Piperade: Basque at its best
Chef Gerald Hirigoyen returns to his roots and cultivates another winner
Michael Bauer, Chronicle Restaurant Critic
Sunday, November 17, 2002
Agreat chef needs two qualities: talent is the most obvious, but passion is what gives him the edge. If a chef has both, he can transform gruel into a feast.
Gerald Hirigoyen proved himself at Fringale, but now he's rediscovered his passion for cooking by returning to his Basque roots. He made the change in cooking styles a few months ago, after he bought out his partner at Pastis and changed the restaurant's name to Piperade.
Hirigoyen is still a partner in Fringale, which he opened in 1991, but he's spending most of his time at Piperade, which he owns with his wife, Cameron.
It's taken a while to settle in, but on each of four visits the food improved, showing that the chef is finding his groove. Hirigoyen is reinterpreting his native culture for California tastes, much like Charles Phan is doing with Vietnamese food at Slanted Door and Mourad Lahlou is doing with Moroccan cuisine at Aziza.
Basque country, half in Spain and half in France, has a unique culture with an ancient language and a rustic style of cooking. Many traditional dishes are long simmered, infused with an intense earthiness. The satisfying piperade ($15), for example, is a stew of bell peppers, tomatoes and garlic served with thin slices of Serrano ham and topped with a poached egg. Other dishes that show the character of the cuisine include Hirigoyen's sauteed sweetbreads ($8) with thin caramelized slices of Jerusalem artichokes, and a clear garlic soup thickly clouded with bread and egg. Rock shrimp are stirred in at the last minute, adding a fresh note to the heady blend.
Pork daube ($17) is a chunky mountain of meat and potatoes, strewn with onions, salsify, parsnips and sunchokes, a soulful blend that's perfect at this time of year. It's not fancy, but like an everyday dish you'd enjoy in someone's home.
As the breast of chicken ($15) is crisply sauteed to order, tarragon jus with bacon, pearl onions and fingerling potatoes provide a gutsy element that's the antithesis of the quick-cook combinations produced by many California chefs.
One of the most interesting combinations features a saute of squid ($16) bathed in a foie gras sauce punctuated by grapes. Fingerling potatoes, cooked to a creamy sweetness, help soak up the sauce. It's so decadently rich you'll end up sopping it up with bread until the plate is clean. I wanted to do the same with the sauce that surrounded the whole prawns awash in garlic, parsley and zesty lemon.
The food here is driven more by technique than by ingredients. A good example is the warm terrine with at least a dozen alternating layers of sheep's milk cheese and ham ($9), sauteed to a warm crunch and set on a knob of frisee that adds mild relief from the salty intensity of the terrine. Kind of like a grilled cheese sandwich, it has a flavor that is much better than its separate parts. Another unique concoction is crab Txangurro ($8), flakes of crab bound with mayonnaise and fresh herbs in a phyllo-like pastry. The brick-shaped package is crisply sauteed in a little olive oil and served with a refreshing mango and red pepper salsa.
Even the lighter dishes have an intensity not often found in Bay Area restaurants. The delicate steamed Pacific snapper ($17) is drizzled with a vinaigrette dense with caramelized slices of garlic. A chilled mussel-and- bread salad ($8), glistening in a red wine dressing, is yet another rustic example of the chef's ability to coax the maximum punch out of ingredients.
Many people don't realize that Hirigoyen was a pastry chef until they try his desserts (all $6.50). They may not reflect his refined training, but they fit well with the heartfelt savory courses: a wedge of cake gritty with cornmeal and paired with a pool of creme fraiche and quince; a dense almond cake topped with crisp sugared almonds, set on the plate with honey ice cream; a gateau amatxi, centered on a thick, cool pool of creme fraiche to counteract the slightly bitter chocolate. There are also orange blossom beignets, airy fried doughnuts with just the hint of perfume; and one of the creamiest custards around, similar to a Spanish flan.
To reflect the homey quality of the food, Hirigoyen and his wife de- emphasized many of the sleek warehouse appointments of Pastis by putting in a hardwood floor and playing up the brick walls and ceiling beams. Panels of acoustic material between the beams keep the noise level in check. Stylish sconces hang from the beamed walls, and two impressive canvases of Basque images decorate the areas on both sides of the kitchen.
