion. The National Mapuche Language Academy was promoted by Michelle Bachelet's government, the President of Chile, following the social pact of multicultural 'recognition', driven by the previous legislature.
In Temuco, the Araucanian region, the new institution aims to normalize the language and propose to the government linguistic policies in fields like education, but it also intends to interest and orient the Mapuche communities' initiatives that will guarantee the use of their language.
According to the RPP News, the academy will be made up of "representatives chosen within the territorial linguistic commissions, and speakers of the community's language, instructors and professional Mapuches, as well as indigenous organization leaders who have participated since 2006 in the process of formation and qualification in language basics.
This programme will be run by The National Indigenous Development Corporation (CONADI), a government organization that works for the promotion and the fulfilment of development for the Chilean indigenous people (Aymara, Atacameño, Colla, Diaguita, Quechua, Rapanui, Mapuche, Qawasqar and Yagan, according to their representatives specifications). This year, the Bachelet government has placed a special emphasis on three of the indigenous languages that even though they are the minority, they are the most vital: Aymara, Rapanui and Mapuche. By the end of the year, each one of these languages will have their own language academy.
Criticisms against the ‘privatization of collective rights'
The measure, nevertheless, is not exempted from controversy. The alternative Mapuche newspaper, Mapuexpres, seriously criticized the new institution and organization that drives the program. According to the article, the creation of the academy is "a privatization of collective rights" because it has not included the participation of the indigenous people which it supposedly represents. Mapuexpres quotes the Mapuche leader Francisco Vera Millaquen, who affirms that Conadi's behaviour is "a violation" of the Convention 169 from the International Labour Organization (ILO) that establishes governments to consult with all indigenous people on legislative or administrative measures that could affect them directly.
Vera Millaquen affirms that a great number of representative organizations of the territory and the Mapuche people have been excluded from this process and he refuses the official version that supposedly states that the people in charge of Conadi have spent the last two years meeting with Mapuche representatives.
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