Wednesday, March 19, 2003

Support From Culture

More than two hundred writers, painters, sculptors, musicians and actors have joined the acts that will be held Thursday in solidarity with Egunkaria. A hundred of those creators gathered Wednesday in front of Egunkaria's headquarters in Andoian, at a press conference for showing their support to the newspapers' workers: Musicians Kepa Junkera, Ruper Ordorika and Benito Lertxundi; actors Mikel Martinez, Elena Irureta and Antton Luku; artists Jose Luis Zumeta, Koldobika Jauregi and Juan Gorriti and writers Unai Elorriaga and Edorta Jimenez were there among others.

Writer Anjel Lertxundi read the text prepared for the occasion. He talked about how Basque language should be "a land of freedom", and about how it has united people from very different sensibilities over the centuries. He reminded that, as a small language, euskera cannot have many newspapers, radios and televisions, and about how closing one is a huge loss. And he also remembered the days on which he read that "easy, wide and agile" -relating to a poem by Axular- Egunkaria "still with his pyjama".

The folklore investigator Juan Antonio Urbeltz asked for a "responsible political position", to think about "everything that is happening to us, if we don't want to continue another forty years without answering that "quosque tandem?" -where are we going?- that Jorge Oteiza made in the sixties". The theatre and cinema director Eneko Olasagasti reminded that they were going to perform `Metxa´ for the first time the day Egunkaria was closed. "We felt tiny when we wanted to feel big, as Egunkaria was the biggest support that we as creators had in the media". Anari spoke for all the musicians. "It's more important how Egunkaria read us, the interpretation that made of us, than how we read Egunkaria", she said.

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