Tuesday, April 29, 2003

Common Struggle

A friend from Basque Diaspora found a page that contains a speech by Russell Means who refers to the Basques and the Irish to make his point that he is not against Caucasians but against the often stagnant European culture.

Russell Means (Lakota: Oyate Wacinyapin - Works for the People) is one of the best-known and prolific activists for the rights of American Indians. Means has also pursued careers in politics, acting, and music.

Here you have the excerpt from the speech called "For America to live, Europe must die" in which he refers to the Basques:

In Marxist terms I suppose I'm a "cultural nationalist." I work first with my people, the traditional Lakota people, because we hold a common worldview and share an immediate struggle. Beyond this, I work with other traditional American Indian peoples, again because of a certain commonality in worldview and form of struggle. Beyond that, I work with anyone who has experience the colonial oppression of Europe and who resists its cultural and industrial totality. Obviously, this includes genetic Caucasians who struggle to resist the dominant norms of European culture. The Irish and the Basques come immediately to mind, but there are many others.

I work primarily with my own people, with my own community. Other people who hold non-European perspectives should do the same. I believe in the slogan, "Trust your brother's vision," although I'd like to add sisters in the bargain. I trust the community and the culturally based vision of all the races that naturally resist industrialization and human extinction. Clearly, individual whites can share in this, given only that they have reached the awareness that continuation of the industrial imperatives of Europe is not a vision, but species suicide. White is one of the sacred colors of the Lakota people - red, yellow, white and black. The four directions. The four seasons. The four period of life and aging. The four races of humanity. Mix red, yellow, white and black together and you get brown, the color of the fifth race. This is the natural order of things. It therefore seems natural to me to work with all races, each with it's own special meaning, identity and message.

But there is a peculiar behavior among most Caucasians. As soon as I become critical of Europe and its impact on other cultures, they become defensive. They begin to defend themselves. But I am not attacking them personally; I'm attacking Europe. In personalizing my observations on Europe they are personalizing European culture, identifying themselves with it.By defending themselves in this context, they are ultimately defending the death culture. This is a confusion which must be overcome, and it must be overcome in a hurry. None of us has energy to waste in such false struggles.

Caucasians have a more positive vision to offer humanity than European culture. I believe this. But in order to attain this vision it is necessary for Caucasians to step outside European culture - alongside the rest of humanity - to see Europe for what it is and what it does.

To cling to capitalism and Marxism and all the other "isms" is simply to remain within European culture. There is no avoiding this basic fact. As a fact, this constitutes a choice. Understand that the choice is based on culture, not race. Understand that to choose European culture and industrialism is to choose to be my enemy. And understand that the choice is yours, not mine. This leads me back to address those American Indians who are drifting through the universities, the city slums, and other European institutions. If you are there to learn to resist the oppressor in accordance with your traditional ways, so be it. I don't know how you manage to combine the two, but perhaps you will succeed. But retain your sense of reality. Beware of coming to believe the white world now offers solutions to the problems it confronts us with. Beware, too, of allowing the words of native people to be twisted to the advantage of our enemies. Europe invented the practice of turning words around on themselves. You need only look to the treaties between American Indian peoples and various European governments to know that this is true. Draw your strength from who you are.

A culture which regularly confuses revolution with continuation, which confuses science and religion, which confuses revolt with resistance, has nothing helpful to teach you and nothing to offer you as a way of life. Europeans have long since lost all touch with reality, if they ever were in touch with it. Feel sorry for them if you need to, but be comfortable with who you are as American Indians.

So, I suppose to conclude this, I would state clearly that leading anyone toward Marxism is the last thing on my mind. Marxism is as alien to my culture as capitalism and Christianity are. In fact, I can say I don't think I'm trying to lead anyone toward anything. To some extent I tried to be a "leader," in the sense that white media like to use that term, when the American Indian Movement was a young organization. This was a result of a confusion that I no longer have. You cannot be everything to everyone. I do not propose to be used in such a fashion by my enemies. I am not a leader. I am an Oglala Lakota patriot. This is all I want and all I need to be. And I am very comfortable with who I am.


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The Empite Strikes...Again

You are not going to read it on the news, most of you won't care but heck, this is my Blog so you will read it here.

Last night Spain's Guardia Civil raided Udalbiltza and arrested eight of its employees. Udalbiltza is a pro independence organization that unites the elected representatives of every town in Euskal Herria, and that includes the seven provinces, it is the only organization that groups together Basques from the Autonomous Basque Community (Euskadi) and the Foral Community of Nafarroa in Spain and Iparralde in France.

This comes one month before the elections in the Basque provinces, let me make you understand, the Spanish government just imprisioned Basque candidates for the elections in May, and Spain is supposed to be a democracy.

Spain just in case you forgot is an ally of the US and Britain in the present war on Iraq, a war that had to be waged to take a dictator down and bring peace and democracy to the Iraqi people, so I ask, where is the democratic spirit in Spain?

Aznar's party is facing a hard time, Basques, Catalonians, Galizans and Spaniards are against the war and blame Aznar for his stupid decision about the oil tanker Prestige, so now in order to secure some votes he is incarcerating the opposition candidates because he knows the common people was going to take him down the democratic way, with votes.

And people has the nerve to ask me why the Basques insist in having their own country, how would you feel if your language, your culture and your democratic institutions could be attacked on a regular basis by a totalitarian regime?

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Japanese Leader Visits "The Guernica"

This is what I call ironic, for a Japanese to go to Madrid to pay a visit of a painting that represents one of the worst crimes committed by the Spaniards against the Basques.

Shouldn't Picasso's "Guernica" be on display in lets say, Gernika, or in any other museum in the Basque Country?

Here you have the note:

Japanese leader takes time out to visit museum in Madrid

Mon Apr 28, 4:13 PM ET

MADRID (AFP) - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took a break from diplomatic negotiations in Spain to take in the finer sights at the Queen Sofia contemporary art museum, Japanese diplomatice sources said.

The Japanese leader admired works by Spanish painters such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and Joan Miro but he was particularly taken with Picasso's famous Guernica mural symbolising the horrors of war.

The huge 1937 painting depicts the terrorised and dying civilians of Guernica, a small Basque village in northern Spain that was bombed by German planes in April 1937 during the Spanish Civil War.

About 1,600 civilians were killed or wounded in the attack.

Koizumi visited the museum after a working lunch with his Spanish counterpart Jose Maria Aznar with whom he discussed the North Korean nuclear weapons crisis.


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Sunday, April 27, 2003

Gernika : A Poem

Gernika continues to be a source of inspiration for artists that are against the war and against repression. Whenever I read something about Gernika I also remember the victims of the bombing in Durango.

Here you have a poem I've just found inspired by Gernika, and a commentary by the author of the poem:

Guernica

Picasso's passion for peace
Symbol of war's horrors
Screams of death and agony
Fallen man, fallen horse

Nazi Luftwaffe bombs falling
On small Basque village
It was market day, market day
The streets were jammed

Nazis bombed and strafed
Planes diving, machine guns firing
The young Luftwaffe pilots
Found the marketplace

Screaming villagers and peasants
Running for their lives
As death blurted from the sky that day
Seventeen hundred murdered and maimed

Picasso shared his human outrage
In his unforgettable Guernica
The Guernica of screams and death
Of fallen man, fallen horse

Cowardly diplomats and generals
Try to hide Guernica but they cannot;
Cover Guernica and it emerges
Starker, stronger, truer

Guernica was painted for you
Watch the ones who avert their eyes
As they slink by in shame
Planning new wars, new sorrow

David Krieger
February 2003


Guernica

By David Krieger

Guernica is a small Basque village that was brutally attacked by the Nazi Luftwaffe on April 27, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. The attack on the unarmed inhabitants of Guernica left 1,700 villagers and peasants dead or maimed. It was still unusual at that time for an air force to deliberately bomb a civilian population.

The tragedy and brutality that occurred at Guernica was immortalized by Pablo Picasso in his impassioned mural expressing his outrage at the murderous attack. It is one of Picasso's masterpieces that is known throughout the world. It depicts the horrors of war, the silent screams of men and beasts.

Of late, Picasso's Guernica has been in the news. The tapestry reproduction of the famous mural that hangs outside the entrance to the United Nations Security Council was covered with a blue curtain on the occasion of US Secretary of State Colin Powell presenting his evidence to the Council for war against Saddam Hussein. UN officials said that the blue curtain was to provide a better background for the television cameras. Certainly it is a more comfortable background, far easier on the eyes and minds of those who plead for war than the twisted, tormented figures portrayed in Picasso's Guernica.

No leader should be protected from Picasso's Guernica. The tapestry of Guernica hanging outside the Security Council is a reminder to leaders of the brutality of war. To cover such art is to hide from the truth, and is made all the worse when it is done to protect the sensibilities of leaders who would wage war.

Those leaders who would promote war for any reason should at a minimum have the courage to look straight at Picasso's Guernica. War should never be sanitized or made to appear heroic. There is nothing heroic about middle aged war hawks sending young men and women off to kill and die. It was not heroic at Guernica, and it is no more so today.


