Boise and the Egunkaria Case

This article about how the trial against five Basque journalist has affected the Basque community in Boise has been published at The Idaho Statesman:

Terrorism trial hits home for Boise Basques

Katy Moeller

BOISE, Idaho — A terrorism trial on another continent is hitting close to home for some Boiseans.

A journalist familiar to many in the Treasure Valley's large Basque-American community is one of five former employees of a Basque-language daily newspaper scheduled to go on trial Tuesday in Spain.

Martxelo Otamendi and the others from the paper Euskaldunon Egunkaria will be tried in Spanish National Criminal Court, which is where cases of alleged terrorism are handled.

Some Boise-area Basques say they believe Otamendi's only crime is being a vocal Basque nationalist - not a member of the terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna - which means "Basque Homeland and Freedom" and is known as ETA.

Many thought the question had been resolved in Otamendi's favor.

The trial comes more than six years after Otamendi and the others were charged and after a major shift to the left in Spanish government.

"I have real concerns that it came out of a time that was known to be repressive," Boise Mayor Dave Bieter said. "Why are they prosecuting years away from any of the accusations? ... If the case were strong, he'd have been prosecuted a lot sooner than this."

The public prosecutor in Spain opted not to pursue the case. But in the Spanish legal system there is also a private prosecutor who takes part in criminal procedures as a victim. The private prosecutor is taking the case to trial.

Otamendi has developed friendships in Boise over the past two decades, during which he has visited three times.

His first visit came in 1989, when he came to work on a two-month project with a local TV station.

He returned to Boise in 2005 for Jaialdi, a national Basque festival that's held every five years and attracts Basques from all over the world.

In 2002, Otamendi stayed at Bieter's house while he was in Boise covering the Idaho Legislature's memorial supporting self-determination for the Basques of northern Spain and southern France.

"He stayed in a room over our garage, not exactly luxury accommodations. I can't really recall how it came about," said Bieter, who at that time was a state representative in the Legislature.

Bieter said he and others were surprised that a nonbinding joint memorial by the Idaho Legislature would become an international news event.

"Somehow (Otamendi) saw that as news before anybody else really did," Bieter said. "Then it really did become news. AP picked it up. The Spanish ambassador threw a fit."

It even attracted the attention of President George W. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.

Otamendi spent a week to 10 days interviewing members of the Idaho Legislature, including Bieter and Pete Cenarrusa, a Basque-American and former longtime Idaho secretary of state.

About 15,000 Basques live in Idaho, making it one of the largest Basque populations in the world outside the Basque Country.

Bieter's father was a professor at Boise State University. His family lived in the Basque Country for a time while dictator Francisco Franco was still in power. During a visit during early 2001 or 2002, Bieter was surprised by what he saw.

"It had become repressive again. I saw a lot of instances of that," Bieter said. "The Guardia Civil, an arm of the government, the submarine gun and jackboot guys were all around again. They came down real hard on demonstrations in the cities in the Basque Country. ... They were rounding up big groups of people."

On Feb. 20, 2003, Judge Juan del Olmo of the National Court of Spain shut down Egunkaria, the only daily newspaper published in the Basque language and dedicated to the lives, politics and culture of the Euskaldunak, or Basque people.

To Basques, journalists and human rights advocates around the world, the shutdown of the newspaper appeared heavy-handed.

"There is a freedom of the press issue that's really concerning," Bieter said.

Another Basque newspaper, Egin, was closed in 1998 under similar circumstances, with journalists accused of colluding with ETA. At least one journalist there was convicted, but earlier this year, more than 10 years after the "precautionary closure" of Egin, the case against the paper was dismissed.

"They could reopen it now, but the damage they have caused to the freedom of press cannot be healed at all," said Alberto Santana Ezkerra, director of Basque studies at Boise State University.

Paddy Woodworth, a former reporter for the Irish Times newspaper and author of "The Basque Country: A Cultural History," agrees.

"I believe that if there are serious charges against a medium of communication, sufficient to justify the precautionary measure of closing it down, they should be heard within weeks, not years," he said. "Otherwise the state is very open to charges of suppressing press freedom."

Last year, after Egunkaria had been closed five years, the group Reporters Without Borders called on Spain to drop the years-long prosecution.

"The alleged links between certain members of Egunkaria's staff and ETA have never been demonstrated, despite five years of judicial investigation," the press freedom group said. "The Spanish government's fight against terrorism is legitimate, but it must be done without violating free expression."

Spain's approach to that fight is an important part of the story, Woodworth and other experts said.

"The background is important," Woodworth said. "An anti-terrorist strategy from Madrid ... says that everything and everybody who shares any of ETA's aspirations is in reality a member of ETA, a very dangerous and undemocratic doctrine."

The policy begun under the conservative Partido Popular has been continued under the socialist worker's party, Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol, he said.

Journalists at Egunkaria were suspected by Spanish authorities of receiving both financing and direction from the armed Basque separatist group.

Otamendi vehemently denies the charge. After his arrest in 2003, he told the Idaho Statesman that he was tortured by the Spanish Guardia Civil during a five-day interrogation. He was released on $30,000 bond.

Basques angry about the loss of their paper pooled their money and opened the newspaper Egunero immediately after Egunkaria was closed. Four months later, the larger daily newspaper, Berria, was launched, with Otamendi serving as its editor.

Santana Ezkerra, the BSU professor, is among those in the Boise area who are keenly interested in the fate of Otamendi and his former co-workers at Egunkaria.

Santana is originally from the Basque Country. He said the terrorist group ETA turns 50 this year.

"They are weaker than ever, both in terms of popular support and in military terms," Santana said.

He said there are many reasons for the weakening of support for ETA among Basques, including a new generation that doesn't remember Franco and a population that is wealthier and less interested in conflicts with the Spanish government than in the past.

"ETA is dying," said Xabier Irujo Ametzaga, a professor of Basque politics at the University of Nevada, Reno. "The biggest part of Basque society is against the use of violence."

Santana has met Otamendi at cultural events, but doesn't know him personally. Still, he feels strongly that Otamendi is not a terrorist.

"I'm sure that he's not a member of ETA," Santana said. "He's a journalist. If he wanted to be a member of ETA, he could easily get a machine gun. His weapons are paper and printer."

"His editorials were not supporting ETA," said Santana, who was a regular reader of Egunkaria.

Santana and others say the shuttering of the only daily Basque-language newspaper was a huge blow. More than 3,000 people pitched in money to open Berria. It's available online.

"The Basque language is the main pillar of the Basque culture. It is a very important issue for everyone in the Basque Country," Irujo said.

.... ... .

Atxaga's Book Translated Into English

This note was published at the Boise State University's page:

Professor Translates Popular Basque Tome to English

Erin Ryan

Visiting assistant professor Nere Lete in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures recently translated internationally acclaimed author Bernardo Atxaga’s “Two Basque Stories” into English. The book, separated into two moving novellas, examines traditional and contemporary Basque culture, the lessons of family, the elegance of ordinary things and the challenge of living in two worlds. The paperback translation was published recently by the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Lete received her B.A. in Basque philology from Spain’s University of Deusto and her MFA in translation from the University of Iowa. While Basque is her “mother tongue,” she also is a native Spanish speaker, is fluent in English and studied French for many years. As an educator, she has held positions in the Basque Country at the Renteria Municipal Basque Language School and in the U.S. at the University of Nevada, Reno, University of Iowa and Boise State, where she has taught on and off since 1993 and now directs the Basque minor program.

Lete’s connection to Bernardo Atxaga began many years ago in his kitchen in the Basque Country.

“That day I went to ask his permission to translate this work as part of my master’s thesis. I thought it would take 10 minutes to get the yes or the no, but he was very welcoming, and I stayed for a couple hours chatting with him,” Lete said. “I was star-struck. He is the first Basque writer awarded the Spanish National Prize in Narrative for his novel, ‘Obabakoak,’ which has been translated into 25 languages — quite an achievement for any writer.”

