erinja:
The idea was rejected because "it would be too expensive for the youth", though I hear that the youth representative on the committee was in favour of the idea. It would be an interesting thing to try at least once, to shake things up a little, to see how things work out.

I like that phrase a lot "to shake things up a little, to see how things work out". An German phrase with somewhat similar intention is: "manchmal muß man sich einfach auf etwas einlassen um die Furcht vor der Ungewissenheit zu überwinden". English: "simply enter the adventure train and don't be frighten by the ambiguity. Because frightening by the ambiguity hinders boarding the adventure train to exciting experiences".

komenstanto:
Maybe they should have a meeting on a moving train instead of a boat: they could rent some train cars and travel across country!

That should be possible at least in Europe. I was very surprised how cheap traveling by train can be by TrenItalia (compared to Germany). Okay, the service can be more low quality, too. But its fine. It simply works.

erinja:
On one hand, the UEA would prefer that most Esperanto activity take place under its auspices, or under the auspices of one of its member organizations. On the other hand, certain types of Esperanto projects are highly unlikely ever to get UEA funding (lernu.net, for example, has never gotten a penny from UEA).

I would like add Vinilkosmo add to the list which never got funds of UEA and does an very good "job" at the Esperanto music field. There excist no other music label, which only produces Esperanto music.

erinja:
This situation is risky for the UEA. If Esperantists start to get the idea that the UEA does nothing useful, they start to ask themselves "Why bother joining at all, and what is my membership money supporting, anyway?", and numbers of UEA members continue to fall. The UEA risks making itself irrelevant, if Esperantists no longer see a point in joining.

I'm at that age where according to historical Esperanto career I should join the UEA. I definitivly will not do that at the current situation.

erinja:
I should note that I speak of the UEA as if it were a person, but of course it is made up of all different people, with all different viewpoints. However, as an organization, it leaves a certain impression, and it tends towards a certain direction.

Maybe some member are tired of cruising the UEA ship and try to put it out of service at some sandbank. ("Ultimate destination, please leave the ship without panicing").

Radio~!:
I find everything about UEA confusing - from the ridiculous arguments in the yahoo group "uea-membroj" to the bizarre system of UEA-kontoj

Yes, it's always puzzled me why UEA committee members have arguments etc in such a public way - everyone can read every embarrassing detail in those yahoo groups.

Surely they could just have a private discussion amongst themselves, pull their ideas together and then present some clear leadership to the members. Or at least whittle things down to a clear choice for members to vote on etc.

I know what you mean by the UEA table of membership options. There are just so many variations!

The system of UEA kontoj made more sense in the days when it was difficult to arrange international money transfers. It was an innovative solution to a sincere problem! The system has changed today, and although the UEA kontoj do facilitate some situations where you need to transfer money within the movement, it also adds confusion.

Buying books by credit card through the UEA is a confusing mess. Heaven help you if you are a beginner trying to buy a textbook. The system is in Esperanto only, and it's confusing even if you speak Esperanto fluently.

I don't remember any real difficulty buying books from UEA with a plastic card, although it is true that one has to read Esperanto to be able to do so. But EAB can order stuff from UEA, and I've used that faciity sometimes.

With la verda stelo and La Espero, part of the problem may be lack of exposition. I haven't seen any magazine articles explaining the symbolism of the green star, or the ideas of the Esperanto hymn, relating this to their history.

Maybe I (or someone at any rate) should do something about this ..

I would not say that there is any large group of Esperantists who are out and out opposed to the idea of green stars and the idea of "La Espero". And if there were, an education campaign about the meaning of those things would be unlikely to change anything.

I think that most people who aren't a huge fan of the green star and "La Espero" are not opposed to the existence of those things. Rather, they think those things are overused, and that over-use of those things makes the Esperanto community look bad to the outside world.

---

When I was at UK in Copenhagen, I saw a friend of mine having conversation in English with a woman who looked to be in her 30's. My friend later told me that this woman was not an Esperanto speaker, but she was attending the UK with her elderly father, who needed some assistance. My friend asked her if she was at all interested by what she saw there. She sort of rolled her eyes. "Not at all".