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Behind The Tapestry

Yesterday was a day of commemoration, the Basque community around the world remembered what took place on April 26th of 1937 when their beloved city of Gernika was demolished and burnt to the ground by Europe's Fascist powers. The combined forces of Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy and Franco's Spain unleashed a devastating attack against the civilian population of the town, killing at least 1600 people, must of them women and children.

This crime went unpunished for one simple reason, the Allies (France, England and the USA) betrayed the Basques, their allies throughout the entire conflict. Eisenhower (a fascist himself) had promised to expel all Fascist regimes from Europe, but then he got scared before Russia and decided to easy up the restrictions on Spain, a country that had openly supported the Axis before, during and after the war (when hundreds of Nazis found safe haven under Franco).

If today Euskal Herria is not a free and independent country is in great part due to the Allies betrayal. Everyone remembers the Nuremberg Trials, yet, no one was ever taken before a court of law for the crimes committed by Francisco Franco in Durango and Gernika.

Pablo Picasso stated that he did not want his painting, the "Guernica" back in Spain until the democracy was restablished. Thanks to the campaign that sanitized Franco's crimes from recorded history and to a big lie called "the democratic transition" the painting is back in Spain.

Today the world is witnessing a cruel war unleashed by George W. Bush, Tony Blair and José María Aznar. Spain is again on the side of the fascist powers, only that this time it is the USA and England the ones conducting a genocidal war in Iraq. That may be the reason why the reproduction of Picasso's "Guernica" was concealed behind a blue curtain in the weeks previous to the inhumane bombing of Baghdad.

I've just found an article from The Washington Times that highlights this issue:

The cover-up

U.N. Report
By Betsy Pisik


A tapestry of Pablo Picasso's powerful anti-war tableau "Guernica" has hung outside the U.N. Security Council since 1985, and it would be difficult to imagine a more fitting example of site-specific art.

The original 1937 painting depicts the terrorized and dying civilians at Guernica, a small Basque village in northern Spain that Generalissimo Francisco Franco's Nationalist regime, battling the Republican government during the Spanish Civil War, allowed the German air force to use for target practice. About 1,600 civilians were killed or wounded in three hours of bombardment.

The estate of Nelson Rockefeller, who gave the money to buy what is now the U.N. compound, donated the tapestry expressly for that famous wall as a show of faith in the U.N. mandate.

Television cameras routinely pan the tapestry as diplomats enter and leave the council chambers, and its muted browns and taupes lend a poignant backdrop to the talking heads.

So it was a surprise for many of the envoys to arrive at U.N. headquarters last Monday for a Security Council briefing by chief weapons inspectors, only to find the searing work covered with a baby- blue banner and the U.N. logo.

"It is, we think, we hope, only temporary," said Faustino Diaz Fortuny, a Spanish envoy whose government owns the original painting. U.N. officials said last week that it is more appropriate for dignitaries to be photographed in front of the blue backdrop and some flags than the impressionist image of shattered villagers and livestock.

"It's only temporary. We're only doing this until the cameras leave," said Abdellatif Kabbaj, the organization's media liaison. He noted that the diplomats' microphone, which usually stands in front of a Security Council sign, had to be moved to accommodate the crowd of camera crews and reporters. With the Picasso as a backdrop, Mr. Kabbaj said, no one would know they were looking at the United Nations.

The drapes were installed last Monday and Wednesday — the days the council discussed Iraq — and came down Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, when the subjects included Afghanistan and peacekeeping missions in Lebanon and Western Sahara.

So when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell enters the council Wednesday to present evidence of Iraq's acquisition of mobile biological weapons labs and terrorism ties, he will walk in front of flags that wouldn't look out of place in the auditorium of a high school gymnasium.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who keeps a Matisse tapestry and a Rauschenberg collage in his private 38th-floor conference room, denies he had anything to do with the "Guernica" cover-up.

"If you heard all the things done in my name, you'd think I was everywhere," he joked Friday. "I heard it was artistic."

Mr. Kabbaj amplified thus: "We had a problem with, you know, the horse."

It was, of course, a camera crew that noticed that anyone who stood at the U.N. microphone would be photographed next to the backside of a rearing horse.


Can you believe the lame excueses given by the UN people?

And how about that Spanish diplomat? Please, his country was behind the build up towards war against Iraq, a war supported by some preposterous accusations by a drug adict terrorist called George W. Bush.

The tapestry was hidden behind a curtain, a curtain that also hides the crimes committed against the Basque people, crimes that the UN has been remiss to address, too busy granting sovereignty to fake states like Israel. Because therein lies the reasons why the UN does nothing about Euskal Herria and the Basque people, because they know that at the heart of the matter lies the right of an entire nation to its self-determination, to its full independence. right there in the power hub called Europe, a continent still struggling to get over its colonialist and genocidal past.

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Saturday, April 26, 2003

Kids Guernica Project

Here is a very interesting project, go visit it, is the Kids Guernica Project.

You can also go to this page which is full of the reports that at the time journalists all over the world sent to their respective news outlets.

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Remembering Gernika

Today we commemorate the bombing of the sacred Basque town of Gernika which was inmortalized by Pablo Picasso's painting "Guernica", a painting so powerful that today it embodies the anti-war sentiments of those who understand that nothing good comes from not giving peace a chance.

Gernika may be by now a chapter forgotten by bogus historians, martini communists and weekend human right activists, but it will stand forever as the first carpet bombing of a civilian population in history. It was also a the Nazi's first big scale ethnic cleansing operation, one that the modern keepers of the Nazi Holocoust willingly hide from the hundreds of books about the darkest era in Europe's modern history.

That attack was directed to the heart and soul of the Basques, that attack was part of a ravenous attempt by an old colonial power to retain at least a bit of its imperial image, and it was conceived in the minds of the worst fascist monsters of the XX century. But the Basques stood tall, the indomitable Basque looked at the enemy on the eye and fought it till the end and today Gernika represents our will to prevail.

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Thursday, April 24, 2003

Step by Step

I've just received this information via emai:

Basque Country Step by Step

Information Service from Basque Country

Introduction

This is an information service focused on the struggle of the Basque Country for freedom and the respect of human rights included the right to self determination.

1.- Spain, a criminal state

On the 31st of March it was discovered that Cesid Spanish "intelligence" services was spying the quarters of the political party Herri Batasuna in the city of Gasteiz years before the banning. This spying had taken place for three years. During the last days of March of the present year former heads and agents of Cesid had been processed with the result of the last Director of Cesid being sentenced to three years in prison, a fine of 11,160 Euros and the inhabilitation to be employed in a public post for 8 years. The Spanish State has also being declared liable on this affair.

It has been know that the General Public Prosecutor if Spain pressured the public prosecutors of the Provincial Audience of Alava, so no penal charges would be imposed on the accused members of Cesid. The Spanish General Prosecutor is appealing the sentence.

2.- The Ikurriña banned

The Parliament of the Navarrese Autonomous Community debated on the 26th of March the new Symbol’s act. The votes of the governing conservative party, Union del Pueblo Navarro, plus the votes of the Socialist Party and conservative Convergencia Democratica approved the Draft of the Symbols’ Act that bans the use of the Ikurrina, Basque emblem, flag, in public institutions.

3.- Trade Union’s compromise with political rights

The majority of the Basque Trade Union movement in the Basque country facing the ilegalisation of Batasuna subscribed on the 5th of April a document titled "For the right to politically participate". The trade union movement claims the need "of ensuring all rights for all persons in the Basque country".

The Basque Trade Union movement hopes to build within and from the workers movement a solution to the political conflict at the Basque Country.

4.- Here comes Korrika

On the 4th of April Korrika began in the north of the Basque Country, in Maule. Korrika, meaning "running" in Basque, is one of the most important initiatives that takes place in favour of Euskara.

Aek and Korrika

The Korrika is an event organised by the Alfabetatze Euskalduntze Koordinakundea (AEK), the co-ordinating committee for promoting literacy and teaching Basque.

AEK is a popular movement that promotes literacy in Basque and teaches Basque to adults. This organisation has over a hundred centres and thousands of students throughout the Basque Country.

The Korrika is not a regular event, it is a giant race that crosses the whole Basque Country during 10 days, non-stop, night and day. It is not something that can be seen everyday: thousands of people from all walks of life and all ages taking part in this race and running over 2,100 kilometres.

Korrika, which happens every two years, has become a phenomenon that rouses Basque society. The number of people who take part in the race increases from one Korrika to the next. Thousands of people collaborate in the organisation of the Korrika in the committees formed in towns and neighbourhoods. While the campaign is on, hundreds of festivals and cultural acts are organised.

The movement created around the Korrika reflects the size of the effort that Basque society makes to recover its language. From the moment that the first Korrika crossed the Basque Country from Oñati to Bilbao in 1980, it has been one of the most highly participated events organised in support of the Basque language. Twelve Korrikas and more than 20 years have gone by since, but the success of the Korrika continue.