The setting for “Two Basque Stories” is Boise, where Atxaga’s main character Old Martin lives. An 80-year-old Basque sheepherder, Old Martin receives two letters from the old country that stir his memory, making him reflect on what seem like separate lives.

“Old Martin is a Basque man, but his story encompasses the universal emigrant mentality that all of us who live away from our home countries relate to internally,” Lete said, adding that her thesis work on location in Boise allowed her to hear the stories of many “Old Martins” at the local Basque Museum and Cultural Center.

While most literature translated from Basque first is translated to Spanish, Lete skipped the middleman, interpreting Atxaga’s words directly.

“It is like getting a cup of tea made out of the first brewing, full of flavor,” she said, admitting that capturing the essence of another person’s writing is a serious challenge that requires maintaining the integrity of the original work and managing multiple languages and literary traditions. “If we accept as true the Latin aphorism, traductore traditore, meaning that the translator is a traitor to the original work, then any effort to convey a work in another language is doomed from the very beginning, and I don’t accept that. Translation opens a window to an author’s world that otherwise would be closed tight to anyone who didn’t speak the language of the original.”

Currently, Lete is collaborating with Boise’s Basque Museum and Cultural Center on the creation of an exhibit for the Ellis Island Immigration Museum titled, “Hidden in Plain Sight: The Basques.” The exhibit will show the journey Basques took to come to the United States and particularly the American West.

To learn more about the English translation of “Two Basque Stories,” visit this link.

By the way, the exhibit at Ellis Island sounds quite interesting, almost more interesting than the fact that one of Atxaga's books being translated into English.

.... ... .

The Basques of San Francisco

This book review about the history of the Basque Community in California and more specifically in San Francisco has been published by EiTB:

'Gardeners of Identity' pays homage to Basques in San Francisco

O.M.

A book that brings together the accounts of Basque immigrants living in California's San Francisco Bay, written by doctor of Basque Studies and current researcher at the University of Deusto, Pedro J. Oiarzabal, with material compiled by members of the city's Basque-American community, will be one of the newest publications to feature at this year's Book and CD Fair in Durango (Biscay), starting on Friday 4th December.

Entitled Gardeners of Identity: Basques in the San Francisco Bay Area and written in English, the book pays homage to those members of the Basque-American community who made it possible, more than a century after the first waves of mass immigration from the Basque Country began arriving to the United States, for Basque culture and identity to continue to be a reality in the San Francisco Bay area of today.

"I tried to reflect who these people are; normal, everyday people who don't need an academic background, or to be specialists or linguists in order to appreciate what culture is and their own cultural legacy," explained Pedro J. Oiarzabal in an exclusive interview with eitb.com in Bilbao.

"People born in farmhouses with a minimum level of school education who had to work hard in order to survive in a foreign country where the language is neither Spanish, French nor, of course, Basque and where they may have achieved a certain level of success in life while at the same time struggling hard to maintain their culture and language," Pedro says of the people who feature in his book.

The book is also of great historical value visually, bringing together as many as 123 photographic documents, much more than any other book of the same length. "In this book I've tried to give particular significance to photographic evidence in itself. It is important to be able to see the evolution of this community in terms of its style of dress, clothing, and other symbols which represent the world we live in," explains Pedro.

A seed

The creation process behind the book involved actual members of the Basque-American community, who were responsible for carrying out 93 interviews and organizing the compilation of visual material.

According to the author, his objective was not only to gather together witness accounts, but also to ensure that the community itself was central to the book; that the book's creation was the seed to make the Basque-Americans realize their own abilities to carry out such a project.

"You don't need a history degree per se to make history. A good methodology plus training in specific techniques for (compiling) oral history would make it easier for all those Basques living elsewhere to document and conserve their own immediate history. The importance of compiling firsthand accounts of emigrants from the 1930s or 1940s is invaluable, as well as a race against time, which we must try to win," explained Oiarzabal. "The communities themselves are in the best position to carry out such tasks.

"We hope this marks just a beginning; that the Basque community now continues to take care of its own history," he added.

Mirror

For Pedro, the Basque migratory experience during the diaspora can help modern-day Basques to understand why immigrants of other nationalities settle in our lands and work so hard at jobs that these days nobody wants to do.

In the same way, discovering how Basques were received in the various countries to which they emigrated helps us in turn to understand immigrant cultures, try and integrate them with our own and enrich ourselves through their experiences.

According to Pedro, Basques have always known how to convey very well - though without ever imposing - the importance of their own culture to those countries in which they have settled. "What we can do, in return, is try to learn from those that come to our land and try to combine their culture with ours. I think that we could all learn a lot from that," he concludes.

.... ... .

New Facilities for Center of Basque Studies

This not was published at the Nevada News site:

Dedication set for Center for Basque Studies

Natalie Savidge

The Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno is celebrating the dedication of its new location in the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center. The Center’s new facilities are specially designed to showcase the largest collection of Basque materials outside of the Basque country, which is also the largest special collection in the University library.

“We are excited to celebrate this amazing new facility where the University’s Center for Basque Studies will continue to strive for cultural preservation, outreach, youth revitalization and Basque-related research, instruction and publishing,” said Co-director for the Center, Eric Herzik.

The dedication also coincides with the annual convention of the North American Basque Organizations (NABO) held on campus Friday in the Knowledge Center, the 50th anniversary of the first Western Basque Festival held in Reno in 1959, and the 20th anniversary of the University’s Zenbat Gara Dance Troupe whose members have served as ambassadors and mentors for the Basque culture and dance groups throughout the American West.

Who: Basque and campus community members, invited guests, University President Milton Glick and Co-directors for the Center, Eric Herzik and Joseba Zulaika.

What: Dedication of new location and 42nd anniversary of the founding of the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada. The afternoon reception will feature Basque entertainment, hors d’oeuvres and drinks.

When: 4 – 6 p.m., Friday, July 24, 2009.

Where: University of Nevada, Reno campus, Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center, Third Floor’s North Patio. Parking is available in the Whalen parking garage directly across from the Knowledge Center.

For more information about the Center and NABO.

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Integrating Through Own Identity

Here you have a note published at Basqueresearch:

Basqueness is an element of social integration for the Basque communities in the United States

A PhD thesis undertaken at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) involved the ethnographic study of young dancers belonging to the Zazpiak Bat Basque Club based at Reno (Nevada, USA). Using this case, how the dances and activities of the Basque communities intervene in the process of multicultural socialization in the United States, was studied.

The PhD thesis aimed to show the subjectivity of persons making up the Basque community in the United States, to which end a study was undertaken of how the dances and activities of these Basque communities in that country intervene in the process of multicultural socialization in that North American country.

The author of the thesis is Ms Clara Urdangarin Liebaert and has entitled her work Dancing the Jauzi under the stars and stripes: an ethnographic study of the Zazpiak Bat Group of Dancers from Reno, Nevada. In order to carry out this research she stayed at Reno from February 2003 to January 2004.

Through the rehearsals and performances and so on of the Basque folk dantzaris from Reno, the researcher was able to see how a code of communication adjusted to the social context in the United States was internalized. Thus, Basqueness is an element of social integration in this multicultural society.

Internal and external logic

The author analyzed the relationship between the internal logic of the Basque dances and the external logic of the dancer. Each one of these logics is divided into four sections, each as a function of the relation of the subject to space, to time, to the other actors and to objects.

The socialization of United States Basques as demonstrated in this work is within a social context characterized by a multiracial society which strives to marry the different origins of its inhabitants with the social cohesion of the country. To a certain extent, the features distinguishing Basques from other ethnic groups in the United States have the features of multiculturality: a United States citizen linked to an immigrant origin, identified with customs and a desire for brotherhood with other groups.

The results show the characteristics of the internal logic of Basque dancing and the social framework in which it happens. The Basque dance in the United States presents a citizen who associates with other Basque citizens to form a group and thus build their identity within the framework of North American minorities. In this way, the Basque fiestas construct a Basque who presents himself or herself to the multicultural community with pride. The Basques dance in order to exist in the multiethnic mosaic that is the United States.

