Paula Izquierdo
Writer
The cultural attachés of the Embassies in Spain depend on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and they have to be level A civil servants of the Administration of the State, which means, Specialists in Civil Administration, included in a “selected” and closed list. That is to say, thanks to their contacts.
Exceptionally, distinguished artists or litterateurs are appointed cultural attachés, but these cases are not very frequent. Something still quite striking taking into account that the great majority of cultural attachés in the different Latin American embassies of the world are, nearly all, writers.
I think it is important for the formula used to choose the cultural attachés of the different Spanish embassies spread over the five continents to be reconsidered.
It is true that, to some extent, the directors of the Cervantes Institutes, as well as the French Alliance, the Society Dante Aligheri, the British Council, the Camoes Institute and the Goethe Institute make up for the lack of writers and famous culture activists as cultural attachés in the embassies.
It would be interesting for Spanish embassies to count on the educational background of people from the cultural world
However, in the diplomatic field it would be interesting for the Spanish embassies to count on the educational background of people from the cultural world, instead of selecting civil servants like it has been done until the present moment.
Now that the “Marca España” is so in vogue, what better heritage than a language which is the second most spoken after Mandarin Chinese?
Cultural attachés should have as an objective the cultural promotion and, therefore that of the Spanish language, carrying out meetings between writers, conferences for men and women from the Spanish-speaking culture and promoting our culture as much as possible, as well as our idiosyncrasy, developing actions that help to show our biggest treasure to the world, which is our language and, of course, our culture. They should organize painting and photography exhibitions, invite prestigious musicians and programme meetings with writers or showing our expertise in the dance world, both classical and contemporary or Spanish. They could also create debates between cultural journalists from different countries and a countless list of activities that would be arranged by competent cultural attachés with great experience in the Spanish culture.