Korrika 13th, A nation carving its future

The work done at the Basque Country in order to recover its culture and language is not new.

During the end of the 60’s and the beginning of the 70’s Basque culture experienced a very important renaissance in all areas; music, literature and plastic arts amongst others. Ikastolak (primary schools where subjects are taught in Basque) and night schools (where adults are taught the Basque language) spread to many towns. A standardised Basque language was created (euskara batua). In music for instance, it is clear that the reason why we have a decent production level in respect of both quantity and quality, and a ‘normalised’ market today, is due to the effort made at that time.

In order to recover this spirit, the Korrika wants to pay tribute to the protagonists of this renaissance. Many people worked very hard at that time and they all deserve the tribute. Amongst them we find the cultural movement called ‘ez dok amairu’ (there is no thirteen).

This 13th Korrika wants to remember the enthusiasm and vitality of those who created ‘ez dok amairu’. Jorge Oteiza chose the name which he borrowed from a popular tale collected by Azkue in the Basque province of Bizkaia to show that Basque culture could break the spell of the unlucky number thirteen and continue to bloom.

Today the Korrika wants to tell society exactly the same thing; there is no thirteen, there is no curse. In the same way they managed to give Basque music and culture a big push during the inflexibility of the dictatorship, we also want to be able to carry on over all measures against Basque. We have to take Basque society through another period of renaissance because we are able to.

Euskal Herria, on the 15th of April, 2003.


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Monday, April 21, 2003

"A Challenge To All Journalists"

Thanks to the group Basque Diaspora we got a hold of this interview with Aidan White regarding the Egunkaria case:

Interview: Aidan White General Secretary of the International Federation ofJournalists

"The closure of Egunkaria is a challenge to all journalists"

2003-04-20

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is the biggest federation of journalist in the world: It represents about half a million journalist from more than one hundred states.

-What do you think about the closure of Egunkaria?

We are really concerned about the closure of Egunkaria. It was a newspaper which was regarded as professional and was accused of illegal activity. I think that the closure of any newspaper, which is a professional newspaper is extremely dangerous, is an attack on press freedom. In this case we are particularly concern, because Egunkaria was the only 100% Basque language newspaper. This, for us, raises very serious concern on pluralism, and it was for that reason that we expressed concern about the closure and raised the question over how it was done. We realize that this was a judicial decision, but we feel that it is extremely important that such a decision have to be based on a thorough understanding of what the potential consequences are for press freedom, and we are not quite sure that that has been considered. At the same time we are, as an organization, unequivocal in our condemnation of any group trying to use terrorism or any other illegal activity. We were very concerned when our intervention was apparently interpreted by some people as being in support of a terrorist organization. We have always taken a very strong line against organizations that threatens journalists. We have done it in Northern Ireland, in Algeria, in every region of the world where it is happening. In the case of Egunkaria, the question is: Could this actions have been taken without closing the newspaper?

-A simple accusation was used to close Egunkaria. Don't you think that such anextreme measure would need at least a firm sentence?

I think that before you close a newspaper, you have to be very very clear that the allegations against the newspaper - that is has been used for terrorist activity, in this case- have to be proved. You have to listen to what people say objectively from the outside of Egunkaria, and see if they say that it was a newspaper directed by ETA. I have reports here of media professionals telling me what the newspaper was doing, and they said that it was a professional newspaper and was doing a very good job.

Of course it represented mainly the points of view of the nationalist community. I am Irish, I come from the catholic community in Northern Ireland an I am very well aware that media have to tread a difficult line. In Northern Ireland you have two daily newspapers: One represents the protestant community and the other one the catholic community. Both tell the same story, but they tell it, naturally, from the perspective of those communities they represent. I would never say that just because a newspaper represents a certain political tradition or community it automatically supports terrorism. In the case of Egunkaria we are still waiting for a clear evidence for the justification of this action.

-Can you tell us of any similar situation in Norther Ireland? Has any newspaper been closed?

There have been restrictions, famously the television ban to use the authentic voice of Gerry Adams, which was absolutely absurd. But they have never been tempted to close newspapers, although newspapers like Republican News, for example, have been regarded as very close to terrorism -I think very much closer than Egunkaria has ever been. It has never been closed.

-Do you know of any other case similar to Egunkaria's all over the world?

Yes there have been other cases, but I can not precise right now where. From my point of view any closure of a newspaper is such a serious thing that it has to be thoroughly proved to be justified, and I think in this case it was not.

-In these cases, and in the case of Egunkaria particularly, what can your federation do?

We can raise a debate. As we did in this case, we express our strong opinion, and ask for a review of the situation. We have promoted discussion among Basque journalists and Spanish journalists, about how they respond on this question, and I think there is a lot of concern. That is the kind of thing we are going to promote. The closure of Egunkaria is a challenge to all journalists, is a challenge to Basque journalists, but is also a challenge to journalists in Spain to show solidarity and to really examen the consequences for press freedom. I do feel that solidarity between Basque journalists and Spanish journalists is essential in confronting all threats to press freedom. I hope there will be more dialog and more effective cooperation in defense of press freedom. The IFJ is going to do what it can to promote this cooperation.

-150 workers have been deprived of their jobs, and there is not a single accusation against them.

That is one of the major concerns we have, because when a newspaper is closed it is not only a threaten to press freedom, but also a threat to the livelihood of hundreds of people and their families. The fact that so many people have lost their jobs is also very bad news, and it also raises against the question that if a newspaper is going to be closed it has to be absolutely justified, and we are not convinced in this case that it was. We feel that loss of jobs is a terrible thing, and we would hope that egunkaria should be reopened, and soon.

-As Egunkaria was the only daily newspaper in Basque, we think this was also anattack against our language. Do you agree?

We have raise the concern of the impact on pluralism. Of course the Basque language is an extremely important part of this discussion. We know that minority language groups throughout Europa have expressed concern about what happened to Egunkaria, and we fully sympathize with that.

-As you know, some of the arrested people have claimed that their were tortured by the Spanish Police, and that the Spanish Government instead of investigating into it has sued them. What is your opinion on this?

If there are allegations of torture there are rules on national and international levels for those to be properly investigated. International law is very clear on that point.


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Sunday, April 20, 2003

Today is the Aberri Eguna!

But what does Aberri Eguna mean?

Well, here you have an answer:

Aberri Eguna . The Basque national day, always celebrated on Easter Sunday. The word aberri 'fatherland' was coined by the Basque nationalist Sabino Arana in the late 19th century; it consists of herri 'country' preceded by a the fanciful word aba 'father', egun is 'day', and the -a is just the Basque article. The practice of celebrating Aberri Eguna was itself introduced by Arana; since then, the day has become an event of considerable importance, and it has always been celebrated except when persecution by Spanish dictatorships has prohibited this.

Aberri Eguna or the day of the Basque homeland is celebrated in conjunction with Easter in large parts of the Basque country.

The first Aberri Eguna was held on Easter Sunday, March 25,1932. Sixty-five thousand celebrated together in Bilbao. The festival fused both Basque culture and religion. The early nationalists promoted Catholicism and the choice of Easter, the major religious celebration in the Church's calendar, as the day to celebrate the homeland was no coincidence. Just as Easter marked the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the beginning of the church's year. Aberri Eguna also marked the rebirth of a people who had found themselves and their destiny.

Some Basque American communities also celebrate this event. But apart from this, in many ways the local civic picnics/festivals parallel the same sentiment. A similar format with a Basque mass to begin the festivities followed by Basque dancing, singing, sports, etc. is the norm at many Basque-American festivals. The connections between Catholicism and Basque culture is still very apparent at many of the gatherings.

Aberri Eguna is still celebrated today throughout the Basque country, including the northern provinces that lie in France. Its significance can vary from group to group, but Aberri Eguna remains a celebration of Basque culture and the recognition that the euskaldunak share a unique heritage that deserved the place amongst the people and cultures of the world.

(from a text by John Yzursa)


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Tuesday, April 15, 2003

A Brave New World

So, now we have that Syria is in trouble over allegations of harboring Saddam regime people fleeing Iraq and some warmongers want the troops already deployed in the area to go to Damascus, that is one unique way of bringing democracy and stability to the region.

India issued a threat of launching a pre-emptive attack on Pakistan saying that their neighbor has weapons of mass destruction and has been aiding the terrorists that bring violence to war torn Kashmir and since they are using the same rethoric used by Bush now no one can tell them no.

Ahmed Chalabi, who has been tapped to become Iraq's new leader angered some tribe chiefs when he displayed the new flag he wants for the country. The Iraquis say they are happy with their flag and question Chalabi's motivs to have a new flag. Chalabi's FIF (Free Iraqui Fighters) display the new flag on their uniforms and it was them who reveled in front of the big statue when it was toppled, not the common Baghdad folk, it was also them who appeared on TV celebrating Baghdad liberation by firing rounds of ammo into the air from their Kalishnikov rifles something that angered the military trainers from the US army that air lifted them from the Iraqi Kurdistan.

It is getting uglier and uglier.