Material culture

Material culture —culture associated with objects— shows a United States person who uses objects of consumption linked to his or her own identity. In the same way, Basque activities underpin their identity —peaked caps embroidered with brotherhood motifs, balloons and banners in white, red and green and car license plates with the inscription proud to be Basque—.

Also, the liking for uniforms is quite clear with the clothing of the dantzaris and other who actively participate in the fiesta. According to the researcher, these objects link the citizen to the group they belong to and, in this case, the Basque with his or her ethnic community.

Information about the author

Ms Clara Urdangarin Liebaert (London, 1960) is qualified as a psychiatric nurse and a graduate in Physical and Sports Education. She undertook her PhD thesis under the direction of Mr Joseba Etxebeste Otegi from the Department of Physical Education at the Faculty of Physical Sports Activities Sciences (UPV/EHU), and spent time at the Center of Basque Studies at the University of Reno (Nevada). She is currently working as a lecturer in the Department where she carried out her PhD.

.... ... .

Running With the Hemingways

Sanfermines, the main festivity in the Basque country which takes place the second week of July in the capital city of Iruñea (known also as Pamplona) and the iconic US writer Ernest Hemingway will be forever some sort of symbiotic entities.

Regarding this connection between the Sanfermines and Hemingway we strongly recommend that you read the book "San Fermingway" by Mundaka's writer Edorta Jimenez, in the mean time we leave you with this article published at the Irish Times:

Hemingways give the bulls a good run for their money

John Fleming

PAMPLONA LETTER: Some bearded gents compete to get in character. Oh and the sun also rises

HERE THEY come running and snorting, muscular and well-fed, thundering through the cobbled streets of Pamplona. Most are sure-footed but others slump heavily against the cordoning walls of the Basque town. While some have bull necks, these guys also have beards and many have American accents.

Coiffured and growling in voices laced with cigar smoke, they came just in advance of the week-long San Fermin festival with its bull run taking place at 8am each day. They have a specific purpose apart from running with the bulls or observing them from safety. One and all, they are here in Pamplona for the first international Ernest Hemingway lookalike competition.

The manly gun-loving bull-idolatrist writer was part of a coterie of Americans whose reverse voyage of discovery to the old world led them to a rediscovery of Spain in the first half of the 20th century.

Holed up in the Navarra capital’s old city, Illinois-born Hemingway wrote the textbook on bull running and fighting. Revering it as a spectacle of blood and lust and soft machismo, he was a literary anthropologist firing a blunderbuss of adjectives into noble savages (bull and man), much in the way Robert Flaherty framed Irish islanders in Man of Aran in 1934.

But Hemingway was a participant observer, living among the peasants. He was drawn to visit Pamplona on nine occasions starting in 1923, staying for the most part in the Hotel Perla.

In the main square, Plaza del Castillo, under a long arcade, like many a writer the world over, he sat and drank and stared at the sinking sun. His novel The Sun Also Rises appeared in 1926, putting the town of Pamplona and its reverence of the bull on the international map.

In 1957, four years before he died, Hollywood made a film of the novel, shooting it on location in Pamplona with Errol Flynn and Ava Gardner and projecting the city firmly into the world’s consciousness. His favourite bar in the plaza now bears his name and is the focus of this impersonator competition held a half-century on from his last visit.

Hemingway liked to nurse a drink. It can seem difficult to find a bar in any touristy quarter anywhere that does not proclaim him as one of its more famous frequenters. The man’s fondness for spreading his custom is often mocked – be it by a bar on Plaza Santa Ana in Madrid that guarantees its clients they are in the one bar where Hemingway certainly did not drink. Or here in Pamplona, where a “Hemingway Pizza” joint waves a red flag to ardent literary pilgrims and cooks in soft mockery with its buffalo mozzarella.

Gangs of young Spaniards, Australians, Englanders and others flock in on buses in a parade of bravado, combining surfing holidays in San Sebastian and crossborder Biarittz with the running of the bulls. As they get set for an eight-day street orgy of wine-bathing and over-consumption of sangria, some portly gents arrive as leisurely guests of the government of Navarra’s office of culture and tourism.

While the energetic young ones don Daz-whiteness T-shirt and trouser outfits and tie red cravats around their necks and feel part of a history bigger and even crazier than their over-enthusiastic selves, the old chaps are thoughtfully decapitating decent cigars and getting ready to roll on down to the unlikely talent show.

All the finalists grind down through the streets to the central plaza. They are now fully in character, all beards and bellies, and must perform for a while as the celebrated writer.

They charge past tattooed young hedonists on Interrail passes just finished their first-year exams. They cut through stunning Spanish youths who know this fiesta of bulls mauls the internet back into its box.

They nod to similar-aged locals whose ardour for San Fermin never flags but whose intensity of celebration now finds form in the preparation and consumption of excellent cod stew.

The product of the best bovine breeding, some of the international Hemingway doubles are veterans of qualifying heats elsewhere.

But the only heat here is the 36 degrees bombarding these greying men.

.... ... .

Extreme Basqueness

This article and recipes come to you courtesy of Canton Rep:

Extreme surroundings yield extreme cuisine

Jim Hillibish

Imagine living in rugged mountain territory isolated from the 21st Century. Your land spreads over two vastly different nations.

As with many things Basque, cooking reflects their culture. These are tough sheepherders and fishermen along the Pyrenees separating France and Spain. Their isolation has allowed their culture to grow. They are accustomed to doing things their own way and protect this freedom from the outside.

The result is a cuisine drawing from the countries it touches. Then the Basque Way is applied — supercharging with strong ingredients, getting the absolute most flavor out of everything. This is not subtle stuff. Your own most flavorful American recipe would be considered way bland here.

They use strong olive oil in almost everything, and garlic to the point of tears.

Stews and soups simmer for hours. A Basque cook shakes the pan violently where we would stir. He (men often do the cooking) produces dishes ahead, knowing that flavors increase with advance preparation.

Spanish tapas, the appetizers so popular in bars worldwide, started with the Basques. Now we know why they are flavor-packed. Chorizo is another Basque contribution, a dried or semi-cured sausage of potent power from heavy and heady use of pepper and hot paprika.

Basques have endured a number of scatterings as their people seek better lives in new countries. A million of them live in Chile. There are major concentrations in Mexico. The few who have made it to the United States seek territory similar to their home country, many in Idaho. Boise has a sizable Basque population, and the restaurants to prove it.

Chorizo in wine is simple but hearty enough to be consumed only with homemade bread. Basque pot roast features the flavors of bacon, pork and garlic all melded together in a powerful mix. This is classic Basque technique.

CHORIZO IN WINE

1 pound chorizo, the softer semi-cured instead of the dried hard-cured
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup dry white wine
1 baby leaf
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Slice the chorizo into inch-long rounds. Brown in oil and drain off the fat. Add wine and boil. Add bay leaf and pepper flakes, reduce to low, cover and simmer 45 minutes.

Serves four with a loaf of homemade bread and butter.

BASQUE PORK ROAST

4 slices bacon, thick cut and peppered, diced
3 pounds boneless pork roast, fat included
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt
Pepper
1 large red onion, sliced
1 large green pepper, seeded and sliced
1 small jar pimento
1/4 cup white wine

Wash and dry roast. Pierce meat with a knife in several places and insert slices of garlic. Rub with salt and pepper.

Place bacon in a heavy pot and fry until crisp. Remove bacon and add roast. Brown on all sides. Add onion, green pepper and pimento. Add wine and cover, baking slowly at 325 degrees for three hours. Drippings may be converted to gravy by heating and whisking in a tablespoon of cornstarch.

Serves 6 to 8.

Note: Lamb or venison may be substituted for pork.

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Comic About Basque Whalers

This note was published at EiTB:

Basque whalers: heroes as classic as American cowboys

Igor Lansorena

Guillermo Zubiaga, a Basque comic book writer, publishes a comic about the adventures of Joanes, a Basque Whaler.

For Guillermo Zubiaga, a Basque graphic artist living in New York, the Basque whalers represent a heroic age, a "western" period particular to the Basques' own whimsicalness, comparable to the figure of the cowboy to the Americans, the vikings to the Scandinavians or the samurai to the Japanese.

