Sunday, August 31, 2003

Formak by Lertxundi

FORMAK
(Benito Lertxundi)

Formak onak dira
haietan galtzen ez zaren artean. (bis)

Hogei urtez egon nintzen
eskaparate batean,
desafiozko begiraden aurrean.

Segurtasu beharrez
hainbat
forma saiatu nituen..., (bis)
jatorrizkoez ahaztu nintzen.

Kantari historikotzat omen naukate,
agian bitrinen bat dut itxaroten,
libra nadila horretatik gutxienez
eta urra nezatela
larros-arantzek azkenerarte.

Formak onak dira, bai,
baldin eta haietan
ez bazara galtzen...
fometan ez bazara galtzen...

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Saturday, August 30, 2003

June Thomas : Basqueland IV

To be completely honest with you, I bypassed June Thomas' fourth chapter of her "Adventures in Basqueland" because it refers to a bullfight and I am all against that barbaric display of human cruelty. Besides, because of it I realized how no matter what, when tourists visit Euskal Herria they think they are in Spain and they expect everything you would expect from Spain, bull fights included. I can only wish that when Euskal Herria regains it sovereignty bull fights will be banned, if someone wants to see them then, well, they can always go to backwards Spain.

But here you have the fifth chapter, enjoy it:

Adventures in Basqueland

from: June Thomas
Bilbao's Hidden Dangers

Posted Friday, Aug. 29, 2003, at 5:42 PM ET

On my last day in Bilbao I had my first encounter with the thing it's most famous for—politicized Basque nationalism—when thousands of citizens marched down the Gran Via, or Kalea Nagusia, as the Euskaldunak would have it, to protest apartheid and call for self-determination.

A recent study by Iñaki Zabeleta found that 85 percent of articles about Basques in the U.S. press refer to terrorism, so it's not surprising that for most Americans, nothing says "Basque" more than Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Freedom), the terror organization responsible for more than 800 deaths over the last 30 years. Of course, ETA didn't appear out of nowhere—the Spanish establishment imprisoned more than 8,000 Basques in the 20 years following Franco's death, torturing many of them while in custody.

The Basque nationalists' appropriation of the "no apartheid" slogan is a reference to the Spanish government's March 2003 banning of Batasuna, the party considered the political wing of ETA, which regularly took 10 percent to 20 percent of the vote in the Basque Country. It's a clever slogan—it's tough to support apartheid—whether or not it's appropriate.

Given the radical nationalists' associations with violence and murder, locals didn't seem too alarmed by the march. The protesters gathering in Moyúa Plaza didn't put the folks sitting at the outdoor bars near the square off their drinks, and the Batasuna flags carried by marchers didn't seem to outrage the spectators on the sidewalks. Apparently, even in the Basque Country, it's hard to get worked up about politics during August.

According to The Basque History of the World, residents of the Spanish section of the Basque Country are the most policed population in Europe, but at least to an outsider like me, it doesn't feel like a police state. As in the United States, there are legitimate concerns that recent anti-terrorism measures encroach on civil liberties: On the sixth night of Aste Nagusia, police confiscated posters and photographs displayed in four txosnas—the temporary street bars established during the fiestas—which they claimed were sympathetic to prohibited terrorist groups or justified terrorist acts. By Friday morning, the streets in the Casco Viejo were full of graffiti denouncing the police action and equating "Spaniards," by which they meant the authorities, with Nazis.

Aste Nagusia has its security risks, but the biggest hazards you'll encounter come from more quotidian threats than policemen or terrorist groups. As is true for just about any part of Spain, a visit to Bilbao will do your lungs no good—locals smoke everywhere, but especially, it seems, wherever food is being consumed. You should also watch out for small children with sharp farm implements—at one of the exhibitions of traditional rural Basque sports, three generations of aizkolariak (log choppers), including a 5-year-old boy, wielded their axes just a few feet from the crowd.

In fact, a whole range of activities that liability issues have caused to pass from the realm of experience in the United States are represented at Aste Nagusia. At 8:30 every evening, a "fire bull" chases small children around the Plaza Arriaga streaming sparks, trailing firecrackers, and generally terrorizing the under-5 set. Kids that cry or shrink from the flaming beast are mocked by their parents. The dreams of young Bilbaínos are also haunted by the giants that roam the streets and entertain the tots during the fiestas. One of the most popular attractions in the kiddy play park at the side of the River Nervión is Gargantua, a giant Basque who eats children and expels them from a flap in his culo.

And of course there are the dangers of the demon drink. This year's official Aste Nagusia poster design aroused controversy because it featured a corkscrew imitating Marijaia's arms-raised pose. Critics claimed it encouraged drinking, while supporters said it simply represented reality. With drink so readily available—the txosnas supplement Bilbao's already plentiful bars to supply booze to revelers—it's inevitable that brain cells suffer: Passed-out partiers litter the streets every morning.

Surprisingly, perhaps, for a city where politics is a matter of life and death, Bilbaínos are exceptionally friendly, after an unintrusive fashion. They're not the smiliest people and they're rather reserved (for all their foodiness, once the meal's on the table, there are no inquiries as to how it is or whether everything is to madam's liking), and yet the small gestures are everywhere. In the Metro, an employee will approach puzzled travelers, patiently ascertain where they want to go, press the right buttons, and indicate how much money to put in which slot. Most cities big enough to have a subway operate on the "If you can't figure it out, you don't deserve to ride, ya yokel" principle.

My week in Bilbao left me imagining myself Basque—my European equivalent of a trait I've noticed in North American-born friends, when folks whose forebears came over from Europe within the last hundred years fixate on one rumored Native American ancestor. No matter how magnificent the Basques' prowess as sailors, there's no way Basque seed could have found purchase in my Welsh and Mancunian antecedents, and yet every time I see a classically Basque face with its long ears, expressive brows, and sad eyes, I see my maternal grandfather (especially if you replace the boina with a Northern English flat cap) and wonder if my own tendency to burst into song at the drop of a beret could possibly be a sign of a secret Basque heritage.


Links to the previous installments of the "Adventures in Basqueland" saga by June Thomas:

First Chapter

Second Chapter

Third Chapter


Source : Slate

Note: If you wish to read the fourth chapter you can do it by accessing it through the link at the Slate web page.

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Friday, August 29, 2003

Smoke Screen

With no further intro I present to you this article by Naomi Klein:
A deadly franchise

The global war on terror is a smokescreen used by governments to wipe out opponents

Naomi Klein
Thursday August 28, 2003
The Guardian

The Marriott hotel in Jakarta was still burning when Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia's security minister, explained the implications of the day's attack: "Those who criticise about human rights being breached must understand that all the bombing victims are more important than any human rights issue." In a sentence, we got the best summary yet of the philosophy underlying Bush's so-called War on Terror. Terrorism doesn't just blow up buildings; it blasts every other issue off the political map. The spectre of terrorism - real and exaggerated - has become a shield of impunity, protecting governments around the world from scrutiny for their human rights abuses.

Many have argued that the War on Terror is the US government's thinly veiled excuse for constructing a classic empire, in the model of Rome or Britain. Two years into the crusade, it's clear this is a mistake: the Bush gang doesn't have the stick-to-it-ness to successfully occupy one country, let alone a dozen. Bush and the gang do, however, have the hustle of good marketers, and they know how to contract out. What Bush has created in the WoT is less a "doctrine" for world domination than an easy-to-assemble toolkit for any mini-empire looking to get rid of the opposition and expand its power.