The focal point of the 85-seat dining room is a sheepherder's table set under a wrought-iron chandelier made from an antique bottle-drying rack. The large table can accommodate a party of eight or be used as communal seating for walk-ins. A small covered patio, which seats 16, is used year round.
The entire restaurant is infused with Hirigoyen's personality, from the staff at the front desk to the bus people. The chef and his wife make frequent forays into the dining room to greet guests, lending a warm, personal touch to the place. Service is a pleasant fusion of American casualness and French efficiency.
During his years cooking in San Francisco, Hirigoyen has developed a devoted following that continues to support him here. But Piperade should be attracting a new generation of diners. In this uncertain and often cold world, warm and nurturing places like this are just what we need.
Improvement and Optimisation of vibrating tables used in agri-foodstuffs sector
15.11.2002
A research team of the Public University of Navarre (Basque Country), under the supervision of professors Jesus Zurita Gabasa and Jesus Mª Pintor Borobia, from the department of Mechanical, Energetic and Materials Engineering, is working in a project to improve and optimise vibrating tables that are used in the agri-foodstuffs sector. The project is being done by the request of the company Tecnologia Alimentaria Urtasun from Navarre (Basque Country) , manufacturer of this kind of machinery.
The company Tecnologia Alimentaria Urtasun focuses its activity in the design, production, commissioning and control of the whole production lines for the food industry. That includes the production line of vibrating tables. These tables are the machinery used to transport fruits and vegetables. They are called vibrating tables, because they actually function by vibration, so that the product moves with small jumps through the table, so that it reduces the damage. That way, by operators located at both sides of the table or in a totally mechanised way, the damaged parts can be removed or the product can be selected or distributed.
The main problems of these tables are related to their vibrating character. These machines must vibrate, and the more they vibrate the better it is, because the product moves faster forward and they can transport higher amounts of load. However, that causes greater deformations, and as a consequence, there can be problems of rupture or fatigue due to the presence of oscillating loads. And that causes a damage, which is accumulated in the material.
Validated virtual model
The researchers have developed a theoretical model for the company Urtasun, based on the simulation for finite elements, which allows characterising the dynamic and structural behaviour of a model of a vibrating table to be used in the food industry.
This work has been carried out in the test bench for fatigues and vibrations of the University.
Actually, they are developing a knowledge tool that allows optimising the machine. In addition, they believe that it would be interesting to work on the introduction of new materials and new technologies, which would allow, among other objectives, automating maintenance tasks for this kind of machines. For example, providing the machine with devices that allow knowing their state by recording a series of parameters. In those cases, the company Urtasun, via modem, could know the operating state of their machines, regardless of where they are installed. And that is very important, if we consider that the 40 % of the turnover of this company derives from export.
Postindustrial Bilbao: The Reinvention of a New City
by Joseba Zulaika
First it was the “medieval Villa” (founded in the year 1300 by Don Diego López de Haro); then it was the “commercial Villa” (after the establishment of its Consulate in 1511); then, since the second half of the last century, it was the proud regional “industrial city” we all know. But a new millennium is dawning. And now in the 1990s a new “postindustrial Bilbao” is being reborn from the ashes of its industrial ruins.
A massive infrastructural transformation and urban regeneration process is under way to turn Bilbao into a service-oriented and culturally attractive city. The flagship of the entire redevelopment, Frank Gehry’s spectacular Guggenheim-Bilbao Museoa, has made international news lately. But the goal is to effect the postindustrial reinvention of the city. As it undergoes the painful yet exhilarating metamorphosis from industrial ruination to architectural rebirth, Bilbao presents singular opportunities for tourism-based industries, as well as unique challenges for students of Basque society and culture.
The Nervión River
You are, Nervión, the history of the Villa,
you her past and her future, you are
memory always turning into hope
and on your firm riverbed
a fleeing flow.