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Monday, April 14, 2003

The Attack of the Little Clones

The other day I went by a coffe shop to meet a friend for a little chat, soon a couple of employees joined the conversation that at the time revolved around the the Oscars. What happened next is a little disgusting and a little sad.

Both of the girls said that Tom Hanks was the greatest actor ever and mentioned the two Oscars he's been given, well, in my opinion Tom Hanks is a rather average actor that was lucky enough to get those two Oscars and then I asked them to tell me a scene with Tom Hanks that should be preserved for posterity and they both mentioned his crying in the hospital room in the movie "Philladelphia", I dismissed it saying that any actor can play a whimpy guy crying but I agreed that his job in "Forrest Gump" was quite solid.

Then I asked for one more scene and they couldn't think of one for one simple reason, there is not more memorable scenes involving Tom Hanks. We talked about other actors with more advanced acting skills and suddenly as we are discussing Tim Robbins and how he is considered one of Hollywood's more intelligent people one the Panache girls says: "And yet, he is in anti war rallies".

-What do you mean?- I asked.

-Well-She said-How can you be intelligent and oppose the war?

The other girl nodded approvingly.

-What is so intelligent about this war?- I asked

And then it happened, both of them at unison, like little robots programmed to repeat the same lines presented the reasons to go bomb innocent civilians. Iraq wants to attack the USA, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, Saddam violates human rights, Iraq has ties to Al Quaeda.

So I threw a few questions at them.

How can Iraq, half a world away attack the US?

In that case, why the US is not attacking North Korea which has the capability of nuking Alaska and Hawaii?

If Iraq has ties to Al Quaeda, why is the US not bombing Riyadh that funds Al Quaeda instead of Baghdad?

If we worry so much about human rights violations why does the US continues to fund Israel which is obsessed with stealing the land from the Palestinians and kills innocent children and peace activists in the process?

They did not have an answer to any of these questions, I guess the anwers have not been programmed by Fox, CNN or NBC.

.... ... .

Sunday, April 13, 2003

Confused

I am a little confused here.

I read on the news that they found seven American POW's safe and sound, that it was the Iraqui military who presented them to the Coalition forces. So, they were not killed in cold blood like a lot of people thought, on top of that no one can find the weapons of mass destruction that the Baghdad regime was supposed to have and which it never used to defend Iraq or to attack Israel. The Iraqui army did not used civilians as human shields by dragging the war into the cities and POW Lynch was rescued from a hospital, not a jail nor a dungeon but a hospital and we know now that the toppling of Saddam's big statue was staged and that Iraqui citizens are leery of the US troops and are not welcoming them as liberating forces.

So, who lied to us?

The worst part is now to come when civil unrest tears the country appart like we've seen with the looting and the killing of opposition leaders among the Shiites, and Turkey insists in some sort of assurance that the Kurds will not seek independence which would fan the desire for independence of all the Kurds which would in turn bring conflict to neighboring Iran and Syria.

But the Kurds do not feel that they are Iraqui and they still remember how the international community betrayed them 10 years ago during the first Gulf War, so chances are, they will take this opportunity to carve their own state from Iraq which of course may incite the Shiites in Iran to do the same with southern Iraq, now, that is quite a mess.

And someone called the people in the peace ralliess a bunch of morons, well, looks like those morons know when they are being fed with lies. So, I leave you with an image of a bunch of spinless unpatriotic morons in Rome that marched yesterday protesting against the present war.

.... ... .

Saturday, April 12, 2003

The War's Other Victim

The war claims one more victim:

Iraq National Museum Treasures Plundered

By HAMZA HENDAWI
.c The Associated Press


BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The famed Iraq National Museum, home of extraordinary Babylonian, Sumerian and Assyrian collections and rare Islamic texts, sat empty Saturday - except for shattered glass display cases and cracked pottery bowls that littered the floor.

In an unchecked frenzy of cultural theft, looters who pillaged government buildings and businesses after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime also targeted the museum. Gone were irreplaceable archaeological treasures from the Cradle of Civilization.

Everything that could be carried out has disappeared from the museum - gold bowls and drinking cups, ritual masks worn in funerals, elaborately wrought headdresses, lyres studded with jewels - priceless craftsmanship from ancient Mesopotamia.

"This is the property of this nation and the treasure of 7,000 years of civilization. What does this country think it is doing?'' asked Ali Mahmoud, a museum employee, futility and frustration in his voice.

Much of the looting occurred Thursday, according to a security guard who stood by helplessly as hoards broke into the museum with wheelbarrows and carts and stole priceless jewelry, clay tablets and manuscripts.

Left behind were row upon row of empty glass cases - some smashed up, others left intact - heaps of crumbled pottery and hunks of broken statues scattered across the exhibit floors.

Sensing its treasures could be in peril, museum curators secretly removed antiquities from their display cases before the war and placed them into storage vaults - but to no avail. The doors of the vaults were opened or smashed, and everything was taken, museum workers said. That lead one museum employee to suspect that others familiar with the museum may have participated in the theft.

"The fact that the vaults were opened suggests that employees of the museum may have been involved,'' said the employee, who declined to be identified. "To ordinarily people, these are just stones. Only the educated know the value of these pieces.''

Gordon Newby, a historian and professor of Middle Eastern studies at Emory University in Atlanta, said the museum's most famous holding may have been tablets with Hammurabi's Code - one of mankind's earliest codes of law. It could not be determined whether the tablets were at the museum when the war broke out.

Other treasures believed to be housed at the museum - such as the Ram in the Thicket from Ur, a statue representing a deity from 2600 BC - are no doubt gone, perhaps forever, he said.

"This is just one of the most tragic things that could happen for our being able to understand the past,'' Newby said. The looting, he said, "is destroying the history of the very people that are there.''

John Russell, a professor of art history and archaeology at the Massachusetts College of Art, feared for the safety of the staff of Iraq's national antiquities department, also housed at the museum; for irreplaceable records of every archaeological expedition in Iraq since the 1930s; for perhaps hundreds of thousands of artifacts from 10,000 years of civilization, both on display and in storage.

Among them, he said, was the copper head of an Akkadian king, at least 4,300 years old. Its eyes were gouged out, nose flattened, ears and beard cut off, apparently by subjects who took their revenge on his image - much the same way as Iraqis mutilated statues of Saddam.

"These are the foundational cornerstones of Western civilization,'' Russell said, and are literally priceless - which he said will not prevent them from finding a price on the black market.

Some of the gold artifacts may be melted down, but most pieces will find their way into the hands of private collectors, he said.

The chances of recovery are slim; regional museums were looted after the 1991 Gulf War, and 4,000 pieces were lost.

"I understand three or four have been recovered,'' he said.

Samuel Paley, a professor of classics at the State University of New York, Buffalo, predicted whatever treasures aren't sold will be trashed.

The looters are "people trying to feed themselves,'' said Paley, who has spent years tracking Assyrian reliefs previously looted from Nimrud in Northern Iraq. "When they find there's no market, they'll throw them away. If there is a market, they'll go into the market.''

Koichiro Matsuura, head of the U.N.'s cultural agency, UNESCO, on Saturday urged American officials to send troops to protect what was left of the museum's collection, and said the military should step in to stop looting and destruction at other key archaeological sites and museums.

The governments of Russia, Jordan and Greece also voiced deep concern about the looting. Jordan urged the United Nations to take steps to protect Iraq's historic sites, a ``national treasure for the Iraqi people and an invaluable heritage for the Arab and Islamic worlds.''

Some blamed the U.S. military, though coalition forces say they have taken great pains to avoid damage to cultural and historical sites.

A museum employee, reduced to tears after coming to the museum Saturday and finding her office and all administrative offices trashed by looters, said: "It is all the fault of the Americans. This is Iraq's civilization. And it's all gone now.'' She refused to give her name.

McGuire Gibson, a University of Chicago professor and president of the American Association for Research in Baghdad, was infuriated. He said he had been in frequent and frantic touch with U.S. military officials since Wednesday, imploring them to send troops "in there and protect that building.''

The Americans could have prevented the looting, agreed Patty Gerstenblith, a professor at DePaul School of Law in Chicago who helped circulate a petition before the war, urging that care be taken to protect Iraqi antiquities.

"It was completely inexcusable and avoidable,'' she said.

The museum itself was battered. Its marble staircase was chipped, likely by looters using pushcarts or heavy slabs of wood to carry booty down from the second floor. The museum is in the Al-Salhiya neighborhood of Baghdad, with its back to a poor neighborhood.

Early Saturday, five armed men showed up at the gate: One was armed with a Kalashnikov, three carried pistols, one wielded an iron bar. The man with the assault rifle walked into the museum, accused journalists there of stealing artifacts and ordered them to leave.

He claimed to be there to protect the museum from plundering. One of the men said he was a member of the feared Fedayeen Saddam militia.

"You think Saddam is now gone, so you can do what you like,'' he raged.


.... ... .