The War on Terror was never a war in the traditional sense. It is, instead, a kind of brand, an idea that can be easily franchised by any government in the market for an all-purpose opposition cleanser. We already know that the WoT works on domestic groups that use terrorist tactics such as Hamas or the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (Farc). But that's only its most basic application. WoT can be used on any liberation or opposition movement. It can also be applied liberally on unwanted immigrants, pesky human rights activists and even on hard-to-get-out investigative journalists.

The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was the first to adopt Bush's franchise, parroting the White House's pledges to "pull up these wild plants by the root, smash their infrastructure" as he sent bulldozers into the occupied territories to uproot olive trees and tanks to raze civilian homes. It soon included human rights observers who were bearing witness to the attacks, as well as aid workers and journalists.

Another franchise soon opened in Spain with the prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, extending his WoT from the Basque guerrilla group Eta to the Basque separatist movement as a whole, the vast majority of which is entirely peaceful. Aznar has resisted calls to negotiate with the Basque autonomous government and banned the political party Batasuna (even though, as the New York Times noted in June, "no direct link has been established between Batasuna and terrorist acts"). He has also shut down Basque human rights groups, magazines and the only entirely Basque-language newspaper. Last February, the Spanish police raided the Association of Basque Middle Schools, accusing it of having terrorist ties.

This appears to be the true message of Bush's war franchise: why negotiate with your political opponents when you can annihilate them? In the era of WoT, concerns such as war crimes and human rights just don't register.

Among those who have taken careful note of the new rules is Georgia's president, Eduard Shevardnadze. Last October, while extraditing five Chechens to Russia (without due process) for its WoT, he stated that "international human rights commitments might become pale in comparison with the importance of the anti-terrorist campaign".

Indonesia's president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, got the same memo. She came to power pledging to clean up Indonesia's notoriously corrupt and brutal military and bring peace to the fractious country. Instead she has called off talks with the Free Aceh Movement, and in May invaded the oil-rich province in the country's largest military offensive since the 1975 invasion of East Timor.

Why did the Indonesian government think it could get away with the invasion after the international outrage that forced it out of East Timor? Easy: post-September 11, the government cast Aceh's movement for national liberation as "terrorist" - which means human rights concerns no longer apply. Rizal Mallarangeng, a senior adviser to Megawati, called it the "blessing of September 11".

The Philippines president, Gloria Arroyo, appears to feel similarlyblessed. Quick to cast her battle against Islamic separatists in the southern Moro region as part of the WoT, Arroyo - like Sharon, Aznar and Megawati - abandoned peace negotiations and waged brutal civil war instead, displacing 90,000 people last year.

But she didn't stop there. Last August, speaking to soldiers at a military academy, Arroyo extended the war beyond terrorists and armed separatists to include "those who terrorise factories that provide jobs" - clear code for trade unions. Labour groups in Philippine free trade zones report that union organisers are facing increased threats, and strikes are being broken up with extreme police violence.

In Colombia, the government's war against leftist guerrillas has long been used as cover to murder anyone with leftist ties, whether union activists or indigenous farmers. But things have got worse since President Alvaro Uribe took office in August 2002 on a WoT platform. Last year, 150 union activists were murdered. Like Sharon, Uribe quickly moved to get rid of the witnesses, expelling foreign observers and playing down the importance of human rights. Only after "terrorist networks are dismantled will we see full compliance with human rights," Uribe said in March.

Sometimes WoT is not an excuse to wage war, but to keep one going. The Mexican president, Vincente Fox, came to power in 2000 pledging to settle the Zapatista conflict "in 15 minutes" and to tackle rampant human rights abuses committed by the military and police. Now, post-September 11, Fox has abandoned both projects. The government has made no moves to reinitiate the Zapatista peace process and last week Fox closed down the office of the under-secretary for human rights.

This is the era ushered in by September 11: war and repression unleashed, not by a single empire, but by a global franchise. In Indonesia, Israel, Spain, Colombia, the Philippines and China, governments have latched on to Bush's deadly WoT and are using it to erase their opponents and tighten their grip on power.

Last week, another war was in the news. In Argentina, the senate voted to repeal two laws that granted immunity to the sadistic criminals of the 1976-1983 dictatorship. At the time, the generals called their campaign of extermination a "war on terror," using a series of kidnappings and violent attacks by leftist groups as an excuse to seize power. But the vast majority of the 30,000 people who were "disappeared" weren't terrorists; they were union leaders, artists, teachers, psychiatrists. As with all wars on terror, terrorism wasn't the target; it was the excuse to wage the real war: on people who dared to dissent.


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Thursday, August 28, 2003

June Thomas : Basqueland III

The third chapter of the saga in which June Thomas describes his experience while traveling though the Basque Country, via Slate:

Adventures in Basqueland

from: June Thomas
The Guggenheim Bilbao: A Museum for the Digital Age

Updated Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2003, at 5:03 PM ET

By waiting until Day 3 to mention the Guggenheim, the icon of Bilbao's revitalization, I've bucked a trend. Until recently, travel guides to Spain dissed the Basque Country, focusing on Barcelona, Madrid, and the hot bits down south. Since Frank O. Gehry's titanium galleon opened in Bilbao six years ago, that balance has started to shift, and almost all the new guidebooks plaster "el Goog" on their covers.

It's easy to see why: The Bilbao Guggenheim takes to the lens like a supermodel. Even a point-and-shoot hack like me can gin up a cool shot. Not just one, in fact. The museum makes shutterbugs of us all—it's the perfect subject for the digital age, a building that provides material on a scale more appropriate to Flash cards than rolls of film.

Back home in Seattle, another Gehry titanium creation, the Experience Music Project, doesn't photograph well. Its colors and curves seem garish and cartoony, especially compared to the Goog's chameleonlike palette. People parade past the Guggenheim 24 hours a day, but during photo-friendly hours the flow is particularly strong. Everyone wants to see it; gaze at its fishy, sailboaty, insecty shapes; photograph it; be photographed with it; and then move around to the other side of the building to do it again. Just by walking around the museum, you can put yourself in at least 10 strangers' photo albums. If a fraction of these people went inside the galleries, you wouldn't be able to see the exhibits.

Down the coast from Bilbao, in San Sebastián, the Basque Country's other main tourist town, the architectural and artistic offerings are much less camera-friendly. Eduardo Chillida's "Peine del Viento"—three rusted iron structures that emerge magically and apparently organically from the sea to "comb the wind"—is artistically flawless. The grainy sand of the Playa de la Concha's perfect horseshoe bay evolves into striated rocks and through gradually darkening shades finds its natural conclusion in the orange-hued combs. But as a visitor magnet, the Peine's pull is weak. Camera-toting families approach, take a couple of art shots and perhaps an awkward posed photo, sit for a second to catch their breath, and then head back to the city center. There isn't even a souvenir stand. (In the Guggenheim's museum shop, at least two-thirds of the items for sale relate to the building itself rather than the collections or exhibits.)

San Sebastián's other modern treasure, the Kursaal, designed by Rafael Moneo, may have won the European Union prize for contemporary architecture, and judging from picture postcards, it's beautiful at night when it glows from within, but in the bright light of day, the two boxy buildings are reminiscent of a late-'90s tech startup—all edge and flash and no chemistry. In September, when the Kursaal hosts the San Sebastián Film Festival, the world's premier Spanish-language movie event, no doubt the star power alone generates lots of energy, but with a month to go before Cannes on the Bay of Biscay, it was cold and flat, despite the 90-degree heat.