For this reason, it is Guillermo's intention to keep their memory alive "as one of a number of very important symbols" for the Basques when he publishes The Flying Whaleboat, the first episode of a series of 3 comic books featuring the adventures of Joanes, a Basque whaler. "It is my opinion that the figure of the Basque whaler as well as the story behind his more than 3000 mile transatlantic exploits, is worthy of heroic praise," Guillermo says in an exclusive interview for eitb.com.

"One can't help but to wonder what kind of epic poems would had the classic Greco-Romans written would they had the knowledge of such deeds among their own folk," the Basque artist adds.

Guillermo had dreamt ever since college about creating something with a Basque theme specially for the American market. He first considered a compendium of Basque Mythology or conceiving a new take on the battle of Orrega but eventually decided resolutely on the theme of Basque whaling which he discovered through an article in the National Geographic by Selma Huxley.

The Basque comic writer had always been mystified by the whole aspect of the ancient whalers as their memory echoed along the entire Basque coast, reflected in the innumerable coats of arms of many Basque villages. The National Geographic issue confirmed to Zubiaga's mind that the content itself was a jewel when it came down to establishing whaling as a centerpiece of the story-line for a graphic novel. What is more, for Guillermo there was also the disputed early presence of Basques in the Americas which remains shrouded in mystery.

Guillermo finally decided on the name Joanes after the 1584 last will of Joanes de Echaniz, one the oldest written documents in North American history, and because the name is frequently repeated in historical records, Joanes D'Etxeberry's chants "Balearrantzaleen otoitzak," to folklore, Aita Barandiaran's story of the whaler Joanes Balaztena.

Han-Solo from Star Wars and the "Man with no name" played by Eastwood in Sergio Leone's "spaghetti westerns", two anti-heroes, were willful inspirations for the portrayal of Joanes.

The narration of Joanes the Basque Whaler was conceived as a single story of approximately 100 pages, but Guillermo decided to better adapt it to an American public, in a series of 3 episodes of 32 pages each. He has already finished the first one, The Flying Whaleboat of Joanes, and has already started penciling number two, entitled The Island of the Whales.

Influences

If Guillermo were completely free and had all the means, he would love to create an idea for Marvel of a story with Wolverine, his favorite hero in the American comic book universe. "During 1936-1937 as a combatant in the Spanish Civil War, as a foreign agent; the Canadian international brigades come immediately to mind, in Euskadi, fighting along the Euzko Gudarostea on the iron belt, or liberating Paris with the Gernika Battalion," Guillermo says.

If Zubiaga had to cite some of his influences in terms of his writing and drawing style within the American comic book industry as well as among their European and often south American counterparts, he confesses there are so many he is afraid to leave any out.

"Neal Adams, Mike Mignola, Klaus Janson, Frank Miller, Bernie Wrighston, Pasqual Ferry, Carlos Pacheco, Joe Kubert, Adam Kubert, Jimmy Palmiotti, Adam Pollina, Alan Moore, Dave Cockrum, Scott Lobdell, Will Eisner, Goscinny, Uderzo, Stan Lee, Victor Mora, Francisco Darnís, Jordi Bernet, Horacio Altuna, Milo Manara, Richard Corben, John Byrne, Walter Simonson, and the list truly goes on an on, since there is really a humbling assemble of talent", Guillermo says.

Regarding the authors and works who have had a more direct influence on Joanes the Basque Whaler, Guillermo mentions Second Century A.D. Lucian de Somastata, François Rabelais' Pantagruel, Rudolf Erich Raspe and Gottfried August Bürger's The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and Walt Disney's Pinocchio.

Center of Basque Studies

The comic book will hit the shelves next July 24th at the annual convention of the North American Basque Organizations. It has not been an easy road, though. Since the Basque comic book writer had some contacts in the industry through his professional involvement, he thought he would be able to find an outlet for his work but he was somewhat mistaken.

Most of the comic book editors were not very interested in such an atypical theme. This did not stop Guillermo, who decided to give himself a year's deadline before considering self-publishing. He then met Joseba Etxarri, director of euskalkultura.com, who put him in touch with the University of Nevada and the Center of Basque Studies to participate with the annual NABO in advocating his book as a platform for a new outlook on Basque-American awareness.

.... ... .

Al Erquiaga

This note was published at EiTB:

Al Erquiaga, a Basque dreamer and doer

Igor Lansorena

Al Erquiaga, born in Boise of Basque heritage, is one of the founders of Boise's successful Basque festival Jaialdi as well as one of the first Oinkari dancers.

Boise, capital city of the state of Idaho, does not have the largest Basque population outside the Basque Country. However, this remote city is home to the most active Basque community of the Diaspora.

Downtown Boise features a vibrant section known as the "Basque block" that includes the Basque Center Euzkaldunak, the Basque Museum and Cultural Center, the Gernika bar, the Leku Ona restaurant and hotel and the fronton. We should also not forget the Oinkari Basque dancers, Boiseko Gazteak, the Basque choir, Boiseko Ikastola or the band 'Amuma Says No'.

As Boisean researcher Gloria Totorikagüena describes in her book Boise Basques, the Basque community is full of "dreamers and doers", men and women who at some point decided to build a small Basque Country in this little-known place. Al Erquiaga, born in Boise, is one of those dreamers and doers who helped to lay the foundations of today's successful Basque community.

Born in Boise, Al's father came to the United States from the Bizkaian village of Ispaster in 1920. Like many other Basques, he had a relative who had already migrated to the United States - an older brother was here - and he knew he had no future in the Basque Country as his eldest brother was going to inherit the family farmhouse.

"It was hard work, but he never complained about it. He came in 1920 the first time and married my mother in 1934. I was born in 1935. And he herded sheep until after I was born, even after they were married for a year", Al says in an exclusive interview for eitb.com in Boise. "It was hard work and he realized it was no work for a family, of course, so then he went into farming", Al adds.

Raised on a farm, Al was brought up among Basque farmers and stories of the Basque Country. "We had a lot of Basque friends, other farmers, and when they were over to visit, it would be late in the evening, I would sit and listen to them talk. I liked to hear them tell their stories, about here or back home, I really enjoyed the stories", Al remembers.

Cultural phenomenon

In 1960, Al, and another seven Boise Basques, toured Europe for three weeks and then stayed in the Basque Country for almost two months. There, they met the Oinkari dancers from Donostia-San Sebastian. "We became very good friends with them. We went to their rehearsals, they taught us dances and (we) went touring with them in France," Al says.

"The best thing you can do is to go back to America and start a dance group called Oinkaris", the Basque dancers told Al and his seven friends. "On the way home we talked on the airplane about doing it, we got back home and said, let's do it," Al says.

And that is how the Oinkari Basque dancers from Boise were born. Nearly half a century later, they are part of Basque-American heritage and more than 800 people have performed not only in Boise or Idaho but also in many places all over the United States and the Basque Country.

Holiday Basque Festival

Nobody thought that the Oinkaris would grow to become the cultural phenomenon they are now. Neither did they when they started NABO, a federation of North American Basque Organizations that sustain Basque culture.

In the early 1970s, Al was member of the board of an organization called the Basque Studies Center, which organized a Holyday Basque festival thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Al, who was among the organizers of the festival, realized he was having a hard time contacting other Basque clubs in the United States.

"The problem that we run into was that we wanted everybody in the United States to know about it but we did not know anyone's names or contacts. The hardest part is we couldn't get hold of anybody, there was no communication. We need an organization, some ways to communicate," Al recounts.

"We met in Reno. We contacted three clubs of Reno, San Francisco, Bakersfield, seven or eight clubs. We got together, and that is how NABO was started," Al adds.

Jaialdi

Jaialdi, the international Basque festival held in Boise every five years, was also born out of the dreams of Al Erquiaga. Having met Jokin Intxausti from the Basque Government at a NABO meeting in 1985, they came up with the possibility of producing an international festival to promote Basque culture. Two years later it was a reality.