Muguruza and Egunkaria

This should not come as a surprise, but guess what, the Spaniards reacted negatively to Fermín Muguruza's defense of Egunkaria:

Fermin Muguruza's support for Egunkaria causes a scandal at Spanish Music Awards

Fermin Muguruza Basque rock singer was booed and hissed at last Thursday by most of the people present at the Spanish Music Awards, in Madrid.

At a gala where almost all the winners and presenters were eager to express their opposition to the war against Irak Muguruza dedicated his prize to "all the Egunkaria workers" and editor Martxelo Otamendi, who was present. Muguruza highlighted Egunkaria "as a victim of the global war", but Spanish musicians sympathy begins and ends in the Middle East.

During the press conference after the awards, Muguruza was accused by journalists of supporting violence in the Basque Country. Muguruza said he didn't agree with ETA's violence and added that his only armament is music.

Back in the Basque Country, the former singer of Kortatu and Negu Gorriak expressed his satisfaction to Egunero.Even if most of the people there booed me, we received solidarity from others and we fulfilled our objective: to bring Egunkaria's case to the forefront.

Muguruza, whose last album is on sale this weekend with Egunero was interviewed last Friday by Egunero, Egunkaria's substitute. All the money will go to the new project.


.... ... .

Friday, April 11, 2003

About Oteiza

The Basque society has been saddened by the death of Jorge Oteiza. Here you have an article about him:

Jorge Oteiza

Sculptor obsessed with empty space

10 April 2003

Jorge Oteiza Embil, sculptor and writer: born Orio, 21 October 1908; married 1938 Itziar Carreño Etxeandia (died 1991); died San Sebastián, 9 April 2003.

The Basque language has a word, "huts", expressing something that obsessed Jorge Oteiza, one of the greatest Spanish sculptors of the 20th century. Huts means a vacuum, the absence of something yearned for; a flaw, a hollowing-out.

Oteiza made sculptures to frame empty spaces, having decided that sculpture was not about the shapes of things but about the spaces within and around them. Although he formally abandoned his artistic discipline in 1959, he is now winning wider recognition as a figure to be ranked with Eduardo Chillida, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí.

In 1950 Oteiza and the architect Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza were chosen to design a new Aránzazu Basilica for the Franciscan community in Guipúzcoa. It was a turning point in the careers of many of those involved, and in the history of church design. Oteiza described the commission as "the happiest day of my miserable life" – but it generated enormous controversy, mostly around Oteiza's frieze of the Apostles above the main entrance.

The influence of Henry Moore is evident in the Apostles. There are 14 – Oteiza included both the repentant Judas and his successor, Matthias – but what left conservative churchmen aghast was that each figure has a gaping hole in its body. Oteiza explained: "They gave their hearts for others, and this self-sacrifice gives them their common sanctity and their true Christian identity." It was too much for the visiting pontifical commissioner, one Monsignor Constantini, to whom it was "a row of monks with their guts torn out".

Clerical fire and brimstone paralysed the project for years. It took Pope Paul VI to call the reactionaries off and sanction the completion of the basilica, so it was 1969 before Aránzazu was finished. The daunting building represents the finest Basque talents of the era.

Another work that speaks volumes about Oteiza's stubborn, combative character is entitled, in Basque, Hau Madrilentzat ("This is for Madrid", 1975). It is a stylised version of the elbow-grasping, fist-shaking gesture known in Spanish as a corte de mangas. The title was Oteiza's blunt message to the capital city after it reneged on a contract he had won for the Plaza Colón.

Born in Orio, in the Basque province of Guipúzcoa, in 1908, Oteiza went to school in the Basque country and in Navarra, his father's homeland. He was an introverted, solitary boy. After their business collapsed, the family moved to Madrid and, when Jorge's father emigrated to Argentina, Jorge worked as a waiter and typesetter to support his mother and five younger siblings while he studied for a medical degree.

The scientific elements of his studies awakened interests in structures, energies and the representation of the invisible. He turned to sculpture and was already picking up awards by his early twenties. That makes Jorge Oteiza the last survivor of the artistic vanguard that predated the Spanish Republic.

In 1935, Oteiza embarked for South America, and for 15 years wandered around many countries – staging shows of sculptures and ceramics, teaching and writing on the philosophy and history of art. Returning to Spain in 1948, he became a leading light in his generation of Basque artists. He won the National Prize for Architecture for a chapel on the pilgrimage path to Santiago, and produced landmark pieces for university buildings, an aluminium statue for the Dominican church at Valladolid, even a façade for the Madrid Institute of Artificial Insemination. Between exhibitions and lectures, and a day job at an electrical ceramics firm, he wrote about Goya, South
American megalithic statuary and in defence of abstraction.

Oteiza's will to explore sculpture to its limits reached its most fruitful expression in the late 1950s with his Propósito experimental ("Exploratory Effort"). His international standing was sealed when a set of these small sculptures won at the São Paulo Bienal in 1957.

Two years later, Oteiza announced that he was finished with full-scale sculpture. He turned to the written word, claiming to have explored the properties of space so extensively that "I ended up with a purely receptive empty space, without a sculpture in my hands".

He had stored up so many projects and models, however, that even during his most prolific period as a writer, polemicist and poet, new sculptures emerged. In 1963, his key literary work appeared. Quousque tandem . . . ! ("Is This Where We Have Reached?"), subtitled "An Effort to Interpret the Aesthetics of the Basque Soul", had a profound impact.

Oteiza's other projects of the 1960s encompassed aspects of the Basque cultural renaissance he had pursued since his youth. Ventures into film-making, proposals to create museums or research institutes in aesthetics, prehistory, anthropology and architecture, a university of the arts and a Basque-language "children's university' were crammed into a few years, along with his involvement in the art groups Gaur ("Today"), Emen ("Here") and Orain ("Now").

A falling-out between Chillida and Oteiza frustrated the emergence of what might properly be called a Basque School. One issue between them was Chillida's work as an illustrator for the philosopher Martin Heidegger's Die Kunst und der Raum ("Art and Space"): Oteiza felt he had a better grasp of Heidegger's meaning. A 30-year feud ensued, with Oteiza the main mover. There was widespread relief in 1997 when Oteiza swallowed enough pride to visit Chillida for an embrace of reconciliation.

A profound spirituality informs most of Oteiza's work. He could articulate a humanistic form of Christianity or, with equal lucidity, proclaim himself "a devout atheist". But his relationship with the Catholic Church was erratic. In the early 1960s, Oteiza suggested to a few friends getting a small plane, flying to Rome and dive-bombing St Peter's while the Vatican Council was in session. The deranged plot was taking definite shape by the time Oteiza lost interest in it: like some of his much sounder enterprises, it came to nothing.

Perhaps it is as well that he did not dedicate himself to politics. He did, however, take a public stand against Francoist repression, as one of the artists fronting the Gernika 70 campaign supporting the 16 defendants in the notorious Burgos Trial. In the first democratic elections of 1977, Oteiza was a Senate candidate for the Basque Left. He considered donating his artistic legacy to the Basque community, but fell out with the region's Nationalist Party. By 1992, he had resolved to give everything to the people of Navarra, with an Oteiza Museum to be created alongside his ancient farmhouse at Alzuza, near Pamplona.

An unseemly controversy has dogged the museum project, with a crisis emerging in the foundation created to run it. Its board split between friends of Oteiza and allies of the Navarra government and, at one point, Oteiza said he no longer wanted the museum to bear his name. This may take years to resolve.

In 1938, Oteiza married Itziar Carreño. She died in 1991 and, for the past decade, a tomb in Alzuza cemetery has been marked by two crosses, bearing the names Itziar Carreño and Jorge Oteiza. In his last decades, the artist liked to disarm interviewers by exclaiming: "Jorge Oteiza? That fellow died years ago." In a more thoughtful mood, he remarked: "We all work to cure ourselves of death, but death ends up curing you of life."

Michael Mullan


.... ... .

Basque Sculptor Jorge Oteiza

Basque sculptor Jorge Oteiza, considered one of the greatest artists of the twentieth centry, died of pneumonia, aged 94.

Oteiza was best known for his "metaphysical" boxes and empty spheres in stone and was considered a master of space, time, God and emptiness. He wrote dozens of essays on space and emptiness as well as poetry.

"Artists are dead people who try to return to life via poetry," he used to say.

Oteiza turned to art after studying medicine, and went on to become one of the leading Basque sculptors, along with Eduardo Chillida. The two had not spoken for some time when Chillida died in August last year.

His collection, which he gave to Nafarroa, has been shown around the world.

Oteiza described himself as a "religious atheist" whose priorities were "the crucifix, not Christ, then woman, and then Cezanne and Pio Baroja."

.... ... .

Tuesday, April 08, 2003

Steer and Gernika

This just in:

In search of the truth

TELEGRAM FROM GUERNICA

By Nicholas Rankin
Faber & Faber, £14.99, 256pp
ISBN 0 571 20563 1

GEORGE STEER’s entire career as a war correspondent lasted little more than five years, but during that time he managed two great journalistic coups.