Of course, just because something's photogenic doesn't mean it's any good. Jeff Koons' "Puppy" (pronounced, appropriately, "Poopy" by the locals), the giant floral pooch that sits outside the Guggenheim, apparently offers endless fascination for anyone with a camera in their hands, even though it's naffness incarnate. The Bilbaínos have only themselves to blame: Originally intended as a throwaway touring exhibit, the city fathers insisted it stick around in eternal youth and perpetual bloom.

Gehry gets the glory, but Bilbao's city fathers regularly page through Who's Who in Modern Architecture. Santiago Calatrava is responsible for the city's new airport terminal and Zubizuri ("white bridge" in Euskara), a gleaming footbridge in the shape of a wind-filled sail, just a few blocks from the Guggenheim. Calatrava had originally intended the Zubizuri to have a clear glass walkway, but in a shocking example of social responsibility, the local authorities covered it in non-slip plastic. You can see right through Norman Foster's Metro station entrances, known as "fosteritos," though. The spiny glass insect-shell vestibules make descending to the tracks or returning to street level seem like space travel.

Although there's little doubt that the Guggenheim is responsible for Bilbao's modern economic revival, the city has a long history of engineering and design innovation. Just 11 Metro stops from el Goog is the Puente Colgante (hanging bridge)—the Puente Vizcaya to locals—which links the quiet seaside town of Getxo to the former port of Portugalete. When it opened in 1893, it was the first mechanical transporter bridge in the world, moving passengers—and now cars—in a suspended gondola, so as not to impede navigation for the ships heading down the River Nervión to Bilbao. For 3 euros you can take an elevator ride 165 feet up to the suspended footpath for great views out to the port of Bilbao or to spy on residents sunbathing on the roofs of their Portugalete homes. Or you can go native and, for 25 cents each way, glide across in the gondola with the locals.

I'm not one to be bowled over by the engineering genius of a bridge, but I was glad to take the 15-minute ride out from Bilbao, if only to get a break from the crowds and all that darned culture. Sometimes you just want to sit in a gondola and look out at the world.


Previous entries:

First Chapter

Second Chapter


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Wednesday, August 27, 2003

June Thomas : Basqueland II

Here you have the second chapter of June Thomas' trip to Euskal Herria published at Slate:

Adventures in Basqueland

from: June Thomas
Basque Battle Raps and Stealth Sloganeering

Posted Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2003

The Basque Country is a land of Navajo code-talkers. Unlike Spain's other minority languages, Catalan and Gallego, a knowledge of other Romance languages won't help you decipher Euskara, the Basques' ancient tongue. Packed with K's and X's, the only language it resembles is Klingon, the lingua franca of Star Trek's wrinkly headed warrior race. (Since one of the Star Trek franchise's longtime writer-producers has the classic Basque name Echevarria, I wondered if the resemblance was intentional, but a Web search reveals a disappointing lack of evidence for my theory.)

Their impenetrable language means Basque separatists don't have to dissemble in front of outsiders—by stating their message in Euskara, they keep it in the family. On a day trip to San Sebastián, I had a pre-lunch aperitif in a separatist bar. The posters plastered all over the walls were in Euskara, and only a few stray words—presoak (prisoners), amnistia (amnesty)—betrayed Latin roots. Still, the Cuban flag hanging on the wall, the Che Guevara mirror behind the bar, and the extensive real estate devoted to collection jars (one, I swear, in the shape of a bomb) signaled that this was a gathering place for like-minded souls, not a service-with-a-smile hospitality center for tourists. It works out well for the tourist authorities, too: Since Basque nationalists tend to use Euskara in their political graffiti, it doesn't scare the vacationers. It isn't immediately obvious to visitors if that "Gora E.T.A." scrawled on the walls of the Casco Viejo supports or condemns the banned Basque separatists. (It's pro.)

Euskara may be Europe's most ancient language, but it's very much alive. A Basque-language TV channel transmits dubbed kiddy cartoons (Rocko, Kanguru Modernoa), movies ("Yankiak, zuz John Schlesinger"), and trashy live coverage of the Aste Nagusia festivities. (The language itself may be a mystery, but judging from the guests' body language, the interlocutors ask questions like, "Did you enjoy the fireworks?" "Were you really drunk last night?" and "Do my ears look big in this beret?")

Every morning during Aste Nagusia, bertsolariak, Basque bards, perform in the Plaza Nueva. It's a very low-key presentation: As if to confound the bardly image of long robes and flowing beards, the bertsolariak and the MC who runs the show seem to make an effort to wear aggressively casual clothing—grubby T-shirts and disreputable-looking shorts are particularly de rigueur. These aren't old geezers, either—two of the four bertsolariak in Monday's show looked like high-schoolers; sitting up on stage between turns, they looked like naughty boys waiting to see the principal.

The bertsolariak's performance is an amalgam of improv comedy, poetry slam, and battle rap. The MC presents a topic—based on the two or three words I could make out, subject matter included star-crossed toreros and ill-fated kickoffs to the Aste Nagusia celebrations—and the bertsolariak improvise melody and Euskara lyrics on the theme. They usually work in pairs, trading verses, but there were also solo turns, and in the show's big finish, all four bertsolariak took to the mike. Other than a little teasing about one bertsolari's scratchy voice, there didn't appear to be much dissing going on—though I suppose that if your gift in life is composing ephemeral songs that only about 600,000 people in the entire world can understand, it's not a good idea to use your one chance to blow to alienate colleagues.

When I first spent time in Spain in the early 1980s, my main exposure to Euskaldunak, speakers of Euskara, was on the train ride from Paris to Madrid, a route that runs through Irun, Pamplona, and other points Basque. The passengers who boarded the train at the various stops in what Mark Kurlansky calls "Spanish Basqueland" looked very different from both the foreign tourists and the returning Spaniards. Somehow, the Basque-language newspapers they paged through seemed like political theater props—the equivalent of a lone woman in a carriage full of men bringing out a sharp knife and slowly peeling an apple—and a "screw you" to the news-hungry travelers who'd spent the night in transit; their impenetrable headlines designed to frustrate the curious.

Back then, I thought Euskara was toast—the isolated rural communities where the Basque language had persisted were opening up to the world; the language had effectively been banned during Gen. Francisco Franco's 38 years in power through 1975; and its complexity—20 declensions, 12 cases, and no prepositions or articles—made a revival seem unlikely. Today, Basque TV transmissions of Donkey Kong eta Bere Herrialdea and the youthful bertsolariak prove that it survives and thrives. Although castellano­—Spanish—is still Bilbao's first language (when counting and answering the telephone, locals almost always use Spanish, and young people seem to flirt exclusively in castellano), the 100,000 or so Euskaldunberri (new speakers of Euskara) of the last decade suggest that a minority language can survive in an age of globalization.

Shortcut to the first chapter.

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The Media's Double Standard

Read and weep, weep for the US media:

August 21, 2003

The US Media's Double Standard

The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush
By VICENTE NAVARRO


Can you imagine the response of the U.S. media if the president of the governing party of Poland were to say that Stalin was the former Soviet Union's greatest leader? Or if the president of the German government had never condemned the Hitler regime, or if a founder of the governing party in Germany was a person who had written a prologue to a book denying the existence of the Holocaust? Surely the media would hit the ceiling immediately and call for these person's resignations.