More than 500 volunteers worked on the first Jaialdi. Significant numbers of members from the Basque Diaspora attended and the festival was a great success. Since then, the Jaialdi is held every five years and thousands of Basques and non-Basques meet in Boise in this celebration of Basque culture, probably a source of inspiration for many other dreamers and doers just like Al Erquiaga.

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Making Goebbels Proud

The United States is considered around the world as the top human rights violator. Aware of its military power it has unleashed a number of conflicts causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people from dozens of countries. As these paragraphs are being written, hundreds of human lives are in danger due to the wars for oil in Afghanistan and Iraq, wars that were started upon the campaign of lies designed by a genocidal maniac by the name of George W. Bush. As it happens, those wars are not enough, no, Washington has also resorted to state sponsored terrorism to violently suppress the right to self determination of several nations, especially in Latin America.

So you can imagine our surprise when we ran into this article published at The Washington Post:

Accuser With a Checkered Past

A lawyer whose complaint prompted a Spanish criminal probe into whether the Bush administration approved the torture of terrorism suspects was once convicted of terrorist activity.

Gonzalo Boye served eight years in prison for his involvement in the 1988 kidnapping of Emiliano Revilla, a Spanish industrialist, who was held for ransom for eight months by ETA, a Basque separatist group classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and Spanish governments.

Boye was one of four Chilean members of a Marxist group, the Revolutionary Leftist Movement, or MIR, who were convicted of aiding ETA in the kidnapping. He received his law degree while behind bars and has since emerged as an advocate for European and Palestinian human rights causes.

Representing a group called the Association for the Rights of Prisoners, Boye and other lawyers filed a complaint with the Spanish National Court against six senior officials from the Bush administration, including former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales. The complaint alleges that the officials sanctioned the torture of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The other officials named in the complaint are Jay S. Bybee and John C. Yoo, former Justice Department officials; former Defense Department officials Douglas J. Feith and William J. Haynes II; and David S. Addington, who was legal counsel to Vice President Richard B. Cheney.

In an interview, Boye acknowledged his conviction but minimized his involvement in the crime, saying he had only lent an ID card to the kidnappers. He said he voluntarily traveled from London to Madrid in 1992 to answer investigators' questions about the case and was taken aback when he was arrested.

"I'm still convinced it was a very unfair trial," he said. "That was a very dark period in Spanish democratic history."

When asked if he thought the six Bush administration officials could expect to receive a fair trial in Spain, Boye said he had no doubts they would -- despite his experience.

The Spanish judge overseeing the investigation, Eloy Velasco, has said in court papers that he may not proceed if U.S. prosecutors decide to open their own criminal case against the "Bush Six," as Boye calls them.

Like we said, the editorial staff at The Washington Post are making Joseph Goebbels proud. Knowing that their country is guilty as charged of woeful human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay which is a Nazi style concentration camp, they resort to something called "character assassination". How dare Gonzalo Boye put the US on the spotlight when he himself was in jail accused of terrorism?

Nothing, absolutely nothing that Gonzalo Boye could have done in the past is enough to sponge Bush regime's rap sheet. What is taking place in Guantanamo Bay as gruesome as it is pales in comparison with what the USA is doing in places like Iraq, Pakistan and Palestine. The US based main stream media can set in place a "character assassination" campaign against every single activist around the world that exposes their crimes to the international community, but the fact remains, Bush and many other presidents of the USA are war criminals, as simply as that.

And by the way, Gonzalo Boye was in jail during Jose Maria Aznar's extreme right rule in Spain, shall we remind our readers who was a staunch supporter of George W. Bush's war against Iraq?

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From Gernika to Farah

This article was published at Workers World:

Afghanistan & Guernica

THE FACTS: The U.S. Air Force bombed and strafed villages with heavy machine guns in the Farah province of Afghanistan on the evening and night of May 4. Col. Greg Julian, a spokesperson for the U.S. military in Kabul, admitted it.

The governor of the province, Rohul Amin, told the Afghan parliament that as many as 130 civilians had been killed, according to Mohammad Naim Farahi, a member of parliament. He reported that survivors buried 113 bodies, including many women and children. Later, more bodies were pulled from the rubble and some victims who had been taken to the hospital died.

“The governor said that the villagers have brought two tractor trailers full of pieces of human bodies to his office to prove the casualties that had occurred,” Farahi said. “Everyone at the governor’s office was crying, watching that shocking scene.”

Ghusuldin Agha, who lives in Granai village in the Bala Baluk district, said the bombing started at 5 p.m. and lasted until late into the night. “People were rushing to go to their relatives’ houses, where they believed they would be safe, but they were hit on the way.” Body parts were strewn over the ground.

Local farmer Muhammad Jan said: “Women and children had sought shelter in orchards and houses.” The bombardment completely destroyed houses and people “still remain under the rubble. Now I am working with other villagers trying to excavate the dead bodies.” According to a report on this atrocity in the May 6 New York Times, “Villagers, crazed with grief, were collecting mangled bodies in blankets and shawls and piling them on three tractors. People were still missing.”

Jessica Barry, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, reported the dead included a volunteer for the Afghan Red Crescent and 13 of his relatives.

THE LIE: “We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of the civilian casualties,” said the senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan, who was just fired by President Obama.

U.S. Defense Department officials who wouldn’t allow their names to be reported said investigators were looking into reports that the Afghan civilians were killed by grenades hurled by Taliban militants, and that the militants then drove the bodies around the village claiming the dead were victims of an American airstrike.

“We cannot confirm the report that the Taliban executed these people. ... We don’t know if it’s true, and we also don’t know how many civilians were killed as a result of this operation,” said Capt. John Kirby, spokesperson for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.

THE BIG LIE: The town of Guernica, a historic symbol of the Basque nation, was attacked by Nazi German and fascist Italian bombers on April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, killing up to 1,600 civilians. The German Nazis supported the Spanish fascists, led by Gen. Francisco Franco. World-famous artist Pablo Picasso depicted the massacre in his painting “Guernica,” which has kept the fascist atrocity in people’s memory.

Germany’s Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was well known for using the “Big Lie,” a brutal fascist repression of the truth. Franco, borrowing from this tactic, blamed the deaths in Guernica on Basque anti-fascists, and repressed the truth about German responsibility until his death in 1975.

Hitler and fascism arose in a time of capitalist crisis and decaying economic relations. Then and now the reality is a decaying capitalist system accompanied by burgeoning militarism. This time people are more interconnected worldwide and it’s difficult to cover up the monstrous crimes and the Pentagon’s big lies.

The problem is how to stop them. It can be done, and the struggle of the world’s people to overturn the U.S. military complex needs to be here in the belly of the beast.

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Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

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The Rise of Txakoli

We present you a fragment of an article called "Basque-ing in Wine" published at the Sonoma Valley Sun:

I generally stick with less potent starters. In an effort to broaden my stubbornly limited horizons, W.S. introduced me to Txakolina, a lower-alcohol, perfect hot-weather aperitif wine with unique characteristics, as well as a fascinating back-story.

Txakolina, pronounced CHAW-koh-LEE-nah, hails from the Basque country, an autonomous region of northern Spain. Txakolina wines include red, white and rose, although the white is by far the most abundant.

Txakolina has proud origins, and a history so obscure that there’s not much easily accessible information. W.S. suggested I contact Andre Tamers, owner of De Maison Selections, the largest U.S. importer of Txakolina. In fact, Andre and his wife Cindy Cuomo are writing a book on the subject, due for release later this year.

First I enquire about the name, variously referred to as Txakoli or Txakolina. “Well, that’s a mystery,” Andre says. “One theory is that Txakoli was the house where the wine was made, and Txakolina was the wine.” What is definite, according to Andre, is that Txakolina “has always been a part of the Basque people.” The word itself is in Euskara, an ancient language. About one million people speak Euskara. The language can differ in villages as little as 10 miles apart – the result of interaction with other languages, although Euskara predates modern dialects. In fact, Euskara is the only language that survived the Roman conquest of Hispania in 218 BC. Although attempts have been made to link it to many different languages, Euskara’s origins still remain unclear.