Today, the flamboyant, South African-born Steer is remembered mainly as the reporter who revealed most vividly to the outside world the horrors of Guernica, and was first to pin the blame fully on Hitler’s aircraft at a time when Germany was denying its role in the Spanish Civil War.

As the Times correspondent in the region, he arrived in the little Basque town just after its destruction in April 1937. Staying behind when other reporters had left to file their stories, he spoke to eye-witnesses and identified bombs and bullets; his dispatches proved German participation. A translation of Steer’s articles was read by Pablo Picasso, in exile in Paris; two weeks later he started painting the most powerful
anti-war statement YET put on canvas.

In 1935, aged 25, Steer had wangled himself the job of the Times correspondent in Ethiopia (Evelyn Waugh had used his experiences in the same region as a basis for Black Mischief and Scoop). Sympathetic to Ethiopian independence and a friend of Emperor Haile Selassie, Steer was instrumental in informing international opinion of the atrocities committed by the Italian invaders, not least their use of mustard gas — banned by an international treaty when dropped from aircraft.

When the world war came, he joined the Army and became an innovative and effective propagandist in Burma; he died, at the age of 35, in a ridiculous driving accident.

George Steer was one of the great special correspondents, a species that no longer exists: independent of mind, passionate for causes, difficult to handle, extravagant in pursuit of enjoyment. He deserves this excellent memorial that Rankin has given him.


.... ... .

One About Spies

This article at The Guardian talks about the dirty war against the Basque people by Spain, an allegedly democratic state:

Top Spanish spies face jail terms

Giles Tremlett, Madrid
The Guardian,
Monday April 7 2003


Two former heads of Spain's national intelligence service have been given three-year jail terms for illegally spying on a Basque separatist party.

Emilio Manglano and Javier Calderon are expected to remain free pending appeal. A court in Vitoria handed down the sentences after an intelligence team was found to have set up an eavesdropping operation in a flat above the then Herri Batasuna party's headquarters in the city four years ago.

Although Batasuna and its offshoots have since been banned, the sentences against Lieutenant-General Manglano and Mr Calderon are embarrassing to the People's party government of the prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, which was accused of obstructing the investigation.

The government had backed the two men, whose operation was claimed to have provided key information in the fight against the armed separatist group, Eta.

The spies had acted without the permission of a judge when they decided to listen in to telephone conversations at the party's offices and to photograph all visitors.

Two other agents from the intelligence service, who were held when police raided the flat, were given six-month sentences.


.... ... .

Susan, Iker and Lucía

I had a great time up in Chicago, I met my friend Susan and had the chance to meet her son who works for a big time company there. We also met Iker who is a Basque guy that works for some sort of trade office in Chicago. We talked for hours about you know what.

Since I left for Chicago with plenty of time I went by Tower Records to check the Foreign Movie DVD section because here in Peoria all you can get at the Foreign Section is mega-uber-stupid Chinese movies. This time I was able to acquire and excellent movie called "Lucía y el Sexo" which was translated to "Sex and Lucia" in the USA, this movie is by the famous Basque director Julio Medem who also did "Amantes del Circulo Polar" and "Vacas".

"Sex and Lucia" is a deep and provocative movie, if you can get over the title then you are ready to experience a roller coaster ride of human emotions, don't miss it if it ever comes to a theater near you, and if you are a guy, well, looks like Penelope Cruz has some competition on the actress Paz Vega.


.... ... .

Monday, April 07, 2003

Travelling in Euskal Herria

This travel guide to Euskal Herria published at The Sunday Times comes to us via Basque Diaspora:

Basque: No such thing as a quiet drink

In the beautiful Basque country, hospitality knows no bounds

Philip Jacobson of The Sunday Times stays up late

Early evening in one of the countless bars of San Sebastian’s old town, and, following a chat about rugby with some convivial Basques, I am about to be gently abducted. They are warming up for the nightly txikiteo, an extended ramble around their favourite tapas joints, and take it for granted that I will join them. Nothing too strenuous, they promise, and in any case, what better way could there be to get to know their fine city? A couple of hours later, I’m full to bursting with morsels of squid, anchovies, smoked meats, cheese and spicy sausage, washed down with many a glass of beer, wine and sharp cider, and the pace is beginning to tell on me. My companions, hardened practitioners of the Basque art of simultaneously eating, drinking, smoking and conversing at top volume, take pity, and we find a cafe for a cup of the shudderingly strong black coffee that keeps the locals going.

Having previously spent time in the Basque country — both the Spanish and French side — I should have realised what was coming next. As 9.30pm was clearly too early for dinner, my guides observed, we could have a quiet drink or two while we decided which of the first- rate seafood restaurants within walking distance we would visit. I did briefly consider dropping out, but that would have gravely offended the enduring, if exhausting, tradition of Basque hospitality: midnight was long gone by the time we reeled from the Restaurante Beti-Jai. Needless to say, I was not allowed to pay my own way.

Next morning, feeling somewhat fragile, I set off for the Playa de la Concha, the great crescent of golden sand that is the pride and joy of the vibrant, stylish city known to Basques as Donostia. The cafes in the arcades lining Plaza de la Constitucion were just
opening as the first coaches disgorged parties of tourists heading for the excellent Museo de San Telmo, devoted to the ethnography of the ancient Basque nation.

Strolling along the broad promenade in a bracing wind, I passed wetsuited surfers preparing to ride the long Atlantic rollers. The sun came out to illuminate the elegant facades of the belle-époque buildings around the bay. Beyond the western end of the beach, embedded in rocks lashed by the sea, lies the extraordinary El Peine de los Vientos (Comb of the Winds), an iron-and- granite artwork created by the renowned modern sculptor Eduardo Chillida.

A proud Donostiarra who died last year, Chillida once kept goal for San Sebastian’s revered Real Sociedad team, whose clashes with Atletico Bilbao always generate fierce passions. The historic rivalry between the two cities remains intense, and the extraordinary success of the Guggenheim Museum in raising Bilbao’s profile around the world does not exactly thrill the self-styled queen of the Basque coast.

FROM San Sebastian, I took the old Guipuzcoa coast road towards France: my ultimate destination was Bayonne, a handsome, self-confident city too often overlooked by British visitors in favour of its flashier neighbour, Biarritz. The frontier road meanders past some pretty Basque villages along the Bidasoa estuary, though the border town of Irun is a drab place.

Things start looking up again the moment you cross into the French Basque country. St Jean de Luz is a dazzling little resort set in a beautiful bay. Don’t believe anybody who tells you that it has been spoilt by tourism: yes, it gets crowded in peak season, and yes, the best hotels and restaurants on Rue de la République are eye-wateringly expensive. But there are cheaper, and still excellent, restaurants across the bridge that links the town to Ciboure, and the most important things are free of charge: the magical evening light, which suffuses the port with subtle colours, the splendid beach and the great gothic church of St Jean Baptiste, where Louis XIV married the Spanish infanta Maria Teresa in 1660.

A short drive away, the former whaling port of Guéthary does not aspire to great sophistication; although discerning French families have been vacationing here for years, it retains the feel of a real Basque community. Old codgers in floppy berets sun themselves on benches around the fronton court, where fast and furious pelota contests take place: a lot of money can change hands during big matches, one confirmed gambler told me, “but I wouldn’t advise you to try your luck”.

The last time I was in Guéthary, a fair was in full swing. The hardy Basques adore trials of physical strength, and a collection of bruisers were competing to lift the biggest boulders, pull a heavily laden wagon the farthest and split the most logs. The bars were full of locals playing a fiendishly complicated Basque card game, mus: all I can tell you is that it revolves around a stylised ritual of cheating, signalled by a bizarre array of gestures and grimaces.

AS FAR as Biarritz is concerned, set me down at a table in the cafe of the lovingly restored Casino Municipal, looking out over the Grande Plage, and I’ll let the laid-back ambience of this spa town-turned-resort do the rest. There is something enormously relaxing about watching the hefty Atlantic breakers over a carafe of icy rosé, idly scanning the running card for the afternoon’s racing at the local hippodrome.

Although Biarritz clung for too long to the glory days of the Second Empire, when it became the in place for crowned heads, European nobility and well-heeled swells, I find the air of faded grandeur most agreeable.

The first glimpse of Bayonne’s walled old town, with its fine half-timbered houses painted a distinctive oxblood red, always raises my spirits: here is another of those medium- sized French cities (from the same mould as Auxerre, Aix en Provence and Montpellier) that strikes an enviable balance between commerce and culture, tradition and trade. Even the most dedicated beach person would find a day there richly rewarding, with ample time to do the main sights and still enjoy wandering through the historic Grand Bayonne district.

The lofty, gothic Cathédrale Sainte Marie is a good starting point: begun in the 13th century, when Bayonne was ruled by the English, it was eventually completed six centuries later. Just around the corner is the shop-lined Rue du Port Neuf, where the most famous of the town’s numerous chocolate-makers, Chocolat Cazenave, is located: try a mug of the creamy hot chocolate that has been served there since the mid-1880s (when the church denounced it as “devil’s brew”), before contemplating the purchase of a Bayonne ham from the shop almost opposite.