Well, the U.S. government and the U.S. media have been welcoming a man who has done something similar, a man they have referred to as "a great friend of the U.S." and "a representative of the New Europe" (in Rumsfeld's narrative), and a man that leading Democrats (not to be perceived as less welcoming) have referred to in equally laudatory terms. Even the Democratic-controlled California Assembly gave him a standing ovation. His man's is Mr. Jose Maria Aznar; he is the president of the Spanish government and leader of the governing party, the Popular Party (PP). More critical media would have made some inquiries about the PP and about Mr. Aznar. Let's start with the Party.

The PP was founded by Mr. Fraga Iribarne, Minister of the Interior in Franco's fascist regime (in charge of Spain's political police); he is still the president of the Party. He has always professed great admiration for General Franco and has never condemned Spain's fascist regime, responsible for one of Europe's cruelest dictatorships (more than 200,000 Spaniards were killed or died in concentration camps during Franco's regime). Actually, Fraga Iribarne has defined the Franco government as Spain's best regime in the twentieth century. His most recent contribution to "setting history straight" was to write a prologue to a book (The Historical Lie Finally Denounced in Spanish by a friend of his, Mr. T. M. Bereiro) that denies the existence of the Holocaust.

Such a gentleman has been the mentor of Jose Maria Aznar, choosing him as his successor as leader of the PP. In a poll in 1982, 54% of PP members thought the Franco regime had been good for Spain. Aznar was himself a member of the fascist party during Franco's rule, and he has never denounced or criticized that regime in which his father and grandfather played a critical and prominent role. When democracy was reinstated in Spain in 1978, Aznar opposed the new Constitution that established the new democracy. And he denounced the newly democratic municipality of Guernica (made famous worldwide by Picasso's painting of its destruction by Hitler's aviation) for changing the name of the town's main square from "General Franco Square" to "Liberty Square." Aznar wanted to keep the old name. Today, the Supreme Court of Spain, named by Aznar's government, is refusing to change the legal status of those killed by the Franco dictatorship (for opposing the dictatorship), who are still defined as criminals in Spain. Aznar has also disobeyed the instructions of the U.N. Human Rights Agency to find the bodies of those who disappeared during the Franco regime (more than 30,000 people). And just two weeks ago, Aznar's government approved the imposition on all primary and secondary school students of religion classes (basically classes on Catholicism), which will consume almost as many hours of the curriculum as mathematics.

How is it possible that none of these facts have been published in the U.S.? To what level have the U.S. media sunk? They have reported, sometimes critically, on Berlusconi, who governs in alliance with Fini, an admirer of Mussolini. But among Berlusconi's many faults we do not find a fascist past of which he is proud. Aznar is proud of his fascist past, and no one in the U.S. media has made any comment
on this.

Quite remarkable!



What I've been telling you all along, let's hope someone pays attention to this guy, mostly today when there is people searching into Ahnold's father's Nazi past. If being Nazi is so bad, why in the hell does the USA allows a former Nazi ally to subjugate the Basques?

These guys deny the Holocaust, which means that to them, people like Anne Frank and Oskar Schindler were liars.

Standing ovation to Mr. Aznar please!

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Tuesday, August 26, 2003

June Thomas : Basqueland I

This article comes to us via Slate, it opens up with a shaky start (the Basque Country DOES NOT smell like Spain) but then it improves dramatically, here you have the first chapter:

Adventures in Basqueland

From: June Thomas
Subject: Guilt-Free Ethno-Tourism in Bilbao

Monday, August 25, 2003, at 2:22 PM PT

The Basque Country smells like Spain—a mixture of wine, sweat, eau de cologne, olive oil, and "black" tobacco. And the locals' food fixation is quite French. But as a poster I saw in San Sebastián explains, "Tourist remember: You are not in Spain nor in France, you are in the Basque Country."

I came to Bilbao, the region's biggest city, for Aste Nagusia, the "Great Week" of fiestas, when, as a tourist brochure put it, the city "comes to life in the midst of summer lethargy to experience the most entertaining week of the year." The program is amazingly varied—Basque music and dancing, traditional rural sports, a pelota tournament, an international fireworks competition, cooking contests, kids' activities, open-air cinema, street theater, nine bullfights, scores of free open-air concerts, and thousands of people out on the streets all through the night.

Forget eco-tourism, this is guilt-free ethno-tourism. You don't have to schlep to the jungle for an anthropological experience—take a chair in a terrace bar in Bilbao's old town, the Casco Viejo, and you can see sword dances, battle raps in the ancient Basque language, and wandering minstrels playing traditional music on instruments with names like the txistu, txalaparta, and alboka. After dinner at one of the city's great restaurants (only San Sebastián up the coast has a better culinary reputation), you can put ethnographic studies behind you and wander around the city drinking at the 26 txosnas—booths that serve beer and cocktails until 5 a.m.—sampling the free concerts.

This year's Aste Nagusia blossomed in a mud puddle. It was pouring on Saturday evening when Bilbaínos gathered outside the Teatro Arriago in the Casco Viejo to greet Marijaia, the muse and symbol of the fiestas. Since most of the revelers were dressed for sun, I figured that, as in Seattle, the residents of a rainy place distinguish themselves from sightseers by eschewing umbrellas. As soon as the giant figure of Marijaia, a homely middle-aged woman with outstretched arms, appeared on the balcony and the strains of "Badator Marijaia," the Aste Nagusia theme tune, started to blast from the loudspeakers, I understood why the crowd was so indifferent to the rain—they knew they were going home soaked to the skin anyway, so why worry. Once the txupin—the rocket that officially launches Aste Nagusia—had been fired, the bottles of champagne and other bubbly beverages that folks had brought to toast the fiestas became makeshift showerheads, and revelers good-naturedly pelted each other with bags of flour. After a couple of minutes of toasting, showering, and flour-bombing, most of the crowd looked like contestants in a concrete factory's wet-T-shirt contest.

In 1609, Frenchman Pierre de Lanure reported to his superiors in Bordeaux that the Basques were "light and quick in body and spirit, liking late evenings and dancing." In the four hundred years since, they've certainly not lost their taste for staying up.

Although the Basques' nocturnal nature might still shock the French, Spaniards generally love to trasnochar—given the climate, it just makes sense to get work done in the morning, rest at the hottest part of the day, then hit the streets when the sun goes down. (Besides, other than retail and service industry workers, most Spaniards are on vacation for the whole month of August anyway, and hay que aprovechar—you have to take advantage of the break.) Throughout Spain, it's not unusual to see entire families—several generations from oldsters to tiny tots—rambling around at 3 a.m. during their town's fiestas. The Basques of Bilbao are no exception: From 8 each evening, the streets of the Casco Viejo are jammed with people—crowds of a size you'd see at the Washington Mall on July 4 or in Times Square on New Year's Eve—enjoying a summer evening stroll and greeting friends and neighbors as they too take a paseo through the neighborhood.

In the States, fireworks usually represent the end of a holiday—the last bangs and whistles before the hangover kicks in. In Bilbao, the nightly 10:30 show is just the start of the night's entertainment—the big concerts don't even begin until 12:30. Even the Guggenheim has a late show, opening from 11 p.m. until 2 a.m. for four nights of Aste Nagusia.