Thus wrote Miguel de Unamuno of his “bochito” - his beloved Bilbao nursed by her River. The foundational charter granted the medieval Villa exclusive jurisdictional rights to the Nervión’s trade. Bilbao was the natural port for the export of Castillian wool to Flanders and her wide window on the world. Ever since, the Nervión has been Bilbao’s history, wealth, and metaphor.
Bilbao was doubly blessed with a seaport and vast mineral wealth. Never was this as clear as during the last 150 years of industrial boom, during which the river’s Left Bank held Spain’s largest iron and steel industries. After the discovery of Henry Bessemer’s converter in 1856, which allowed cheap production of steel in vast quantities, Bilbao’s output of iron ore went from 55,000 tons in 1861 to 2,684,000 tons in 1880, and it jumped again to 6,496,000 in 1898. To have a sense of Bizkaia’s crucial role in the global capitalist system of the late nineteenth century, Great Britain, the world’s imperial power, imported two-thirds of her iron ore from Bilbao (or 65-75% of Bilbao’s annual exports).
But foreign companies came to Bilbao not only as buyers of ore, but also as backers and participants in the exploitation of the mines. Through investment in the iron and steel industries, railroads, and the harbor, international capital was crucial to the region’s industrialization. In fact, the two most important foreign companies, the Orconera Iron Ore Co. and the Société Franco-Belge des Mines de Somorrostro, were multinationals. Foreign companies extracted 40% of Bizkaia’s iron during the 1880-1900 period. All in all, there existed a good symbiotic relationship between foreign and Basque capital. Historians estimate that between 60 and 75% of all the gains remained in the pockets of Bilbao’s industrial elite. By 1929, although Basques constituted a mere 3% of Spain’s population, Basque capital represented 25% of Spanish banking resources, 38% of the investment in shipyards, 40% of the stock in engineering and electrical construction firms, 68% of the funds dedicated to shipping companies, and 62% of the monies invested in steel factories.
A wasteland of industrial ruins is almost all that is left now of that fabled industrial period. But the ongoing massive redevelopment is testimony that the dark and generous River is still very much alive. As Bilbao emerges from the mantle of debris accumulated during the last tide of history, the city of 360,000 people has never been as remote from and yet as close to that small town of 18,000 souls that she was only 150 years ago. Already 75,000 people have abandoned the city during the last two decades of decline. But Bilbao is far from having given up her tradition of international business. Her capacity for high-stakes risk-taking remains undiminished. And don’t forget her metaphor - the one that made Bertolt Brecht write “How beautiful, how beautiful, how beautiful is the moon of Bilbao, the most beautiful city of the continent.” Hers is also the aesthetics of the “tough city” that have seduced artists such as Richard Serra and Frank Gehry. This seduction is perhaps Bilbao’s greatest asset at this moment; it is the true arena in which, by architectural spectacle and the sheer will to challenge all odds, she is transforming herself in ways almost unimaginable a few years ago.
Just look at what is happening in Abando-ibarra, right across from the University of Deusto: a grand titanium-skinned white whale has run aground there. Or is it a pirate’s old galleon suddenly resurfaced? It is Gehry’s masterpiece. It is the now undisputed emblem of a reinvigorated city unwilling to fade away with the demise of its blast furnaces - the Altos Hornos de Vizcaya, industrial engine and fiery symbol of the region’s economy until just yesterday. The volcano of the Left Bank is now mostly extinguished, but the sunset’s yellow colors are captured and reflected on the platinum scales of Gehry’s pale cetacean. “A miracle!” proclaimed The New York Times in contemplation of the radiant building. The real miracle, of course, is the resolve of the Bilbainos not to tolerate the extinction of their city’s proverbial fire and flourish.
Ashen debris, white smoke, black water, red slag…a generous supply of dirt of all colors and elements was Bilbao’s emblem. Her distinctive aesthetic force consisted of turning ugliness into a badge of honor, a thing of beauty for those willing to contemplate with eyes uncontaminated by pastoral nostalgia. But now the smoking chimneys are gone, even dirt is in short supply, and the tourists have started to come. The decades of heavy industrial exploitation had turned the Nervión into a black meandering sewer upon which the Bilbainos had long since learned to turn their backs. No longer do they need to avert their eyes from the prodigious River, the very soul of their history and identity. On the contrary, Bilbao is going to transform its riverfront into the real center of the new city. This is as great a historical transformation as one could expect from Bilbao’s fin-de-millenium. It signals the city’s willingness to unburden herself from all the sins of the industrial revolution and the ensuing environmental degradation. The hegemony of mining and iron industries is dismantled, the sky is free from the drifting clouds pumped into it by the now sorely-missed smoking chimneys, and it is no longer taboo to look at the River.