Over the centuries, Spanish supplanted Euskara. The Spanish dictator Franco, ruler from 1939 to 1975, outlawed Euskara, provoking Basque nationalism. Spain revoked this law at the end of the 20th century, and today, a standardized form called Euskara batua (unified Euskara) is taught in schools. Spaniards say “Chacoli,” but you will rarely see that inscribed on any Basque bottle.

Like Euskara, Basque wines nearly disappeared. Vineyards once covered more than 2500 acres. The 19th century European Phylloxera epidemic wiped out Basque vineyards, too. According to Tamers, sheer isolation helped pockets survive. With the advent of new nationalism, the wine industry revived as the Basque government subsidized winemaking. This attracted new people and technology. Wine expert Jancis Robinson writes that since the 1990s Txakolina has improved “noticeably.” For the first-time, Txakolina, once a little wine made in homes, exploded internationally. Basque country is only about the size of Rhode Island. A little more than 400 acres produce wine. That’s expected to expand exponentially. “They don’t have enough for demand,” says Andre. “This year they’re totally sold out.”

What makes this wine exciting is the fresh acidity, minerality and vibrant fruit, the result of Basque’s cooler climate, sandy soils with clay subsoils, and proximity to the Atlantic. It’s best within the first year of its release because the youthful characteristics diminish over time.

In the last decades, winemakers from the Getaria appellation also added a slight effervescence, and a Txakolina ritual evolved based on Spanish cider-drinking customs. Inserting a pourer called “escanciador” the bottle is held high over a pint glass and poured two to three fingers deep. Drinkers take “shots” of Txakolina. Like most Basques, I’ll take mine in a wine glass, thank you very much.

So, whenever you have a chance, enjoy a refreshing glass of txakoli.

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Democracy Now! and the Gernika Bombing

This video from a show dedicated to Gernika's bombing was posted at the Democracy Now! webpage:

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On Anniversary of 1937 Guernica Bombing, Basque Community in Idaho Looks Back

Seventy-two years ago this Sunday, in the midst of the Spanish Civil War, on April 26th, 1937, the Basque town of Guernica was carpet bombed by Fascist Italian and Nazi German forces. Three-quarters of Guernica was destroyed, and as many as 1,600 civilians were killed. Boise, Idaho is home to one of the largest Basque populations in the United States. We speak with a survivor of the Guernica bombing and with the director Basque Museum and Cultural Center in Boise. [includes rush transcript]

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A Basque Wagon's New Home

This article about the Basque heritage in the USA has been published at Nevada Appeal:

Wagon moved into Nevada State Museum’s new structure

Teri Vance

Basque sheepherders wagon, built around 1902 for the Campbell Ranch in White Pine County, was moved into the Nevada State Museum’s new concourse on Thursday.

It is the first large artifact to be moved into the glass-enclosed structure that will serve as the museum’s new entrance when it opens on May 14.

“It’s a great step forward for the museum,” said museum director Jim Barmore. “Finally, we’re getting close to the end of construction and getting ready to do what we do best, setting up exhibits.”

The project, built to look like the structure used to lower people and equipment into Nevada mines a century ago, will provide disabled patrons access to the Nevada State Museum and its underground mine exhibit.

It will also connect the three museum buildings on North Carson Street.

“It offers many advantages,” Barmore said. “It will unify our complex with a single point of entry and offer a safe, comfortable walkway.”

He said it also provides a space big enough to display large items that have not had enough room. Those displays will rotate and be visible from both inside and outside the museum.

The first exhibit will be the wagon designed after the first sheepherders wagon built by James Candlish of Rawlins, Wyo. in 1884. He designed and built the original sheepherders wagon from an old wagon behind his shop.

This wagon was open in front, with the interior canvas flap to block the wind, and was quickly adopted by sheepmen all over the West, according to a press release from the Nevada State Museum.

The museum’s wagon has been stored outside of the museum for about eight years, Barmore said, because of lack of space.

He said the museum has been anticipating the project for about 10 years and the staff is looking forward to its completion.

“We have a lot of exhibit work to do before we can open it up, so we’re all working really hard,” he said. “We’re busy little beavers over here.”

The estimated cost of the project was $3.2 million.

If you go

WHAT: Grand opening of Nevada State Museum’s connecting concourse

WHEN: 5-8 p.m. May 14

WHERE: Nevada State Museum, 600 N. Carson St.

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Oinkari's Golden Anniversary

This article was published at The Idaho Statesman:

Oinkari Basque Dancers to celebrate golden anniversary

The group that began with 7 dancers plans a year of anniversary observances.

BY TIM WOODWARD

You can't call yourself a true Boisean if you've never seen the Oinkari Basque Dancers. They're part of our heritage, like Music Week or tubing the Boise River.

But do you know when and how they started?

Probably not. They're so much a part of the local scene that they seem to have always been here.

The group began after seven Boise Basques in their early 20s visited Spain and learned some Basque songs and dances. They thought the dances would be a fleeting diversion.

Nearly half a century later, Idaho Basques are planning more than a year of events celebrating the 50th anniversary of that trip and what it started. What began with seven 20-somethings has become a tradition that has included more than 800 dancers performing at venues from local parks to the rotunda of the U.S. Senate.

"They've represented Idaho nationally and internationally," Basque Museum and Cultural Center Director Patty Miller said. "And they've been great preservers of our culture. When the visitors' bureau or the tourism department want to point something out about Boise culture, there's nothing more visible than the Basque dancers."

The seven who started it all - Al Erquiaga, Delphina and Diana Urresti, Toni Murelaga, Simon Achabal, Clarine Anchustegui and Bea Solosabal - spent the summer of 1960 in Europe. While visiting the Basque country, they met a group of dancers who called themselves the Oinkaris, which loosely means dancing feet.

"They taught us two dances to take home," Boisean Toni Achabal said. (Her last name being the same as that of another member of the original seven isn't a coincidence. She and her husband, Simon, were the first of many Oinkari dancers to be married.)

"We had the idea of starting a group in Boise," she said, "but we never dreamed what it would become. We thought it would be here today and gone tomorrow."

When the Boiseans visited Spain, dictator Francisco Franco was ruthlessly suppressing Basque culture. Basques couldn't fly their flag, speak their language or write down their music. The novice dancers had to try to remember the songs until they returned to Boise.

"We got together with Jimmy (local accordion legend Jimmy Jausoro) right away because we didn't know how long the songs would stay in our heads," Achabal said. "He wrote down what we could remember. We made our own costumes and started practicing. It wasn't authentic, but it was as authentic as we could make it."

It was authentic enough that their first performance for Boise's Basque community in December 1960 was a hit.

"We were so nervous we didn't know if we were coming or going, but we wowed them," Achabal said.

The performances will continue with more than a year of anniversary observances, beginning with the St. Ignatius picnic Aug. 1-2 (the current Oinkari dancers will perform), culminating with Jaialdi in July of 2010 and ending with a dinner dance in December of 2010 - 50 years after the first group's first performance.

"We're going to try to get all the alumni to dance at one time at Jaialdi," Erquiaga said. "That will be over 700 people."

Though two of the original dancers now live out of state, all seven - now in their 70s - plan to join in the festivities.

"Hopefully we'll rehearse first," Erquiaga said. "Then we'll stagger through it."

That's a greater accomplishment than it might seem.

The Oinkari group that taught them their first dances in Spain? It disbanded decades ago.

Darin Oswald / Idaho Statesman: Toni Murelaga Achabal, Diana Urresti Sabala, Delphina Urresti (front row), Simon Achabal and Al Erquiaga (back row) helped found the Basque Oinkari Dancers. Current and former dancers are about to kick off more than a year of celebrating their 50th anniversary.

Just one little detail, the original Oinkari group was not from Spain, it was from Euskal Herria.

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Simply Delicious

The article you're about to read was published at amNewYork:

The delicious simplicity of Basque food

By Ya-Roo Yang
Special to amNewYork

While Basque cuisine is technically a Spanish regional cuisine, dismissing it as simply Spanish would be unfair.