The Basques still love their music and dancing, too. On Sunday afternoon, I was in the Museo Vasco on Plaza Unamuno, desperately trying to take in the earnest exhibits about Iron Age implements, traditional Basque shepherding techniques, and the many and varied uses for sheep horns, when the museum's atmospheric sound effects (baaaah) were interrupted by the sounds of music from the street below. Even the museum guard couldn't bear to stare at the dioramas for a moment longer, cracking the window to peek down at the living embodiment of Basque culture. On the street, standing outside a bar, multitasking pipe-and-drummers sipped vermouth and chewed on salchichas while a male voice chorus circled and sang. Once the host bar's tribute was exhausted, the pipers signaled that it was time to head to the next corner for another impromptu performance.

Every day, groups performing styles of traditional regional music known as trikitrixa, alboka, and gaita tour the original seven streets of the Casco Viejo. Although some, especially the choral groups, tend to be dominated by graybeards, others are composed of twentysomething scenesters. Here and in the dances of the Basque Country performed every evening in the Plaza Nueva, I was shocked by how hip the artists were. Several of the young women playing medieval music on authentic instruments or dancing a jota had facial piercings; the guys with bells tied round their knees doing the sword dance while wearing big goofy red berets were cool kids with tattoos and novelty sideburns. In the Basque Country these days, it seems, it's hip to be square.

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Sunday, August 24, 2003

Rallies Supporting Egunkaria

This article comes to us thank to the newly created Berria:

Remembering colleagues

‘EGUNKARIA’. Exactly six months to the day that the Basque-language newspaper was shut down former staff held rallies in Bilbo and Donostia to ask for the release of their imprisoned colleagues

A.I./A.O. – BILBO/DONOSTIA (San Sebastian)

Six months after the shutting down of “Euskaldunon Egunkaria” former staff of the Basque-language daily held rallies yesterday to condemn the closing and to request the release of their colleagues who continue in prison. “Egunkaria” staff received the support of the street bands in Bilbo, and Joxe Joan Gonzalez de Txabarri, the Head of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, took part in the Donostia gathering.

At 12.30 hours the sun was blazing down on the square opposite the Arriaga theatre of Bilbo; an appetising smell wafted down from Areatza, where they were holding an omelette competition, and the buzz of activity from the “Txosnas” (*) could be heard. That was when the rally began.

About a hundred people supported the demand in favour of Egunkaria. Present were the newspaper’s former staff, including Martxelo Otamendi, the former editor of Egunkaria and now the editor of BERRIA, and Joan Mari Larrarte, member of the BERRIA Board of Directors. Numerous members of the Bilbo street bands also joined in the rally and among others there were members of the Hor Dago Abante, Lehoiak, Hau Pittu Hau, Kaskagorri, Askapeña, Txori Barrote, Satorrak, Txomin Barullo, Eguzkizaleak, Pa…Ya! and Hontzak street bands.

Other people also took part in the rally. German Kortabarria, the head of Communications of the trade union ELA; Txutxi Ariznabarreta of the trade union LAB; Andolin Eguzkitza, member of the Royal Academy of the Basque Language and writer; Jexux Mari Zalakain, the lecturer expelled from the EHU-University of the Basque Country; Koldo Rodriguez, the spokesperson for the Basque-language association EHE; Tasio Erkizia, well-known member of the Basque nationalist left; Iñigo Santxo, lawyer, and Martin Barriuso, spokesperson of the Kalamudia association, along with many other citizens. There were also photos of Iñaki Uria, Xabier Alegria and Xabier Oleaga, who all continue in prison in connection with the Egunkaria case.

(*) Txosnas: street refreshment stalls set up during the fiestas in towns and cities.


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Wednesday, August 20, 2003

EZLN, Garzon and Fox

Here you have this unique article by John Ross regarding the battle taking place in Mexico, a battle that pits the EZLN and the Mexican leftist movement against the fascist governments of Spain and Mexico.

There is one paragraph completely out of place, but other than that, the article captures what's going on, here you have it:

While Zapatistas Shout: "Gora Euskadi!" Fox Government Rounds Up Mexican Basques and Ships Them to Aznar's Torture Chambers

By JOHN ROSS

August 19, 2003

A traveler motoring through southeastern Chiapas these days is apt to encounter neatly-lettered road signs advising that one is now entering "Autonomous Zapatista Rebel Territory". Several such notices are posted along the two-lane black-top that winds through the highlands up to Oventic, the site of one of five recently inaugurated "caracoles" (literally "spirals") from which the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) is building regional autonomy.

But as one nears Oventic, other road signs pop up in the nearby cornfields. "EUSKAL PRESOAK! EUSKAL HERRIRA!" reads one announcement, against which a Tzotzil-speaking Zapatista militia man leans, casually puffing on a cigarette. The sign, however, is not written in Tzotzil but in an equally esoteric lingo, Euskara, or the language of the Basques, and when translated demands "Let the Basque prisoners return to their homeland!" The road sign in Euskara is a forceful reminder of the odd bond between the largely Mayan EZLN and those who struggle for the independence of the Basque Country ("Pais Vasco" or "Euskadi.")

"Gora Euskadi!" (Long Live the Basque Homeland!) greeted a ski-masked Indian comandante, Zebedeo, at the recent Oventic inauguration festivities, "that this cry will never be extinguished even in the prisons and torture chambers of the Spanish government!" The comandante then explained that the EZLN supports "the political and cultural struggle" for Basque independence but not the terror tactics of the notorious ETA ("Euskara Ta Askatasuna" or Basque Homeland and Liberty.)

Indeed, a bitter epistolary conflict has erupted between the EZLN's quixotic spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos and that homicidal terrorist band--at one point in the angry colloquy, Marcos even feared that he could be ETA's next victim.

Last November, after 18 months of frozen silence, the Subcomandante broke his word fast with a rambling, cheeky comunique addressed to Zapatista supporters at a Madrid conclave. The screed lacerated Spanish king Juan Carlos ("a constipated old man") and right-wing prime minister Jose Maria Aznar (a "pipsqueak" and a "donkey") but reserved special vitriol for National Audience judge Baltazar Garzon for his persecution of supporters of Basque independence.

Garzon, often mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, is best known for his flawed attempts to extradite ex-Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to Spain to answer charges of human rights atrocities during his tyrannical regime (1973-89.) The Judge has been more successful in obtaining the extradition of accused Argentinean torturer Ricardo Cavallo from Mexico--Cavallo is charged with the disappearance of at least 5000 Leftists during the "dirty war" (1976-83) in that southern cone nation.

Garzon, whose judicial position allows him ample investigative powers, first won public attention in Spain when he revealed that former Socialist prime minister Felipe Gonzalez had sponsored a counter-terrorism unit, the GAL, deemed responsible for the killings of 27 Basque independence fighters in Spain and France, a disclosure that helped bring down the Gonzalez government.

But Judge Garzon soon turned his legal guns upon the Basque independence movement itself. Hundreds were taken prisoner and tortured (as substantiated each year by Amnesty International), newspapers have been shuttered, and political parties proscribed--Batasuna, outlawed late last year as alleged "apologists for terrorism", won 11% of the Basque vote in the last elections and held seats in both the national and local parliaments.

In his stinging November note, Marcos labeled Garzon "a grotesque clown" who demonstrates "his true fascist avocation" by persecuting the Basques. The Judge, the dyed white streak in his ample head of hair bristling like a bantee rooster, immediately fired back. The rebel leader was "a ridiculous figure with his pipe", and "a miserable coward who insults" the nearly 900 victims of ETA terrorism by bad-mouthing Garzon's crusade. Baltazar Garzon also threw down the gauntlet, challenging the Subcomandante to a debate "without masks or disguises where and whenever you like."