From Industrial Ruins to Architectural Emblems
History is a process of decay and ruin - this is the quintessential perspective that emerges from Bilbao’s fin-de-millenium. Were it not for the spectacular ruins of its metropolitan area of about a million people, Bilbao would be a typical European provincial city that exudes a bourgeois lifestyle. But it is the aesthetics of the “tough city” that sets Bilbao apart.
For months I have walked among the industrial and urban wasteland of Bilbao’s Left Bank - kilometers of silent ruins, hundreds of buildings awaiting demolition, urban neighborhoods with deserted streets and industrial sites with smokeless chimneys, entire valleys devastated by pollution, river banks contaminated beyond redemption, residential zones and garden plots adjacent to the most degraded areas. By 1995 Altos Hornos de Vizcaya - the smoky “tall ovens” of fire that gave a living to tens of thousands of families, the blast furnaces that were the proud emblem of the Left Bank’s entire industrial complex - had shut down. In the municipal area of Bilbao alone there are 52 industrial ruins that comprise 48 hectares of land; the next town on the Left Bank, Baracaldo, has another 25 industrial ruins occupying 100 hectares. Sestao is the next municipality of larger metropolitan Bilbao, and one third of its entire area is occupied by ruins. And so on. Bilbao’s book stores feature prominent photo reports chronicling the destruction of the city’s old factory buildings and chimneys, the enormous steel structures of complex architecture soaring within an apocalyptic landscape like huge, rusty phantoms bespeaking desertion, silence, and drama.
But ruins beckon to new architecture, new beginnings, new millennia. And Bilbao is ready to produce them in abundance. Yes, in the beginning there were ruins but now there is, or soon will be, Bilbao-2000.
By the end of the 1980s Basque officials were beginning to accept the unthinkable: the word “decline” referring to their major city. Bilbao is the political base of the Basque Nationalist Party, the region’s political force since Franco. An economically and demographically imploding Bilbao sounded several alarms. If the city could be credited with having industrialized the Basque region, it was now time for the country to repay it, to assist in its moment of crisis. To begin with, Bilbao and its metropolitan industrial area is home to a million Basques. For historical, sociological and financial reasons, it is impossible to reform the Basque economy without first revitalizing its engine, Bilbao.
Enter now the architect as savior. Gehry, Foster, Pelli, Sterling, Wildford, Pei, Soriano, Palacio and Calatrava - by now household names in Bilbao. They were preceded by the discourse on “urban regeneration,” which received public attention when Mayor José María Gorordo organized (in 1989) Bilbao’s first international congress entitled “Forum Bilbao for Urban Regeneration.” Throughout the 1980s there had been a huge effort to build a new infrastructure, highways and bridges in particular. But a new beginning was needed - a new image, a new postindustrial economic base, in short, an entire reinvention of an ancient, declining city.
The demise of former industries on the Left Bank’s riverfront had left large parcels in a state of ruin. They were close to the center and well-suited for major redevelopment projects. An ambitious $1.5 billion urban renewal plan was soon in place. It focused upon:
1. Expansion and modernization of the port, the central artery of Bilbao’s commercial life;
2. Creation of new transportation facilities that included a subway (designed by Norman Foster; its first phase completed in 1996), expansion of the airport (by Santiago Calatrava), and a central transport hub or “Intermodal” for buses and trains (designed by James Stirling, now espoused by Michael Wilford; it has been postponed indefinitely);
3. A new development on the riverfront. This included a one-million-square-foot office and shopping mall complex in Abandoibarra (by Cesar Pelli), a conference and concert hall (by Federico Soriano and Dolores Palacio), and a museum of modern and contemporary art, the Guggenheim-Bilbao (designed by Frank Gehry).
