The press conference to present the (CILE) in Arequipa, from October 14 to 17, has crudely shown the confrontation between the director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, and that of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), . Asked about the reasons for their clash last week, first with some statements by García Montero about Muñoz Machado and then with a harsh response statement from the RAE, the following happened: “We will be able to discuss any differences once the congress is over, in Spain, including the preparation of the succession of the director of the RAE,” García Montero stated. To which the aforementioned, laconically, has pointed out: “No idea.”
Muñoz Machado, also president of the , has been in office for two terms. He started the first in 2018 and was re-elected in 2022, so the next re-election would be in 2026. Will he run? Could it be true, as his opponent has stated, that there is a cover? We will have to wait a few months or maybe less to find out.
Controversies aside, the director of Cervantes has added that what he is interested in these days “is collaborating with the institutions of Arequipa and Peru” (he did not mention the RAE). “We are committed to making the congress go well.”
However, almost at the end, they once again demonstrated the depth of their disagreement. Muñoz Machado has recommended some of the panels that will be held these days, where the central issues of the congress will be discussed: miscegenation, clear language and artificial intelligence. “It will be done by experts who know much more about these matters than we do.” On the other hand, García Montero jumped in seconds later: “I want to say that I am a philologist and I am an expert on these topics.” New murmuring in the room and a certain feeling of embarrassment among the Spaniards present in the room as the final point of the appearance.
Almost every question became a cause for disagreement. “The congressional programs are set by the academies and subsequently Cervantes intervenes to the limit of what he considers necessary,” said the director of the RAE. The CILE program is established by the RAE with the consensus supposedly of Cervantes, something that already caused friction in the previous meeting, held in Cádiz in 2023
It all started last Thursday, “The RAE is in the hands of an expert in conducting business from his office [de abogados] for multi-million dollar companies. That, personally, creates distances.” A dart that had its response hours later in a harsh statement from the RAE. Its plenary session agreed “unanimously to protest against the incomprehensible statements of Mr. García Montero, completely unfortunate and inopportune.” The text added: “It offends the RAE and the Association of Language Academies.” [las 23 que hay en el mundo] the attack on its director and president.”
A packed plenary hall of the Arequipa City Council has hosted what would normally have been an act of courtesy, which has become a new chapter that worsens the crisis in relations between the RAE and Cervantes. And minutes before, Muñoz Machado had said that he came to Arequipa “to celebrate” and that the controversy that arose was “peripheral accidents.”
In case something was missing, on Saturday the writer who won the Cervantes Prize – the most prestigious award in Spanish literature – and an academic from the RAE added fuel to the fire in an article in the newspaper Abc in which he attacked García Montero very harshly: “He has the vocation of a bureaucrat, like most communists I know.” And he added: “He is a minor poet, pleasantly minor, but lacking; small, but lacking.”
Inspired by Vargas Llosa
Returning to what will be the debates and academic presentations, the head of the RAE highlighted that “miscegenation is an argument as old as Spanish colonization.” “The Spanish discovered the native communities and talked about their customs and cosmogony,” he said.
Regarding clear language, he specified that it began to be discussed a couple of years ago. “If the language of public powers is obscure, citizens will not be able to understand it. It is a citizen’s right.” And regarding artificial intelligence, he added that “it is a technological revolution that it is in vain for us to try to stop.” And he continued: “It has multiplied its effects in an invasive way in our lives. We have to try to make the machines speak good Spanish because the one they have is imposed on them by their owners. So we had to approach the manufacturers of talking machines. The ultimate goal is for the AI to speak the same with us.” Likewise, he stressed that it represents “an opportunity to prepare our academic work, to be better informed about neologisms.”
For his part, García Montero recalled in his speech that Mario Vargas Llosa was the one who told him at the Córdoba (Argentina) congress, in 2019, before the closing, if he could propose Arequipa as the venue for the next CILE. García Montero replied: “If you propose it, there will be no turning back.” Now, he continues: “So in Arequipa, mestizaje brings us together and Mario Vargas Llosa brings us together, although in today’s world, in which economic imperatives replace the culture of dialogue and coexistence, we must call for understanding.”
Accompanying both directors at the table, although they were overshadowed, were Hugo Rojas Flores, rector of the National University of San Agustín, who highlighted that “Arequipa becomes the capital of the world of the Spanish language for a few days”; Carlos Chávez-Taffur, president of the Organizing Commission and Working Group of the X CILE, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Peru; and Víctor Hugo Rivera Chávez, mayor of Arequipa, who acknowledged: “Two years ago we suffered a nightmare [cuando la crisis política de un autogolpe de Estado del presidente Pedro Castillo impidió la cita en Arequipa]”.
However, this time political instability led to the dismissal by Congress of the president on Friday, due to “permanent moral incapacity”, amid a wave of violence in some areas. The mayor of Arequipa maintains hope: “God is great.”