Not to be daunted, the unflappable Zapatista mouthpiece immediately set a date and a place, April at Lanzarote in the Canary Islands near the home of Nobel Prize-winning author Jose Saramago, a great fan of the rebels. Marcos also summoned ETA and Batasuna and the Aznar government to Lanzarote for a "Festival of the Word" and implored the ETArras to declare a 177-day truce until the talks could be entabled.

Suggesting that the Subcomandante was "mentally unbalanced" and suffering from delusions of grandeur, Spanish authorities turned the invite hands down. ETA was even less diplomatic, tagging the proposed talks "a pantomime" and expressing the suspicion that Marcos was just trying to get his picture back "on the front pages of the newspapers and the popular tee-shirts." Moreover, by asking for a truce, the Zapatistas were intervening in the internal dynamic of the Basque independence movement. The aspersions put a quick damper on "The Fiesta of the Word" and the fracaso soon faded from public visibility.

Then this past August 8th, as the EZLN was preparing to inaugurate the new "caracoles" with their regional autonomous authorities, who should show up in Chiapas but Judge Baltazar Garzon himself. He was on vacation, Hizzoner insisted to reporters at the airport in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the state capitol, but did not miss the opportunity to diss the Zapatistas' "caracoles" as being "Illegal" because they do not conform to the Mexican Constitution. Marcos was a charlatan who was bamboozling the Indians the Judge insisted, and soon disappeared into the foliage "on vacation."

The unexplained absence of Subcomandante Marcos at the Oventic ceremonies August 8th-10th has led to wild speculation that the two adversaries had finally conducted their long-awaited debate--in private.

More probably, Garzon's mystery trip to Chiapas obeyed his obsession with ETA and not the EZLN--although he may well have had an eye ou the ties between the two groups. The Judge's touch-downs in Mexico City and Tuxtla came at a moment when President Vicente Fox--with whom Garzon met in July--has ordered a crack-down on suspected ETA terrorists and sympathizers living in Mexico. In most cases, detention and extradition orders have been crafted by Garzon's office.

Since 1996, when then-presidents Ernesto Zedillo and Felipe Gonzalez inked an extradition treaty that was finalized under Aznar (the agreement opened the door to Spanish support for a free trade pact with the European Union), 36 Basques have been detained and expelled from Mexico into the waiting arms of the Spanish police. One deportee died under suspicious circumstances during a 1997 round-up in which Spanish police officials directly participated in violation of Mexican law.

Now Fox is eager to demonstrate to Aznar and the diminutive prime minister's big boss, George Bush, that he too can be tough on terrorism.

Item: in late April, Lorenzo Llona, a naturalized citizen, was detained on his way to work in the central Mexican city of Zacatecas and held for extradition to Spain on allegations that he had participated in a triple murder in the Basque province of Guipuzcoa on June 24th, 1981 (Basques picked up in Mexico are increasingly charged with crimes dating back to the 1980s.) The only problem with this scenario is that Llona had already emigrated to Mexico when the murders were committed and had the paperwork to prove it. Nonetheless, Garzon pushes ahead with the extradition claim, a process that could take years while Llona remains behind bars.

Item--On July 4th, Miguel Ebxanda, a Basque who may have been in Mexico illegally, was nabbed by immigration agents, driven to the Mexico City airport, and deported to Madrid where Spanish police took immediate custody, before anyone even knew he was missing. Such summary deportations of Basques have become common practice here when the suspect's papers are adjudged to be not in order.

Item: On July 18th, in a muscular show of force with Judge Garzon in country, Federal Investigation Agency (AFI) robo-cops broke down doors in four Mexican cities and arrested sic Basques and three Mexicans for allegedly laundering ETA moneys (another Garzon investigation.)

All of the Basques arrested were prosperous middle-aged business men and women, some of them naturalized or married to Mexicans. At least one of the arrestees was so confident of his legal status in Spain that he had bought a ticket to move back to Pais Vasco. He and his wife were reportedly waiting for the moving van in front of their Monterrey home when he was collared by the AFI.

The morning after the July 18th raids, code-named "Operation Donasti", Aznar phoned Fox to congratulate the Mexican president for his tough stance in the War on Terror.

Basques first came to Mexico with the Conquest--Hernan Cortez carried eight Vascos in his crew. The Franciscan missionary Vasco de Quiroga evangelized western Mexico. Basques and their descendants have assembled immense fortunes here and are captains of industry and commerce (one example: the Azcarriaga family, principle owners of the Televisa conglomerate.) Basque names are ubiquitous--an Echeverria has been president and an Arizmendi a bishop.

Basque refugees from the Spanish civil war (1936-39) were welcomed to Mexico by a sympathetic president Lazaro Cardenas. They established businesses and social centers like the Centro Vasco in the old quarter of the capital, for decades a venue noted for conviviality and fine dining. But now the Centro Vasco has fallen on dark days. The AFI and Spanish police are thought to surveil its elegant quarters--the six accused money launderers often met there.

"Being Basque in Mexico these days is a lot like being an Arab in the U.S. right after 9/11" observes Javier Elorriaga, a Mexican of Basque descent and a civil Zapatista leader.

Why Garzon was dirt-digging in Chiapas has not yet emerged from the mud but there is little doubt that he kept tabs on the Zapatista celebrations up at Oventic. Despite its astringent relations with ETA, the EZLN is routinely attacked by his detractors for backing the terrorists. In a paroxysm of xenophobia, ex-president Zedillo once accused the rebels of harboring ETArras in peace camps established by the civil society in the jungles and mountains of Chiapas, and immigration agents in the region continue to zealously pursue possible Basque visitors.

But the coincidences between the Indians and Basque country has less to do with terrorist plots than it does with the essential nature of their struggles. Both are nations within nations--fourth world nations if you will--and both fight for meaningful autonomy from what they regard as the "mal gobierno: (bad government.)

John Ross was a resident of Pais Vasco during the late 1970s, the
most explosive years of the struggle for Basque independence.

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Monday, August 18, 2003

Zorionak Joane!

Congratulations to Basque rider Joane Somarriba for her triumph at the so called Tour de France for Women.

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Ainhoa


Ainhoa Posted by Hello
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Saturday, August 16, 2003

Christmas in August

Last night when I came home from work it was like Christmas in July, only that it is August, or something like that.

A friend of mine, Philippe, had the chance to take part of a world congress for Basques that took place last month, he was representing the San Francisco Eusko Etxea. While in the Basque Country he had the chance to meet with a few other friends, among them Juan, who lives in Lekeito. Juan was nice enough to send me a CD of Benito Lertxundi, one of the most reknown Basque singers. He also send me a book called "El Arbol de Gernika" by war correspondent George Steer. He gave those items to Philippe who brought them to the USA after touring the whole Basque Country.

Now, Philippe had the chance to be in Irunea (Pamplona) the day of the "Chupinazo", which is the day when the famous San Fermines start, the San Fermines is a religuous celebration that is known around the world for the crazy runs with the bulls. Irunea is in the heart of the Basque Country, yet, the spanish government and the Navarrese foral government decided to ban the Ikurrina, which is the Basque flag.

