Dr. F. Álvaro Durántez Prados, professor at the European University of the Atlantic (UNEATLANTICO) has delivered several lectures on “Cooperation between Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries. The position of Equatorial Guinea in this framework” in cultural and educational institutions of the Spanish-speaking African country.
During the past month of April and in the context of the institutional and academic visit made by the FUNIBER representative to Equatorial Guinea, F. Álvaro Durántez has given lectures at the Cultural Center of Spain in Malabo, the Cultural Center of Spain in Bata and the Afro-American University of Central Africa, located in the district of Oyala, in the interior of the Continental Region of the country. At the Spanish Cultural Center in Malabo, directed by Ms. Sofia Mata Modron, Professor Durántez was introduced by the Spanish Ambassador, Mr. Javier Conde Martinez de Irujo.
Durántez, also director of the FUNIBER Chair of Ibero-American Studies and Iberophony and professor at the European University of the Atlantic, holds a PhD in Political Science from the Complutense University of Madrid, with Extraordinary Prize, and since the 90s of the last century, he has been a promoter of the contemporary current of geopolitical thought called Pan-Ibero-Americanism or Iberophony, which advocates the articulation of a Pan-Iberian Community of Nations composed of all countries and peoples of Spanish and Portuguese languages without geographical exclusions. To develop this proposal, Durántez created in 1995, at the age of twenty-six, the Spanish Pan-Ibero-American Society.
The lectures of the Spanish academic aroused great interest in the academic and institutional environment of the country and were attended by a large and specialized audience from the academic, political and diplomatic sectors, with personalities such as the aforementioned Ambassador of Spain, the Rector Magnificent of the National University of Equatorial Guinea (UNGE), Dr. Filiberto Ntutumu. Filiberto Ntutumu Nguema Nchama, the Director of the Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Gabino Obama, the Ambassador of Equatorial Guinea in charge of Lusophony, Mr. Ricardo Mateo Sila, or the Dean of Architecture and Engineering of the UNGE, Ms. Consolación Natividad Bindang Mba Mikue, Doctor by the Universidad Internacional Iberoamericana de Puerto Rico (UNIB), of the FUNIBER Network. At the Spanish Cultural Center in Bata, Dr. Durántez was introduced by its director, Ms. Nadia Valentín; and at the Afro-American University of Central Africa, by the Rector Magnificent, Dr. Paulo Speller, and by the Director of Academic Affairs, Ms. Florentina Sierra Mapane.
Professor Durántez highlighted the, in his opinion, great geocultural and geopolitical singularity of Equatorial Guinea due to “the fact that it is the only African country with an official Spanish language, the only non-American or European country that is a full member of official Ibero-American organizations, the only non-Lusophone state that is a full member of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), and, therefore, the only Spanish-speaking nation that belongs simultaneously to the Ibero-American System and the CPLP”.
For Dr. Durántez, the presence of FUNIBER in Equatorial Guinea is, therefore, “strategic, not only because of the singularities mentioned above, but also because it obeys our foundational purposes in the sense of bringing higher education to Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking societies, considering the socioeconomic reality of each country and each person”. In this context,” said the director of the FUNIBER Chair, ”Equatorial Guinea is a very important country -along with others, such as Angola- for the articulation of the Iberophone multinational Space; and FUNIBER, as the first university and educational platform of the Pan-Iberian Space, feels the vocation to contribute to the formation of the new generations of Equatorial Guinea.