The three provinces that form the Basque country have their own distinct language, government and culinary style, which Alex Reij, chef at Chelsea’s Txikito (pronounced “chee-kee-toe”) describes as “more connected to France than Spain.”

Food is such an important part of the Basque community that men, who normally wouldn’t be caught dead cooking at home, form secret gastronomic societies where they socialize by cooking together.

Unconvinced? Just look at the Michelin Guide and find the greatest concentration of stars in San Sebastian, Spain - the Mecca of foodies and gastronomes.

The quality of Basque cuisine lies in the ingredients derived from three distinct micro-climates. Rain provides for the fertile soil that yields beans, leeks, tomatoes, peppers, garlic and onions. Close to the coastlines, seafaring Basque fishermen catch cod, hake, octopus, spider crabs and sea urchins. Inland, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, Basque Shepherds raise beef and lamb.

“They have such incredible products: great produce, seafood, cheese, lamb and beef that really resonate with people that are into cuisine and care about food,” says Seamus Mullen, executive chef at Boqueria.

Many ingredients used in Basque cooking are locally grown others can be ordered online or purchased from Despana in SoHo. Like most ingredient-driven food traditions, Basque cooking techniques are very simple and the dishes can be replicated by any home cook with basic kitchen skills and the proper ingredients. In his cookbook Pintxos (Ten Speed Press, 2009), San Francisco chef Gerald Hirigoyen writes about how easily he cooked for a party of unexpected friends with things found in his pantry.

There is also the convivial spirit of eating. The Basque tradition of catching up with friends at a bar, before lunch or supper, for a glass Txakoli, a light effervescent local wine, and a few pintxos (pronounced pinchos), bite-sized snacks, is perhaps the most beloved part of this cuisine. Natalie Sanz, owner of Las Ramblas in the West Village, speaks fondly of the tapas bars in San Sebastian: “The bars are crowded with patrons seeking the house specialty. Go alone and you will feel like you are close friends with everybody within arm's reach.”

While New York does not have a pintxo culture, some of this is rubbing off at Basque eateries like Txikito, where diners from different parties often talk and share food with each other.

Five Cool Facts about Basque cuisine

1) The Basque were into offal before it became fashionable to be into offal: The Basque diet includes a steady staple of innards with delicacies like sweetbreads, kidney, liver and tripe.

2)Using canned and preserved food is sometimes okay: While most Basque dishes are created with the freshest ingredients, many Basque dishes actually taste better made with canned goods. This is especially true for white asparagus, piquillo peppers, Vantresca tuna and anchovies. Of course, a Basque pantry is never complete without salted cod.

3)Pintxos are great alternatives to canapés at parties: These bite-sized snacks are often bits of sausages and cheese or shrimps skewered together with toothpicks or open faced sandwiches with eggs and anchovies that make them great finger food for parties.

4)It’s the perfect food for the culinary commitment-phobe: The pintxo culture makes trying lots of different food very easy; and one can wander from bar to bar without committing to any one place.

5)Basque cuisine is also pretty good for weight conscious: The largest Basque meal is lunch, which is served around 2 pm. Supper or dinner is usually something small like a few pintxos or some yogurt.

Q and A with Alex Reij

As one of the chefs and owners of Txikito, a Basque restaurant in NYC, Alex Reij is known for her authentic yet modern interpretation of Basque food.

Q: With the sophistication of New Yorkers’ palates, why do you think there are not more Basque restaurants?

AR: I think up until recently New York wasn’t ready to sustain them. New Yorkers who have traveled know that Basque food is synonymous with quality. But Spanish regional cooking hasn’t resonated with New Yorkers. Outside of the Basque country, the food and the community were not clearly distinguished from the rest of Spain.

Q: Being that Txikito is one of two Basque restaurants in New York; do you have problems explaining the cuisine to New Yorkers?

AR: Not at all. What’s beautiful about Basque cuisine is it values a bean as much as it values a crab so I found that is a way to really engage the American diner. We don’t want to tell people how to eat. The menu is composed of ingredients that people know. If you like the ingredient, you’ll like the dish because in Basque cooking everything taste like what it is and there are no hidden flavors.

Q: With all the exotic ingredients Basque food demands, do you have problems sourcing your ingredients?

AR: Sometimes the stuff is outside of our price range. Other items, like the spider crab, aren’t available here. You could import many things but the prices are so prohibitive that it makes more sense to use local ingredients and cook it in the Basque spirit.

Q: Most of the dishes on your menu are very traditional. Are you inspired by the modern Basque cooking?

AR: I am really inspired by contemporary cooking – by Basque as well as other innovative chefs in Spain. But I am more interested in how they maintain the Basque identity - the things that are thoroughly Basque and thoroughly original. I like the continuity between the gastronomic legacy that it comes from and the food.

Five NYC Places to Enjoy Basque Food

Txikito
One of the two Basque restaurants in New York City
240 Ninth Ave. NYC
(212) 242-4730

Euskadi
The other Basque place, on the East side of Manhattan
108 East 4th Street, NYC
(212) 982-9788

Boqueria
Try the kokotxas.
53 West 19th Street, NYC
(212) 255-4160

Las Ramblas
Basque dishes include: piquillo con morcilla, bocadillo crujientes, pintxos de setas rebozadas among others.
170 West 4th Street, NYC
(646) 415-7924

Pamplona
Try the poached eggs with white asparagus or the braised short ribs.
37 East 28th Street, NYC
(212) 213-2328


Recipe: Garbanzos de Vigilia: Lenten Chickpea stew with Salt Cod and Spinach

1 pound dried chickpeas
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoon olive oil
1 carrot peeled
1 Spanish onion split in half
1 unpeeled head of garlic plus 3 cloves garlic peeled and sliced thin
Salt to taste
6 cups fresh spinach leaves
2 pounds rehydrated good quality salt cod, (torn in small pieces), or substitute 2 pounds fresh cod well-salted for 10 minutes and rinsed.

In a large pot cover the dried chickpeas with 8 cups water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let stand ½ an hour to rehydrate.

Drain the rehydrated chickpeas and restore them to the same pot with the onion, head of garlic and carrot. Add 3 teaspoon of salt, and cover with fresh water by about 4 inches.

Add 2 tablespoon olive oil and bring to a boil for five minutes. Turn the heat down and simmer until tender checking frequently after the first hour and adjusting seasoning if necessary. Approximately 2 hours. Remove the garlic and discard.

In a small pan heat the remaining olive oil, toss in the garlic until just golden, pour into a blender. Add ½ a cup of chickpeas from the pot, a cup of cooking liquid and the carrot and onion to the blender and carefully blend to a smooth puree.

Add the chickpea puree back to the chickpeas to thicken the stew.

Stir in the cod and spinach until cooked. Top with a thread of good olive oil.

Seems like the author of the article forgot that part of Euskal Herria is currently (and illegally) occupied by France, so "technically", Basque cuisine could be considered as French cuisine according to her. This is why people need to understand that Basques are not Spaniards nor French, it is actually quite simple, they are Basques.

Also, Iruñea (known as Pamplona) is located in Euskal Herria, so technically, the one with the name Pamplona is a Basque restaurant too.

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Beyond the Mass Media Blockade

According to this article appeared at the Seacoast On Line the young film maker Anna Bruning has made a documentary that goes hand in hand with the goal of this blog, to demolish the wall of lies and misconceptions that the international main stream media has built around the Basque people. Here you have it:

UNH senior debuts documentary at film gala Feb. 28

DURHAM — Don’t be surprised if one day you see Anna Bruning at the Cannes Film Festival. The University of New Hampshire senior debuts her first documentary film this weekend, a project that took her to Spain to film and had her rubbing elbows with some of the most accomplished editors and writers in the business at Ken Burns’ Walpole studio.

Bruning, a communication major who also is studying Spanish and cinema studies, unveils her film “Omendu Basques: Beyond the Bombs” Saturday, Feb. 28. The gala, sponsored by UNH’s International Research Opportunities Program (IROP), begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Memorial Union Building, Theatre II. It is free and open to the public, and will include a question-and-answer session following the film.