Philippe by chance was filming a group of Basque youths who were approaching the main square to take part of the festivity, they were carrying Ikurrinas, when suddenly they were attacked by anti-riot police officers, the police officers were good at dispensing stick blows and proceeded to stomp on the fallen Ikurrinas, it is all now on tape. Little they knew that another group of Basque youths had managed to enter the square from a different direction and it is like that that the whole world was able to see the Ikurrina, which is the Basque flag at a main Basque religious celebration, in Irunea, one of the oldest Basque cities in the Basque Country. Take that one sorry ass fascists!

Along with the book and the CD, Philippe sent me a copy of the tape.

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Friday, August 15, 2003

Ibarretxe's Proposal Leak

According to The Economist, Madrid's rightist newspaper ABC has leaked Ibarretxe's proposal of a road map to a new relationship between the Basque Autonomous Community and Madrid.

This article contains some of the reactions to ABC's report:

A leaked plan has put the separatist cat among the centralist pigeons

Aug 14th 2003 | MADRID

"THE possibility of this succeeding is zero." Thus Spain's prime minister, José María Aznar, on the latest plan of the Basque regional premier, Juan José Ibarretxe, to turn his region—now merely one of Spain's 17, though with more autonomy than most—into a "free state associated with Spain". Mr Ibarretxe's idea is not new, but he had hoped to keep his latest version of it under wraps until he had reached a consensus with his allies in the regional assembly. But a conservative newspaper, ABC, got hold of a draft and Mr Aznar reached for the big stick.

The plan envisages the Basque region "sharing sovereignty" with Spain. But its economy and judiciary, among other important matters, would come entirely under Basque control. And, above all, the region's voters would have the right to decide their own future, including the option of independence, in a referendum.

Mr Ibarretxe, whose Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) has ruled the region, in one coalition or another, for the past 25 years, plans—once he has squared its current allies in the regional assembly (a local party that split from his own, and the ex-communist United Left)—to ask the assembly to amend the region's constitution, known as "the statute of Guernica". That done, the result would be put to the Spanish parliament, and then to a Basque referendum.

The whole idea is one step from treason, in Mr Aznar's eyes. "The aims of nationalism [ie, the PNV] and of terrorism [the separatist gunmen of ETA] are identical," he says, and the plan is "utterly incompatible with the [Spanish] constitution". The state prosecutor, Jesús Cardenal, likened the plan to something from Asterix and Obelix, the Gaulish defiers of imperial Rome in France's favourite comic books.

As for practicalities, José María Michavila, the justice minister, says the Constitutional Court would annul any such alteration to the Basque constitution; nor is there any chance that the Spanish parliament would agree. That is true: not only does Mr Aznar's conservative People's Party (PP) now—and quite possibly after the general election early next year—have a majority, but the Socialists too would say no. They say they favour real regional autonomy everywhere (translation: especially in Catalonia, where they hope to win regional power this autumn); but the PNV plan is another matter.

Exactly what Mr Ibarretxe is really after is unclear. More autonomy, certainly. But full independence, who knows? He said the leaked plan was one of eight drafts, and that he would unveil his final version only next month. For all its decades of power, the PNV has never been crystal-clear about its long-term aim. Its historic leader, Xabier Arzalluz, the party president, certainly dreams of independence, and, though now 70, he still has considerable influence. But those who have to run the region, and its relations with Madrid, have to live with the world as it is.

Indeed, the PNV is decried by more committed (and more left-wing) Basque nationalists as the vehicle of a self-serving Catholic Basque establishment that has no real intention of altering the status quo. ETA says the plan does not go far enough, since it does not argue bluntly for outright independence, nor make a claim, as ETA does, to a wider Basque country including the neighbouring Spanish region of Navarre and bits of south-west France.

Since his draft plan was leaked in ABC, Mr Ibarretxe has tried to play down its most controversial aspects. "It has been turned into a phoney debate by people who want to present our proposal as secessionist," he said. He pointedly refused to talk of a "free state associated with Spain", preferring to use the less drastic phrase "a free associated community". He says he wants peaceful co-existence: "This is the key year for Spanish and Basque politics, when we must decide on the model of the relationship between the Basque region and Spain for the next 20 years."

Many Basques think Mr Ibarretxe is going too far. His government's own sociological unit published a survey last month suggesting that only 22% definitely favour independence, 33% say it depends on the conditions, and 32% are against. But 89% supposedly favour the idea of a referendum to decide whether the region should have a new status, and 42% said they thought Mr Ibarretxe's plan would help.

Oddly, however, three out of four of the survey's respondents said they had never heard of the plan—and felt no wish to know more about it.

So, what Ibarretxe wants is to help improve Spain? Well, that is certainly a different approach to what an average citizen of an occupied country usually thinks about the invader. And certainly any road map to Basque independence must include all seven provinces.

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Monday, August 11, 2003

Basque Men Like To Cook

Time to learn about Basque culture and the penchant Basque men have for cooking.

This note comes to us via Yahoo News:

Basque Men Hard to Keep Out of the Kitchen

Sun Aug 10, 7:45 AM ET

By Daniel Flynn

BILBAO, Spain (Reuters) - It is not often women say they cannot keep their husbands out of the kitchen, but in Spain's food-mad northern Basque region the men often prefer to keep the cooking among themselves.

Renowned in Spain for their love of good food, the Basques' popular temples to their culinary cult are all-male gastronomic societies known as "txokos."

In these simple clubs, whose name in the ancient Basque language means "corner," attendance is by invitation only. There is no menu and the members share the cooking among themselves.

Nestled among a row of restaurants on a bustling pedestrian street in downtown Bilbao, no sign distinguishes the entrance to the txoko Indartzu.

"This is a meeting place for friends. Most of us have known each other since childhood," said Edu, a jolly, ruddy-faced Basque who was our head chef for the day. "Cooking is something which us Basques are born with in our genes."

Inside, long wooden tables line the walls, which are decorated with club notice boards, photos of sportsmen and paintings of the rugged, green Basque countryside.

Groups of smartly-dressed men who come from nearby offices for a mid-week lunch give the txoko a business-like atmosphere.

Pride of place is given to the large kitchen, equipped like that in a professional restaurant with sturdy stainless steel ovens and enormous pots and pans. Behind a door at the back of the kitchen hides an extensive wine cellar stacked with choice Riojas.

"My wife is sick of me coming here. She says I spend more time in the txoko than I do with her," Edu said, standing in the kitchen beside his two apron-wearing assistants. "But she accepts it as another of her husband's passions."

Matriarchal society

Txokos were established in the late 19th century in the elegant seaside resort of San Sebastian as a means for Basque men to escape from their female-dominated homes.

Unlike other Spanish regions, Basque society was traditionally matriarchal, with lines of succession going from mother to daughter.

"Women have always been the bosses at home. Here we can play cards and talk about food," said Javi, holding a glass of the light and acidic local white wine, txakoli. "It is better not to allow women. There is no jealously and we argue less."

But traditions are changing slowly amid protest from feminists. Like Indartzu, whose name in Basque means "strength," many txokos now open their doors to women on Fridays, weekends and during holidays.

"When women do come, they are treated like princesses. They are forbidden from cooking or washing up," said Edu, who won a bronze medal in a regional cookery competition for txokos.

His cooking, like the best Basque cuisine, is simple and uses whatever seasonal ingredients are cheap and fresh.

A plate piled with delicately fried, breaded anchovies was followed by a enormous pot of fiery potatoes a la riojana, whose key ingredient was spicy sausage made with red peppers.

Struggling under the weight of an enormous dish, Edu triumphantly presented his piece de resistance -- tender white hake with clams in a green sauce.

