Frigdiano Álvaro Durántez
Frigdiano Álvaro Durántez, Director of the Chair of Ibero-American and Iberophone Studies of the Ibero-American University Foundation and a close collaborator of the Royal European Academy of Doctors (READ), took part on 26 March in a new edition of the programme “Enlace Iberoamericano” on Prensa Mercosur, in which he analysed, together with Gustavo Bueno, President of the Gustavo Bueno Sánchez Foundation, the new international order that is emerging in the wake of the latest geopolitical tensions. The session was entitled “Dialectic of Empires: Academic Rigour and University Specialisation” and was based on the ideas addressed during those same days at the Oviedo Philosophy Meetings, organised by the Gustavo Bueno Foundation itself, where the continuing relevance of imperial structures in the face of state fragmentation was examined.
The speakers considered that, in a new era in which the United States and China are competing, and Russia is asserting its place, Iberophony, a linguistic and cultural bloc of 900 million people across 30 countries, is emerging as a plurinational platform capable of a global response.
Along these same lines, the Ibero-American University Foundation had already announced the launch of pioneering degree programmes to train the intellectual and diplomatic elite of a pan-Iberian space.
The first of these is the Master’s Degree in the History, Geopolitics and Globalisation of Ibero-America and Iberophony. A 90-credit programme that seeks to train experts in the pan-Iberian sphere. In addition, the Ibero-American University Foundation proposes a university specialisation in “History of the Hispanic World”, focused on providing a solid historical grounding.
“Today’s nation-states can no longer be understood in isolation; their survival depends on their ability to integrate into larger platforms. Iberophony is not only a historical past and a cultural legacy, but also a geopolitical structure for the future,” Durántez and Bueno Sánchez agreed during the broadcast. This is an idea that the Foundation’s own Chair had already defended last February במסגרת the Foro Horizonte Ibérico, held in the auditorium of the law firm Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo Abogados, led by Javier Cremades, President of the World Jurist Association and full member of the READ, with the participation of former Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs José Manuel García-Margallo.
