Versión en castellano e galego

Galicia Bilingüe is a non-profit, apolitical, independent association, whose primary goal is to enable Galician citizens to enjoy the same language rights as citizens from other democratic countries with more than one official language, i.e. choice of the teaching language in schools, bilingualism in local and regional government, not favouring one language over another as a gauge of professional competence and putting an end to nationalist indoctrination in education.

We are people of all age ranges, especially with school-age children, who love freedom, tolerance and respect for democratic principles. Most of us live in Galicia, but we also have members and supporters living in other parts of Spain and in other countries, who all wish to see an end to the imposition of one language.

We never ask anyone if they are on the right or left or whether they abstain in elections or register a blank vote when they join us. We only need them to believe in our cause. In essence, to believe in democracy and individual rights.

Galicia Bilingüe was registered as an association in Galicia in July 2007 and its annual meeting and presentation of accounts is held in Santiago de Compostela, where its members have a voice and vote. In February 2009, Galicia Bilingüe handed in a petition at the General Registry of the Galician Regional Government that had been signed by 100,000 Galician citizens who supported its demands. Many of them also participate more directly; we have thousands of contributors and supporters who help us with our campaigns and receive regular information and legal advice from the association to help them defend their linguistic rights.

Galicia Bilingüe is exclusively financed by contributions from its members and voluntary contributions from its supporters and contributors. No member of the association receives any remuneration or financial compensation for the work he or she carries out for GB. Galicia Bilingüe has never received any contributions directly or indirectly from official bodies. We are not interested in receiving government grants and do not intend to change this situation, as we feel that we can better retain our independence this way.
We do not have any unnecessary expenses or premises. The growing number of people who join us to contribute their time and expertise in our highly active permanent working group do so in their own time and at their own pace. Our income is used to fund information campaigns and, especially at the moment, to cover legal fees for proceedings we have brought against the government for violation of lingistic rights.

Taking the project forward has not been easy. As soon as we began our journey, certain groups tried to silence us, perhaps because they believed we would jeopardise some of their privileges. They are mainly political parties and organisations, or groups associated with these parties, who believe that the imposition of one language enables them to achieve their aims. The most active ones receive grants to promote so-called “language standardisation”. Another highly belligerent group can be found in the monolingual cultural world, especially in publishing and film making.

We have also had to withstand intimidation and violence perpetrated by a highly fanatical sector that is almost always associated with separatist factions, which resulted in the need to request police protection for a while so that we could carry out our work. A certain police presence is still necessary in order to protect personal property and ensure the physical safety of members of Galicia Bilingüe’s management. GB has reported many such incidents, most of which have yet to be resolved by the courts.
Fortunately, the reporting of such acts by the media seems to have deterred these violent groups, and for some time now, they have restricted their activities to scrawling the occasional offensive graffiti, which, in our view, merely raises the general public’s awareness of their hateful nature.

Recently, the press has drawn attention to warnings from experts about this violent phenomenon and from the police, who fight to dismantle these groups, confirming that the indoctrination carried out in some schools, especially in small towns, is a source of recruitment of young fanatics. Hence the importance that Galicia Bilingüe attaches to bringing an end to this kind of indoctrination in education, which, in many cases, is regrettably associated with achieving a monolingual Galicia.

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