Of all these major projects two are emblematic of the new Bilbao: Foster’s sleek, costly subway which, besides its practical advantages, symbolized the city’s new infrastructure and regained sense of proud modernity, and Gehry’s voluptuous and optimistic Guggenheim Museum. The museum has overshadowed all other projects by drawing to Bilbao the international attention that it so desperately desires.
Spanning the Globe
A bridge first spanned the Nervión long before the Villa was founded in 1300. That bridge of San Antón was the first Promethean attempt to arch worlds apart: land and shore, river and sea, interior and exterior, past and future, left and right. It is only through a tradition of spanning the seemingly impossible - with suspension bridges floating in the air and drawbridges opening up their mandibles to the sky in a big yawn as the surreptitious cargo files by, structures that were always tenuous and temporary rites of passage, always complicated works of arrogant engineering - that Bilbao has sustained the fiction of a synthesis of warring elements - a historical linkage between the seemingly irreconcilable worlds of the Villa and its hinterland, of the rural and urban economies, of aristocratic and proletarian lives, of Basque and European interests.
After Deusto there were no bridges: fifteen kilometers of right and left riverbanks from the city to the sea uncompromised by any link with the single exception of the suspension bridge in Portugalete. But times are changing, and the River has been criss-crossed by several new bridges (Rontegi, Euskalduna, Zubizuri). Others are in the planning stage. The secret, as everyone knows, is that the one bridge that will really matter must connect Bilbao with entities that are at once far more virtual (so-called global culture) and far more concrete (Wall Street) than anything achieved so far. The lehendakari’s visit to Wall Street to deliver a $20 million check for the Guggenheim Museum franchise is a statement that leaves few doubts in this regard. Bridging the interior’s tierra llana with the port-centered, open Villa was not a small feat (although this, too, dressed up in nativism and provincialism, still continues to be a source of friction). Now, however, the only measure of success is the bridging of transatlantic distances, New York at one end and Bilbao at the other, facilitating traffic in modern art, museum franchises, and monies for the Basque cultural patrimony. The Romanesque arches of the San Antón bridge, medieval symbol of a proud Bilbao, are now complemented by the postindustrial city establishing herself as the key port and fundamental artistic point de repère (landmark) of the so-called “Atlantic Arch” stretching between Santiago de Compostela and Bordeaux. Welcome to the newly imagined global postmodern space of late capitalism.
But there is a lot of bridging to be done at home as well between the two riverbanks, the two languages, and the two millennia. Issues of violence, nationality, class, gender, and language continue to polarize Bilbao society endemically. She appears perched uneasily between a mythology of the past, which successfully deployed an ethnographic identity of premodern Basque enigmatic uniqueness, and a mythology of the future, which looks to global markets and the delirious glamour of New York for the inspiration of a new post-ethnic identity.
The discourse of urban regeneration works particularly well in fostering a sense of new direction. It embraces economic as well as environmental, cultural, social and symbolic components. Leisure activities and so-called “cultural industries” become most relevant in a regenerating urban center. The distinctions among “art,” “communication,” “culture” and “entertainment” disappear. Urban regeneration by leisure and cultural industries has been attempted with uneven results in various European and American cities. Not only yuppie tourists, the discourse reassures, but also Bilbao’s unemployed, its youth, and its migrant and marginal people will benefit from such cultural industries. The argument is that emblematic architecture is the condition for the economic renewal that will bring back jobs and prestige to the city.
In the beginning was architecture - arché, foundation, architecture. In classical aesthetic theory, architecture is the first art. Salvation by architecture is the cornerstone of the new regenerationist ideology in Bilbao. Due to its dependence on public funds, architecture tends to be used ideologically more than other arts. Bilbao provides perhaps the grandest example of architecture as ideology and spectacle. The ideological use of architecture consists of the uncontested assumption that public power must invest massively in emblematic buildings conceived by star architects, “emblems,” that is, of ideas of progress, culture, class equality, peace.
