The Cultural Gijonesa recognizes the trajectory of labor and internationalist struggle of Javier Arjona – Nortes | Focused on the periphery

The jury of XXXI Juan Ángel Rubio Ballesteros Award has unanimously decided to award this award to Javier Arjona “in recognition of their decades-long commitment to the most disadvantaged groups in solidarity.” “This award has a special meaning since the winner has stood out over the years and even more so in these dramatic moments, for the fight in support of the Palestinian people,” the jury noted in its ruling.

Born in Jaraíz de la Vera, Caceresin 1956, in a peasant family, Arjona emigrated to Asturias after studying agronomy and completing military service in Lion. “The fact is that there I met mining people, those who had been working for three months. milli. You know that the miners had that prerogative: they needed coal, they needed to produce, and they made a milli shorter. Some of those miners told me that there was work here. And as soon as I finished the milli, “I came here and the next day I was already working,” he recalled in an interview with Pablo Batalla in NORTH.

Miner until his retirement in Pozu Sotonin L´Entregu of the late Franco era he soaked up the politicized atmosphere of the Asturian mining basins, becoming part of the PCE, CCOOand the neighborhood and cultural movement linked to the democratic opposition:

“The exploitation was tremendous, of course, but there was not that absolute submission to the masters, that strict hierarchy, that I had known. I was also surprised by how organized people were. I saw it immediately, despite the secrecy. I arrived at a peak moment of mobilization and I was assigned to a workers commission at the age of eighteen. “This gourd seems to have studied something, let him go there.” I am also involved with the L’Entregu Neighborhood Association and the La Laguna cultural association: talks, activities… Everyone passed by there; Benigno Delmiro has something written about La Laguna. Very diverse people: from Juanín [Muñiz Zapico]who died shortly after in an accident, to people from the culture who would later become well known, like Chus Pedro and the people of Nuberu, or who already were, like Víctor Manuel. And assemblies at all hours”

Since the 1980s, their participation has become increasingly active in international solidarity with the Polisario Front of the Sahara and with the revolutionary movements of Central America. In 1983 he traveled to Nicaragua Sandinista as a volunteer and ends up staying three years as an agronomy teacher on an occupied farm. His stay will coincide with the worst moments of the counterrevolutionary insurgency supported by the USA: “We stood guard and slept with an AK at the head of the bed. I had an AK for three and a half years.”

After his return to Asturies he returned to his work as a picador and participated in the then very active Solidarity Committees with Latin America. Later he would be one of the founders of the Solidarity Platform with Chiapas and of Soldepaz-Pachakutian organization to which he remains closely linked, and which has promoted the Asturian program to welcome Colombian trade unionists and social activists.

Omnipresent in all mobilizations, even the most testimonial, genetically unitary and FrenteAmplistaArjona has been the ambassador of Latin American social movements in Asturies for decades, and at the same time a permanent hinge between the struggles of both parts of the world.

Very active on the platform Asturias with Palestinelast May he and his partner, also an activist Ana Callejathey received in their house Siero a letter with threats signed by a mysterious Spanish Pro-Israeli Movement.

The prize, awarded by the Gijón Cultural Societyis named after the historic president of this entity between 1970 and 1981, and 1987 and 1993. It will be delivered on Friday the 13th in an event at the Business school of Xixon.

This year’s jury was made up of Manuel Antonio Fernández SuárezSecretary of Organization of UGT of Xixón, Carlos Arias CancioPresident of the La Calzada Neighborhood Association, Paloma Llanos Pardojournalist from SER Gijón, Luis Miguel Piñera EntrialgoOfficial Chronicler of the Town of Gijón, Gladys Vicente AriasSecretary of Historical Memory and Secularism of the PSOE of Gijón representing Maricuela, awarded in the previous edition and Antonio Rubio Díaz-Shopkeeperas representative of the Rubio family and chaired by Pedro Roldán Garcíapresident of the Gijón Cultural Society