If an outsider walks into a UK, they are unlikely to think "How marvellous, I want to be a part of this".

erinja:If an outsider walks into a UK, they are unlikely to think "How marvellous, I want to be a part of this".

I wasn't thinking about outsiders. I was thinking of insiders who haven't learned or been taught much about the meaning of the Esperanto traditions. This seems to me a genuine oversight. It may be good for someone to do a little digging, and write, so that people who might otherwise consider such symbols overused, may be enabled to have a different perspective. The idea that Esperanto is a 'cult' or that Esperantists should not esteem their own symbols or traditions should not be allowed to win by default. As for the 30 year old lady you mentioned, maybe this 'hobby' is not for her, and she at least got some enjoyment out of her holiday in Denmark!

It isn't about not esteeming symbols.

It's about a mindset where you think a small and unobtrusive green star is fine, but every single surface at an Esperanto convention does not need to contain a massive flag and a green star. It's about overuse, rather than being about use in general.

You seem to think that "If only we would educate these people about our Esperanto traditions, they would see the value of these symbols". But I disagree, because I think that the people who are the most against overuse of the symbols are also well aware of the history behind these symbols. Conversely, people who have no idea whatsoever about the history behind the symbols may be the most enthusiastic ones about putting the symbols everywhere.

I see these topics (knowledge about the meaning of the symbols, and use of the symbols) as being unrelated.

Regarding symbols. As I started to create Esperanto language karaoke I tried to add some kind of tag for every created karaoke to honour the involved persons. (15x karaoke were created by other folks). To realize that I marked the karaoke I created with some )ô( tag by the end of every karaoke. I got no proposal of the other persons of what tag they would like to use for the karaoke they created. Later I forgot that tagging. But then I did encounter the very surprizing situation, that some folks spoke that ")ô(" after karaoke singing and get laughing (IS/JES). Due to personal preferences I later changed ")ô(" to ")eôbo(" without any being imagined what happened during last FESTO(JEFO) karaoke vespero. Dozen folks spoke that ")eôbo(" en chorus and laughed afterwards, which sounds like some kind of pistol shot if done by multiple persons at same time. So, some persons slapshots the Karaoke-Jockey's(KJ) into the dorsal. Pfff. What a fun.

So, maybe symbols are only strong if the meaning is experienced personally.

But please don't bowl around Verda stel shuriken at the next Espo event.

( Kiu alterpafiĝis karaokean ĵokeon (KJ)? )

qwertz:

komenstanto:
Maybe they should have a meeting on a moving train instead of a boat: they could rent some train cars and travel across country!

That should be possible at least in Europe. I was very surprised how cheap traveling by train can be by TrenItalia (compared to Germany). Okay, the service can be more low quality, too. But its fine. It simply works.

The Danube idea sounds fun also. That is a really broad and calm river. Could be cheaper in Latin America for something like that. They have many rivers there. I would personally rather travel to Latin American than Europe.

I think that education about the value of the symbols is not happening at all, and this omission should be rectified.

But thinking again about this, I recall that Zamenhof was prevailed on to downplay homaranismo in favour of treating the language purely as an instrument of international communication. Arguably, developing alternatives to la verda stelo and La Espero could further this end, by making the idea of learning the language more attractive (e.g. starting a backpackers' association).

La verda stelo and La Espero in my view were related as much to the aspects of Esperanto that Zamenhof esteemed but decided not to officially press, as the language itself, particularly homaranismo.

It follows that these traditions cannot be justified purely from the point of view of furthering an international komunikilo. The ideals of Zamenhof have to be brought into any exposition of these traditions. To preserve and promote them is to do the same for the ideals which they were intended to express.

So those who would do away with them should answer the question: how will those ideals be otherwise expressed? A backpackers' association may certainly do so in a practical way. But the melono seems to me, with its facing non-Esperanto letters in Greek and Cyrillic to Eurocentrise the language, and so to exert an influence counter to the five points symbolising all five continents, of la verda stelo.