The city’s annual jazz festival, in July, allows its more sober-sided inhabitants to let down their hair, and the fun continues with the Fêtes de Bayonne at the end of the month. The Musée Bonnat, named after Bayonne’s foremost painter, has works by Goya, Ingres and Degas, with a room set aside for Rubens, while visitors to the Musée Basque — extensively restored and expanded not long ago — have nothing but praise for the imaginatively displayed collections of Basque history and culture.

On the opposite bank of the narrow River Nive, which bisects the town centre, Petit Bayonne is the place to be after dark, when bars and restaurants in the twisting backstreets come raucously to life. On a previous visit, a local journalist directed me to Le P’tit Pub: crowded, noisy, smoky and hugely welcoming. I could have been back in San Sebastian.


.... ... .

A Letter in Support of Egunkaria

This came yesterday on the mail:


Dear friends,

Most of you are aware of the closure of the moderate Basque language newspaper Egunkaria, and the arrests of it's editors on terrorism charges. This is the latest in a series of attacks by Spanish authorities on Basque language and cultural organizations , and probably the most well-known and outrageous to date. It has been denounced by many human and civil rights organizations, including Journalists Without Borders and Eurolang, the European News Agency For Minority Languages, and Amnesty International.

The Spanish Court continuously issues arrest warrants for Basques involved in peaceful Nationalist and cultural organizations in Euskal Herria. This happens all the time, and the vast majority of the charges are eventually dropped due to insufficient evidence, or the charges are never even brought up. Meanwhile, the person or organization charged finds his life has become a living hell, and the organization may be so damaged as to never re-open.

Some of us here in the Bay Area feel the need to show our outrage at the tactics being used by the Spanish government. We are organizing a peaceful protest outside of the Spanish Consulate in San Francisco. We will meet at 12:00 noon, on Saturday April 26. (April 26 happens to be the anniversary of the bombing of Gernika). The Spanish consulate is located at 1405 Sutter St., cross street Franklin.




.... ... .

Sunday, April 06, 2003

Ibarretxe and Egunkaria

Some reactions to the closing of the Euskera newspaper Egunkaria, this one from Ibarretxe, the Prime Minister of the Basque Autonomous Community.

Here you have it:

Ibarretxe says that he does not believe in a democracy that wants to bring Martin Ugalde to prison

Answering to a question made by Partido Popular, he said that his government will help a new Basque newspaper

The closing of Euskaldunon Egunkaria was one of the main issues yesterday, at the meeting that the Basque Parliament held in Vitoria. Partido Popular asked to the Basque president Juan Jose Ibarretxe if there is a plan to continue helping Egunero.

Ibarretxe said that "it is our intention to answer to this political and judicial nonsense, and we will do that in a democratic way". He added that Partido Popular does not believe in law, only believes in its own laws. Ibarretxe put as an example the decision of Aznar of supporting the war.

The Basque president said also that he does not believe in the same democracy Partido Popular does. "I am not a part of a democracy that wants to bring Martin Ugalde, one of the founders of Egunkaria- to jail", he said.

Ibarretxe also reminded that his government was not the only one that helped Euskaldunon Egunkaria with money. He showed how, for example, the city council of Vitoria and of the deputation of Alava placed ads in Egunkaria. Both are governed by Partido Popular.

Carlos Urquijo, from Partido Popular, said that the fact that the Basque government helps Egunero shows that "we are in a democratic involution". He added that "it is a shame" that the Basque government has gave Egunkaria "more than six million euros" since 1994.


.... ... .

Oscar is Trembling

A little bit of criticism towards the movie industy in the USA:

Oscar Upsets

By John Anderson, Los Angeles Times
Tribune Newspapers
Published April 4, 2003
By now, the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should have recovered from Oscar upsets, from the counterintuitive proposition that too much promotion can actually backfire (see "Chicago") and, of course, from Red Carpet Envy. What they might not be over is Michael Moore.

Maybe I blinked, but I had no idea when the smoke cleared after Moore dropped his Bush bomb at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre whether there had been many people booing and a few people cheering, or many people standing and a few loudmouths booing, or whether a barometric reading of Hollywood's political mood could be taken from the affair at all.

Moore alleged afterward that it was a handful of jeers and a cheering throng. Others who were there say otherwise. It would be nice to know definitively, because the state of Hollywood currently seems to hover somewhere between paranoia and nervous exhaustion.

One trade journalist I know said the tepid nature of Oscar night and the reluctance of the attending stars to make anything but the most innocuous of political statements (including Adrien Brody's plea for world peace that could have been on a Hallmark card) simply reflected the fact that Hollywood is full of rich people who vote Republican and are watching the bottom line. No one wants organized boycotts of movies featuring outspoken liberal movie stars; no one wants to be tagged as an outspoken liberal movie star if his or her movies are going to be boycotted.

It was, as a result, a shameful night for Hollywood, and whether one likes Moore -- and he can be, to put it mildly, a little overbearing -- what he did needed doing. The producers of the Oscar show clamped down so hard on the cast that even Susan Sarandon agreed to be gagged. What were they all threatened with, having to drink tap water? No, probably just the idea that Hollywood is in such a tenuous place vis-a-vis the political mood of the country that any really inflammatory statements about bombing Iraq might end up cutting seriously into the profit margin.

The right is organized; anti-celebrity Web sites are up and running. The myth of a liberal media continues to be promoted by reactionary outlets such as Fox News. CNN has become the marketing department of the Bush administration. The only place you hear any widely broadcast dissent is when a celebrity makes a statement.

Academy censored itself

Yet, the academy decided to censor itself. The Oscars have long been a platform for all kinds of political grandstanding, from Vanessa Redgrave's pro-PLO statements to Marlon Brando's Sasheen Littlefeather charade on behalf of the American Indian movement. Suddenly, freedom of speech is in bad taste?

Moore, of course, has never been part of Hollywood, apparently couldn't care less about it (though he seemed pleased to get the documentary Oscar) and actually had to act out because he's got an image to maintain. And said image has nothing to do with appeasing George W. Bush. But like him or not, he knows what he's talking about. It's understandable, certainly, to get annoyed when a celebrity of, shall we say, limited knowledge, if not intelligence, decides to weigh in on matters of global importance. One would probably blanch if Britney Spears proposed changes in policy at the World Bank.

Moral obligation

But war is a little different; it affects everyone. All U.S. citizens are morally culpable in what happens in and to Iraq. If you were onstage before a worldwide audience of more than 1 billion people, wouldn't you feel a moral obligation to condemn something you saw as a violation of human rights, the democratic process and global diplomacy? That is, if that's the way you saw it?

All this outrage over celebrity politics does not, it seems, flow both ways. No one seems particularly outraged when committed conservatives such as Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis or gun advocate Tom Selleck or their spiritual grandfather, Charlton Heston, air their views, however offensive they are to a large number of Americans. But such is the impotence of what is generally called the "celebrity left" in this country that they can't even mount an argument for dissent.

And when the White House is so fond of claiming that our enemies hate us for our freedoms, why do so many people get so excited when a celebrity exercises one? What are we fighting for, if not the right of silly people to speak their minds? Surely, if there were a constitutional amendment regarding the right to make movies, I'd vote to have it rescinded immediately (in selective cases, of course). The muffling of Hollywood, however, is something far more dangerous.


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Saturday, April 05, 2003

Letter to a Spanish Friend

A friend of mine sent me this text so I could share it at my blog.

Here it is:

Iñigo Aranbarri, writer

Dear friend,

I've been meaning to write you this letter for a long time and, to tell you the truth, I cannot quite explain why I have put it off for so long.

Finally, today I decided to write you, convinced as I am that it must be very hard for you to understand much of what you are seeing, hearing and reading about us [the Basques] these days.

Do you recall the Library of Sarajevo? It happened on August 26th, 1992. All the news broadcasts lead with the image of the building in flames. Do you remember how everyone agreed to highlight the magnitude of the barbarity and the tremendous cost that it represented for the Bosnian culture? The library, the old Institute of Eastern Studies, all of it reduced to ashes in a few hours. Try to remember those books flying like birds in flames. It was not a military target, but its bombing was perfectly and carefully planned. The Serbian ultranationalists knew its value. That's why it became a military target. "Memorycide" was the word chosen to define such a huge atrocity.

This week, judge Juan del Olmo, using a judicial order previously negotiated with the Spanish Home Office (yes, things like this do happen in this country), decided to destroy our own Sarajevo Library: he shut down Euskaldunon Egunkaria, the only newspaper we had in Basque, and had ten of its promoters arrested. I know, a newspaper is not a library, you will say. You will say that Andoain, Vitoria, Bilbao, Pamplona will never be Sarajevo, and that we are not at war here, despite some people's efforts to the contrary. I know.

