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Karaj Amikoj:
Mi jxus sendis la jenan al la redaktoroj de "Telegraph". Kvankam mi dubas
ke ili eldonos gxin, eble iu tralegos la leteron....
Editors
Sunday Telegraph
London
Dear Sirs & Madames:
I am always amazed that articles about Esperanto (p. 14 Sunday Nov 6) are
required to include a substantial dose of disinformation.
"Esperanto has long been associated with Marxism and anti-clericalism".
While it is true that some Esperantists are Marxists, and quite a bit of
Marxist material has been written in the International Language, I hope you
realise that some Germans are Marxists and that Karl Marx himself wrote
mostly in the German language. And yet the sentence "the German language
has long been associated with Marxism" would be too absurd to print. It is a
transparent piece of propaganda. The same is true about the baseless and base
charge of "anti-clericalism". Indeed some atheistic literature is written in
Esperanto, but there are also French and English statements against church
policies. Are those languages therefore "associated with anti-clericalism"?
Similarly the Church does not allow the Mass to be celebrated in the Apache
language, and I am fairly certain that it is "forbidden for the language to be
used in the confessional."
The final statement in the article was pure disinformation. While
Esperanto was in fact more popular before the second World War, the drop
in the number of its adherents came from the death camps on both sides of
the conflict. Hitler annihilated Esperantists because the language was the
work of a Jewish pacifist. Stalin sent Esperantists to the Gulags because he
could not control the flow of information in the International Language.
The implication that Esperanto has been losing devotees to Interglosa is
laughable. There are hundreds of magazines regularly published in Esperanto,
and thousands of book titles in print; whereas Interglosa is a still-born
project which lacks the linguistic and social resources enjoyed by Esperanto.
While I am glad that the Michael Jackson film will stimulate exposure to
Esperanto, I hope it does not continue to provide the press a fresh excuse for
publishing stale lies and odorous innuendo.
Sincerely,
Miko SLOPER.