Bruning’s film is about the Basque people, who live in northern Spain and southwestern France. She tells the story of a people whose rich culture and history have been overshadowed by the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA, a terroristic organization that has been advocating Basque independence since the 1950s.

“This film is about the people who aren’t involved in terrorism. It’s about their culture, with the primary focus on their language because it is one of the most significant parts of their culture. It is now how they identify themselves. In the past, Basque identity was tied to hereditary traits, but today, identity is much more about the will to be Basque,” Bruning says.

“The Basques were the first to circumnavigate the world. They were the first commercial whalers. It was a Basque crew who helped Columbus sail to America, and they were here fishing for cod before Columbus arrived. Their language – Euskera – is particularly unique, with it and their culture surviving through invasions and Romanization. We have all of these facts, yet if people have even heard about the Basques, it’s usually been about the ETA,” she says.

Bruning first learned about the Basque people during a trip to Spain with her family as a teenager and became interested in documentary filmmaking in high school. After she arrived at UNH, she was encouraged to apply for an internship with noted documentary filmmaker Ken Burns’ Florentine Films. She spent the summer between her sophomore and junior years in the Walpole studio.

“That internship was one of the best summers I ever had. I was so excited to go to work every day. The executive editor went through a number of films with me, explaining – shot by shot – how the editing decisions were made. I also met Ken Burns, who talked to me about his inspiration. The internship really gave me a good background to go into this documentary. I don’t think I would have had enough experience to do it if I hadn’t interned with Ken Burns, and I don’t think IROP would have given me the grant to do the documentary if I hadn’t had the internship,” Bruning says.

After receiving an IROP grant for her documentary film project from the UNH Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research, Bruning spent the summer between her junior and senior years in Spain interviewing Basques and filming. She talked to students, citizens, Basque government officials and organizational leaders who were eager to tell her about the significance of their culture and what it means to be Basque.

“I met a man who, after an hour interviewing with me, told me I should contact his brother. His brother and wife a took day off from work to show me around town, interview with me, and make dinner for me. It demonstrates how proud these people are of their culture and how much they want to share it with others,” Bruning says.

After returning from Spain, Bruning began editing her project and putting it together, again with financial assistance from the UNH Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research. She also received advice and guidance from the experts at Florentine Films. However, the film truly has been an independent effort for her and she hopes it will lead to a career as a filmmaker.

And like any first-time filmmaker, she’s a bit nervous about the film gala.

“My friends say it’s very normal to be very nervous when you get this close to the end of a film project. I have friends and family coming from out of state to the gala, and I’m excited to share this with everyone who has known about it for so long. I am excited about the opportunity to experience the whole filmmaking process and share my love of this culture with other people,” Bruning says.

To be precise, ETA is not overshadowing the Basque people, it is the mass media the one being paid by the Spanish government to reduce the Basque identity to the eventual ETA action. Just one example, when has the main stream media gone crazy about one of the many torture cases against Basque activists over the past years? Never.

This is why Spain and France can get away with their violence against the Basque people, thanks to the operators in the big news agencies who make sure to censor it so the public does not get to learn what is really going on.

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Learning to Play Mus

This article was published at The Buffalo Bulletin:

Calling a spade an espada

Preserving a tradition is in the cards for Mus players
Grant Smith

Last Sunday something important was happening.

As decks of cards were cut and idle chatter filled the Catholic church’s recreation hall, it was difficult to see the event as anything more than a typical afternoon gathering.

But like a slow drifting evening fog, Basque words began to fill the room, and it became apparent that it wasn’t just another church card tournament.

It was a continuation of a deeply cherished tradition.

“A lot of our players are dying off, it has been over a century since the Basque people started coming to Buffalo and we’re beginning to be stirred right into the melting pot,” stated Big Horn Basque Club member Mick Camino. “I think it’s very important for people to learn the game of Mus. The Basque government highly encourages us to promote all aspects of the Basque Culture and we basically have a directive to pass it on, and also it’s a great way to spend time with family.”

The Basque card game Mus is more than an important tool for promoting the culture, it’s a fun and easy game to learn.

Incorporating the traditional language into the game, players learn Basque numbers and simple phrases, while experiencing first-hand a favored pastime of their sheepherding ancestors.

Taking a break from the action, several storied Mus players weighed in with tips on the nuances of the game, noting that a full explanation of the rules can be obtained easily over the Internet or by contacting Camino with the Big Horn Basque Club at 217-1575.

Starting out

“It’s a really easy game to learn,” noted Camino who has been playing for more than 20 years. “It’s just like learning a board game but the great thing about it is that no matter how far down you are, you still have a chance to bet the entire game and win.”

The game is played with four players making two teams and a special Mus deck that can be obtained at a Basque tournament or by contacting Camino.

For someone just starting out, club member Daniel Escoz recommends contacting the club to find out about local tournaments or instructional events.

“Back in December, we had a gathering at the VFW that featured Basque dancers and they taught Mus,” noted Escoz. “Currently we are trying to organize a group of kids to get together and learn how to play.”

As far as the best way to be introduced into the game Camino and Escoz are split.

“The game is not difficult at all to learn if you learn it in English,” noted Camino who learned the game that way at a North American Basque Organization music camp. “It takes some patience and for someone just starting out they don’t need to know all the ins and outs like facial signals and such.”

Escoz prefers the full immersion method.

“I learned Mus about 20 years ago from my dad in the sheep camps,” he stated. “I think it’s easier just to learn it in full with the Basque terms so that you’re playing it right, and you just get it all done with at once.”

Picking a partner

For Mick Camino and his partner Jason Camino, a good balance is what they seek when choosing their teammate.

“I would classify myself as a little more of a wild player, I take more chances, where as Mick is more conservative,” noted Jason. “I think that balance helps make us a good team.”

Mick agrees.

“Really what makes a good partner is someone who gets good cards all the time,” he noted. “But if you can’t find that, you want someone that is not going to make the big mistakes like betting the whole game when they don’t have the cards to do it. It really helps to have someone that plays a little different from your style just to keep your opponents on their toes.”

Bluffing

While it always helps to have a pat hand, fate might not fall in your favor. In such a case, there is always the opportunity to bluff your way to a win.

“Bluffing is a pretty big part of the game,” explained Jason. “If I don’t have a good hand but come out pretty strong I might bluff the other team to fold, but sometimes it can backfire on you.”

Mick uses his conservative style to make his bluffs more believable.

“I really don’t like to do it that often, so that when I do they think I’m telling the truth,” Mick stated.

Escoz is on the other side of the spectrum from Mick.

“I bluff every chance I get,” he stated. “It’s just a matter of having a good poker face.”

Giving the sign:

You can communicate with your partner about your hand via facial signals — or kenuak — throughout the game. The only problem is the signals are fixed the same for everyone and open for your opponent to steal.

“That’s when it helps to have a really heady uncle for a partner like Mick,” Jason said. “He knows what’s going on at the table and is good about giving a single when it is necessary.”

“If I have a high hand or a low hand I can give my partner a signal to let him know what I’m playing with,” noted Mick. “You really only want to use them if you can sneak it by your opponent. There’s a time to use it and a time to not. But you can never lie on the signal to try and throw off your opponent.”

Caminos claim local Mus title

On Sunday, Feb. 9, the annual Big Horn Basque Mus Tournament was held featuring eight teams of two players competing in an elimination style contest lasting well into the evening.

“This card tournament is sponsored by the North American Basque Organization,” noted a press release issued by the Big Horn Basque Club. “The game, unique to the Basque people has a list of official rules. Rule number one is that during the game a player may speak with his partner, may ask his partner any question and may answer any question as he sees fit — whether those answers be truthful or not.”

The winning team on Sunday was made up of Mick Camino and Jason Camino who have the opportunity to travel to Chino, Calif., to compete in the national tournament in July.

In the youth bracket, Baileigh Rodriguez and Tommy Fieldgrove beat out Ana Fieldgrove and Micheala Rodriguez.

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