I did not mean to hurt your sensibility, it was just poetic license -you know, things us poets do- but I think that it can help to put the matter in context. By saying that Euskaldunon Egunkaria was our Sarajevo Library I am trying to say that when a paper is the only one through which a language can breathe, it is not just a newspaper, but something else, quite a lot more, way much more. A newspaper then becomes a book, a record, a concert at the Gayarre Theater, a report on Iraq, an interview with John Berger, the pleasure of tasting the linguistic and plastic ingenuity of that Picasso of the Basque language, Olariaga...

Euskaldunon Egunkaria was our place in the world, our meeting place, the forum where, thanks to the efforts of a team excellent professionals, we the people who speak, read, and write in Basque used to meet to talk about the world and its beauties, including our ugliness. And we did it in a Basque language that was solid, communicative and modern. With normality. Without bitterness, not like in the Spanish news, where we are depicted as if we lived in the prehistoric caves. Each day, Egunkaria added a new tome to the large library of our collective memory.

I should tell you quite a bit more, I should depict for you Egunkaria's staff, the board of directors, the subscribers, the readers, all those who have made possible for us to live a dream come true, something that for you is as normal as informing yourself about your linguistic community by means of a newspaper. A newspaper!

Imagine it for a moment. Can you imagine what it would be like if all of a sudden the hundreds of newspapers written in your own language were wiped off the face of the earth? That is what "has happened" to us, and thanks to the perversion of a government that, besides, is so bold as to explain that the closing of Egunkaria's editorial offices was for the Basque culture's own good.

I know, I am surpassing the limits of correctness and you do not like certain words to be used. You are absolutely right. But, tell me, if this is not a perversion, which is the word I should use to define Minister Acebes' statement?

Again: "for the Basque culture's own good". Do you know how much the Popular Party uses the Basque language in the Basque Country? Not at all. Did you know that, unlike in Galicia and Catalonia, here the Popular Party never uses a language other than Spanish in its public meetings, in its public statements, anywhere at all? Despite facts like, for example, Basque being as official as Spanish in the Basque Autonomous Community, according to the Basque Autonomy Statute that the PP claims so ardently to defend.

Socialists act almost exactly. And you say that the Basque language is not used because it is "contaminated", politicized by nationalist people. "Compulsory nationalism" they call it. Can't you see that it is dynamics like the one described above -and I am just talking about linguistic situations- that are obliging Basque speakers to be nationalist?

It is a matter of survival. I have already told you something that the newspapers of your country do not say. Who politicizes languages: Those who do not use them, or those who sit and wait until such languages die of starvation, condemned to folklore?

Wait a minute, I am throwing to the dustbin some notes I had gathered for you. It is nothing. Some data about the glotocide politics the Popular Party is spearheading in Navarre, and some testimonies about the situation of the people who happen to live on the other side of the Bidasoa River, in that territory that is presented to you as the French Basque Country. For instance: do you know what the adjective "alegal" means? Really? It is the word applied to the Basque-medium primary schools there.

But let's change the subject. I would never show myself as a victim before you. I am just talking about languages, and it is better like that, for I know that you love languages, you are fond of them because they create worlds where people can live.

You know that I agree with you when you say that a language is a communication code, and that its updating, use and survival is up to its speakers. But it seems to be something more. People weep for their language. Out of rage, out of emotion. We have seen it these days. Can anybody weep for a bunch of papers? Perhaps, you need to belong to a language sheltered under one single newspaper to feel that. Imagine what it would become of you if you lived with this absence, an absence that can only be compared with the death of a dear one. Now I am not using a poetic silence. Living together everyday creates ties that are hard to forget. To have your breakfast while reading the culture supplement. To go to bed with a report on Palestine by Jose Mari Pastor, to immerse yourself in the interview that Imanol Murua Uria gave to Fernando Savater, to read in the last issue the historic and cruelly premonitory statement by the Basque singer Imanol, "I will not be back, there is not freedom here".

To be a normal person, to live in a little more normalized way, like you. And one day, everything disappears. The accusation: "it is a newspaper created by ETA". Have you taken a minute to think what that sentence means? If during these twelve years ETA has managed to unite what Euskaldunon Egunkaria has united, all of us should revise a lot of things in this country. Are you ready then to affirm that it is ETA who united Basque people of all ideologies, by crating the daily newspaper that has covered the broadest social spectrum we have ever known, from the PNV (Basque Nationalist Party) to sectors of the PSE (Basque Socialist Party), from Mauleon (French department of the Atlantic Pyrenees) to the little hotel in Montana, USA, where the children of the Basque shepherds emigrated to America in the sixties usually meet? Was it not beautiful?

I am almost finished. I feel your restlessness and I would never willingly upset you. You see that I have not mentioned the arrests, or the financial situation the 150 Egunkaria workers face after the closing of the paper. I will not. I just wanted to tell you something you will not find in the papers of your country, something that may help you better understand what is happening here, in this small part of the world that is very far from looking like Bosnia and that you know by the name of Basque Country. We Basque speakers call it Euskal Herria, the Land of the Basque Language.

At this point, a piece of sincere, loyal advice occurs to me, in solidarity: take care of your language, it is under menace. In fact, it is already dangerously contaminated. Those who are not interested in it being a means for mutual understanding have seized it, and they are manipulating it so it does not mean what you and I had agreed it to mean.

Take care.


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Thursday, April 03, 2003

Sovereignty : Path to Freedom

This is an excelent article by Tomas Urzainqui:

Without sovereignty there are no rights

Tomas Urzainqui Mina

What is happening with the brutal closure of media outlets is not so much about another attack on freedom and the infringement of people's rights, which, of course, it is. It has more to do with something much profound and basic, the harsh confirmation of the lack of sovereignty.

Here we find ourselves before a complete example of a society without sovereignty. Without sovereignty there is no democracy and without democracy there is no real society, or what is the same, although it does exist, it is not recognized; it is useless and concealed. This is the real problem and nothing else.

Let's not get confused between the speeches of the bad jailers and the good jailers. Those who insist on accepting the social fracture, concealment, negation and division, are the dominant ones; sometimes helped by our own people, collaborators with complex characters who talk about a supposedly fragmented society in confrontation. But our society is not a closed society, divided and without liberties, but fundamentally, a society without sovereignty.

The lack of sovereignty is demonstrated by the inability to control and make decisions about any aspects that refer to the society itself, like the real inability to make decisions about linguistic, educational, media policy, cultural, economic, social or political matters.

The juridico-technical analysis of professors Iñigo Bullain and Juan Luis Crucelegui warned about the impossibility to exercise the economic, administrative and fiscal powers of the Basque Autonomous Community (CAV) and the Foral Community of Navarre (CFN) without being part of the European Union as a State, one that has been recovered. Definitely, this analysis has demolished the last argument of those in favor of the statute of autonomy.

Ferdinand Tönnies had already distinguished between the cultural community and the political society. Although our national political society is obviously denied by the Spanish state, it does exist; still, more or less, under anesthetic. This is a society that still suffers the direct aggression of the dominant society and its state apparatus, which we continue to suffer in a permanent state of exception that has the appearance of normality, only frightened by the renewed aggressions, like the closure of media outlets: the illegality of Euskalherria Irratia in Iruña, the closures of Egin, Egin Irratia, Ardi Beltza, Egunkaria…

Sovereignty, like life, health or freedom can't be negotiated or pacted. The European societies have demonstrated to be on the alert when it comes to the defense of their sovereignty. By standing up to the Bush administration's imposition, Germany and France have exercised their European national sovereignty.

Spanish society also suffers the lack of sovereignty. This becomes evident by the impossibility to get off the war train of Bush and to live in the political system of the prolonged late Francoism and its renewed nationalist and hegemonic ideals. The bipartite of the moment that supports those values is the demand by the pre-democratic regime that was imposed by means of the existing election law in the
Spanish state.

Our society suffers the lack of its own sovereignty by the imposition of the dominant societies and its respective states, the French and the Spanish, as well as the lack of sovereignty that the citizens of those states suffer in a greater or lesser degree.

In the limitation of sovereignty in the Spanish and French societies lies the cause that exerts its utmost influence, which is the need to exercise a permanent tutelage and control over the people of those societies ruled by a dominant power, be them Navarrese/Basques, Catalans, Galicians, Corsicans, Bretons or Occitans. But the corset with which to impose control over others also affects the ones who exercise domination.

Sovereignty is denied by the nationalist groups of the extreme right, with their political party, the Popular Party (PP), and their media outlets ABC or La Razon, but also the entire existing political system is structured and programmed to form and perpetuate the authoritarian design. This way, the so-called constitutionalism and their constitutionalists is nothing but the ideology that supported the pre-democratic regime that created a democracy that is not much different from the one the Francoist regime had in the sixties.

This tormented society should make a dramatic call on the other sovereign European societies. As Bertolt Brecht would say: misfortunes will be suffered first by your neighbors, then by you. Aviso para navegantes. Just as European society is on the verge of being dragged into the Iraq war, and if it doesn't manage to defend its sovereignty by stopping the Bush-Blair-Aznar imposition, it will see itself reflected in what is now happening to this society under the direct control of the Aznar regime.

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