José Antonio Aguirre's Bio III

You may be thinking that I forgot all about the third part of the Lehendakari Aguirre's bio.

Well, you may be right, but hey, better late than never.

Here you have it:

Jose Antonio Aguirre y Lekube

A Basque Professor at Columbia University

by Prof. Gorka Aulestia, University of Deusto

In America

The Basques owe a great debt to that blessed continent! Venezuela accepted Agirre’s family, a Panamanian consul saved his life, and a North American consul waited for him in the port to offer him a permanent resident visa in New York, plus a position at Columbia University as a professor of contemporary history. The lehendakari continued his journey, and when he arrived in Uruguay he could at last declare his true identity (on October 9, 1941) and leave “Alvarez Lastra” behind forever.

Professor and Lecturer in the USA

In December of 1941, the Agirre-Zabala family left Uruguay and headed for New York where they were received as honored guests by huge crowds of people. This simple man, symbol of a small defeated nation, spoke next to the Statue of Liberty, head held high, “in the name of man whom God created to be free and not a slave.” The Basques of New York congregated at the mythical Valentín Agirre’s restaurant Jai-Alai, and later 1,500 Americans gathered by the American Committee of the Nobel Prize in the Astoria Hotel listened with feeling to the words of the Basque fighter: “We do not want to die. We do not have to die. A people does not die except by its own ignominy.”

In New York Agirre gave classes at Columbia and prepared his book Escape Via Berlin, published in May 1942. He also wrote an unfinished History of the Basque Country, 520 typewritten pages with 120 more in longhand. In his courses he spoke of democracy, freedom, justice, peace and tolerance. He focused especially on a new European political order based on freedom, a precursor of the Common Market and the idea of Christian democracy. He energetically unmasked the European mega-nations that trod upon the rights of the smaller nations. Agirre was a man of peace, a fervent admirer of Ghandi, who was forced by circumstances beyond his control to take up arms in an unjust and unequal war.

The Basque Diaspora

The Basque diaspora was one of Agirre’s main priorities. From his New York apartment or his exiled government base in Paris, he was like a shepherd tending his flock. He made repeated visits to the most important Basque communities throughout the American continent, trying to mobilize and organize the scattered community. He was well received everywhere and could always count on the support of democratic circles in South America. His hope and optimism were summed up in his famous phrase: “Next year, at home.”

At the Centro Vasco in Buenos Aires the old Basque liberties echoed. “We will not quit until the Tree of Gernika casts a shadow on free land.” In the Laurak Bat society of Montevideo he inaugurated the Día del Euskera, or Day of the Basque Language, while demanding that Basques unite. In Chile he presided over the First International Conference on Christian Democracy in Latin America and took part in the Día del Euskera, speaking Basque, of course.

The Return to Europe

In 1946 Agirre returned to Europe for good. In Paris he participated in the creation of the International League of Friends of the Basques. It attracted more than 50,000 members including churchmen (Cardinals Verdìer and Griffin), politicians (E. Herriot, M. Shumann, G. Bidault), and writers (F. Mauriac, J. Maritain).

In 1949 he took part in the European Congress in Brussels in the capacity of honorary Vice-President along with his friend A. de Gasperi and Winston Churchill, honorary presidents of that meeting.

The year 1959 was one of the worst for Agirre, for the French forced the Basque government to relinquish its space on Marceau Avenue, accusing them of buying it with money taken from Spain. Once more the lehendakari turned to the American communities with whose help he was able to buy a house to live in. He expressed his sadness: “How few understand us!” But he continued the fight with the same hope and enthusiasm.

The First Worldwide Basque Conference

The first Worldwide Basque Conference began in September, 1956. Agirre opened the conference with a memorable speech that examined his twenty years in the Basque Government (one year in power and nineteen in exile). He humbly recognized his mistakes and his failures, one of which he felt was not being able to stop Franco from entering international organizations. The following year he could no longer contain his sadness, and he exclaimed, “The strongest reason supporting the regime that oppresses the people of the peninsula is the bayonet, and the dollars that the North Americans give him [Franco].”

His Death

From that time on Agirre continued to live with dignity, but he felt deceived and politically abandoned by the treason of the Allies. Once more, force proved superior to reason. Jose Antonio Agirre y Lekube, first lehendakaria of Euskadi, died on March 22, 1960 of a heart attack. The news of his death was a great blow to Basques and democratic friends around the world. His body was shipped from Paris to Donibane Lohitzun where it spent a night in the Monzón house. He was buried on March 28 after a funeral mass at the Donibane parish church. In spite of warnings and prohibitions by Franco’s government, all levels of Basque society gathered there to bid farewell to a great ambassador of Basque values, a great fighter who was dignified in the face of defeat, a loyal friend whose only adversaries were enemies of liberty.

More than 30 years have passed and yet Agirre’s absence is still felt within the Basque nationalist family. Lehendakari, Joseba Andoni, Goian Bego!

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