The meal is washed down with the local firewater, pacharan, and afterward the diners battle it out at mus, a traditional card game, to see who will pick up the tab.

Fraternity avoids politics

In Basque cuisine, the sea has traditionally been more generous than the land. The staple dish of local cookery is salted cod, popularized by intrepid Basque whaling ships which used the fish on long voyages.

The test of any Basque chef is cod pil-pil, where the fish is cooked in a garlic sauce until an opaque emulsion is formed.

The fame of the Basques for their cookery is rivaled by their reputation for forming close-knit clubs. Indartzu is one of around 20 txokos in Bilbao, the earliest of which was formed some 60 years ago.

"Membership is currently limited to 107. When one member dies, his membership is offered to his son," said Edu. "If a new member wants to join, he has to be approved by the board. We currently have a waiting list of around 10 members."

Many of Bilbao's txokos came into being during the 1939-1975 dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, when Basques used the fraternities as a secret forum to discuss nationalist politics.

Times have changed. With the Basque country still troubled by the violence of armed separatist group ETA, the txoko prefers to avoid "difficult" members who discuss politics.

"There are people of all political persuasions here but we try not to talk about politics. This is purely to enjoy the company of friends," Edu said. "We do not want disagreements."

But as so often in the Basque country, political troubles invaded private life. The txoko had to be evacuated before the card game was finished as a bomb scare emptied central Bilbao.

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Sunday, August 10, 2003

Basque and Irish Rowers

This note did not, I repeat, did not appear today at Berria, but this is my blog, and I rule the time continuum here, he he he.

Today in Berria journal.

"Ameriketatik" and "Colmcille" rowing-boats are surrounding Ireland since a month. They started their trip in Prrtrush (North Ireland) in the end of June. More exactly, their trip started in Galicia last year. Then galician, britton and basque traditional sailing-clubs met, each with their ship. There rose the proposal of a meeting next year to sail in the Irish sea together, and by the way call attention about the importance of peaceful and respectful living between different Peoples.

Basques accepted it, of course.

18 basques are participating, but there's only place for 12 in the irish "courragh" they sail. So they alternate in the rowing-work. This has been the route until today: Portrush-Tory Island-Aran Island-Achill Island-Valencia Island-Cork-Rosslare-Arklow-Dublin-Skerries. Now they are in Skerries.. They say they are quite wet and tired, but happy ;-) . Next objective Portrush.


Good objective, to sail for peace.

Better than bombs don't you think?

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Friday, August 08, 2003

Rowing for Peace

A team of Irish and Basque rowers are circling Ireland as a gesture for peaceful resolution to the conflicts in Norhern Ireland and the Basque country, here is a little note by one of the Basque rowers.

ROWING FOR PEACE

Alberto Barandiaran / Berria


Strangford, 2003-aug-05

We've gone slowly in the open sea. We've gone far away the coast, to be able to cross the Dundrum Bay. The objective was the lighthouse of St Johns, but we nearly didn't get it. We seemed to be farer and farer, instead of closer. We had a sitting-place free on the boat, so irish Frankie came on board to "Ameriketatik" from the inflatable boat. Once we passed St Johns, we directed to Strangford.

It happens in a lot of places: it's in vain to talk about the loveliness of the environment to the peasant; it's ALFERRIK to tell the farmer what we feel when we climb that mountain. Those places mean work for them, most times a hard kind of living. "Wonderfulness" is a quite new concept, I guess. A concept that normal people didn't know until the end of past century.

That's why is in vain to talk to seamen about the lovely sunrises. Alferrik and absurd, too. For them, the sea is the neverending land that has taken so many lifes, and more than love they are afraid of it. Sometimes they hate it indeed. In past century, coast inhabitants looked at the first tourists who came to have sea bathes like if they were mad. That was a new and strange use of the environment.

Irish don't love sea. This is not usual in an island, but isn't anyway strange. The sea has stolen them more things than it gave. Celts and english came from sea. Millions of irish went away by sea, leaving a lot of towns desertic. Mist, wind, cold rain come from the sea as well. The sea is their frontier, at the end.

When basque fishermen came to irish docks, very poor people appeared asking for fish, often. That non-loved sea was which could provide them with food, and some richness. In the two days I've been rowing we haven't seen more than four ships. Four old and sad ships, as sad as their riders are happy. We've had the wind against us from the start, so we can't even hang the BELA (that tissue you hang from a log and that propulses you when the wind blows). We even had meal by turns; half of the crew ate while the others row, or else we would go way back.

Leaving Carlington, two inflatable boats have passed very quicly by our side. They were UK army's mariners, with machine guns pointing at us. Then we have seen a big fragatte in the very same Bay. This is the frontier.

Suddenly, a big noise. We've thought in the army, but a lightening has crossed the sky. Storm. And we were tired. And the wind against us. The last hour has been a continuous fight. Waves bigger and bigger, we could rarely row, and the coast rocks were near of us. The enter point of the port was near too, but far at the same time. A big wave passed over us. Up and down without rest. Frankie's words have given us strenght, and we have row in these words' rhytm: "Gui-ness! Gui-ness!".



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Thursday, August 07, 2003

Joseba and Joane

There is news about Joseba Beloki at the Daily Peloton page.

There is also mention of a Basque rider who is now leading the Tour de France for women, here are the two notes:

Joseba Beloki news

ONCE's Joseba Beloki has great challenges ahead of him - his rehabilitation after his serious injury in the Tour de France, the announcement that his team's sponsor is withdrawing from cycling sponsorship at the end of this season, and the birth of his daughter Aintzane last week.

Because of the birth of his daughter, Beloki had not yet spoken with his team director Manolo Saiz at the time of his interview with Marca.com, but said that the announcement would change everything for him, since he thought the sponsor would go forward another year. He said that ONCE discontinuing its sponsorship is worse than his fall in the Tour.

While he knows there are other teams that would be a possibility for him, he says there are few that are Tour teams, which is his goal, since he believes he can win. He is not particularly concerned with the fact that the season is in its latter stages and he is in a wheelchair with many months of rehabilitation ahead of him, but said that in view of his present situation he needs to have his future resolved by the Clasica San Sebastian, which is next week.

Beloki is currently undergoing rehabilitation for his elbow and hip, and will try, as best he can from a wheelchair, to assist his wife Gemma with their new baby girl.


Joane Somarriba in the Grand Boucle

In related international women's news, two time Grand Boucle winner Joane Somarriba told Portalciclista this weekend before she left for the Tour that she is especially motivated in this edition, as it will be her last - she will stop competing in 2004 and focus on the Athens Olympic Games. The legendary Spanish rider will turn 31 next week, on the Grand Boucle's eighth stage.

Somarriba said she was going to the Tour feeling well, particulary for the mountains, though she is not sure how she will do against her rivals. She said this won't be a typical Tour, that it will be decided in the beginning, since the first five stages are mountains and the time trial is on the penultimate day. However, she says she has trained a lot, taken care and rested, and has peace of mind going into the race. Her intention is to win, and she says, "Now, the important thing is that health and luck accompany."

Somarriba won the Grand Boucle in 2000 and 2001, she also won the Women's Giro d'Italia in 1999 and 2000, and in 2000 the final general classification in the Emakumeen Bira. This year and last year she won the Emakumen Saria.


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IBO's New Logo



Well people, the IBO page has a new look and a new logo, and we are up to 405 signatures on the US Basque Petition. So go visit the page and tell us what you think about it.

Thanks for your support.

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