Bilbao’s ruins authorize discourses of brand new beginnings. Let us build a new city and believe a new mythology. The staggering ruins of the Nervión’s left bank legitimize the presence of architecture’s entire star system in Bilbao. The danger seen by some critics is the imposition of a dazzling architecture that becomes the new authoritarian master. Fallen into the narcissistic trap of citizens turned into voyeurs of their politicians’ grandiose projects, truly cultural objectives or even economic needs may prove secondary to the architectonic vision of the millennial beginning.
This is the time to visit Bilbao. Gehry’s masterpiece is an architectural triumph among the postindustrial ruins of the Nervión. If architecture provides cause for celebration, this is it. It has been likened to a whale, a ship, an artichoke, a mermaid, a waterfall, a flower, a fish, Marilyn Monroe, a chopped-up Chinese paper dragon. It has been hailed by the critics as the building of the late twentieth century.
This is also the time for Basque scholars to realize the potential rewards of turning Bilbao into a privileged topic of research and writing. Ruination and rebirth, the end of times and the beginning of time, historical processes deserving urban and cultural studies. The ruined post-industrial city turned into the postmodern model of an architecturally imprinted city. Urban planning and regeneration, architecture, museum culture, globalization, postindustrialism, migration, international art markets, cultural industries, anthropology, and history are some of the obvious discourses deserving attention. For those interested in experiencing the poetics of ruins (“You are, Nervión…memory always turning into hope”) and studying the politics of building (“and on your firm riverbed / a fleeing flow”), Bilbao, “how beautiful” is her unique appearance.
SPAIN FEARS 'FREE STATE' OPTION FOR BASQUES
Spain's meddling in the Basque country has once again come unstuck with an overwhelming two thirds of the countries people indicating support for a plan by Basque premier, Jose Ibarretexe, to hold a referendum calling for a new constitutional status (A Free State) within a year.
The move by Ibarretexe is designed to offer an alternative to the hard-line stance by the Madrid government in the face of increased military actions by ETA.
The leader of the moderate PNV nationalist party is attempting to kick-start a peace process which might encourage more radical nationalists to call a cease-fire and embrace more fully the constitutional role.
Despite opposition from Madrid it seems that an overwhelming body of people in the Basque 'Region' favour the referendum and believe Madrid should abide by its outcome. Even the radical political party, Batasuna, whose members are currently being persecuted by the Spanish government and which faces a ban supports the referendum road.
The Celtic League has repeatedly called on Spain and the EU to allow the Basque people to decide their own future and this referendum could initiate that process. However, we are deeply sceptical that the Spanish government will respect the democratic wish of the Basque people and the coming months will probably see provocative actions by Spain in an attempt to derail the new consensus for peace.
Bernard Moffatt
Secretary General
Celtic League
29/10/02
The Celtic League has branches in the six Celtic Countries. It works to promote cooperation between these countries and campaigns on a broad range of political, cultural and environmental matters. It focuses on human rights abuse and civil liberty issues and also monitors the impact of military activity.
Basques back poll on free state
Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Monday October 28, 2002
The Guardian
The Spanish prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, has suffered a blow to his attempt to prevent the Basque country voting on whether it should become "a freely associated state" by an opinion poll finding that two-thirds of the region's people support the planned referendum.
The Basque premier, Juan Jose Ibarretexe, of the Basque Nationalist Party, has said he plans to hold a referendum within a year.
The poll showed that four out of five Basques believe the Madrid government should respect whatever decision is made in the referendum. But a similar number said that they preferred that any new arrangement between the Basque country and Spain should to be agreed by them both.
A significant number were alarmed by Mr Ibarretxe's proposal. Critics have suggested say that his plan will lead to discrimination against people who have moved to the Basque country from other parts of Spain. One in five Basques said Mr Ibarretxe's plan made them "scared".
Support for the plan was not as enthusiastic as Mr Ibarretxe might have liked. Only 43% said they were "excited" by his the proposals, which are seen as a way of ending attempt to end more than 30 years of separatist violence by Eta, which has claimed 800 lives.
Fifty-two percent said that they should be allowed to have joint Spanish and Basque nationality, while 28% percent were opposed to the idea.
Nine out of 10 Basques felt that Eta should call a ceasefire first, if there was to be a referendum. Four fifths of supportingers of the radical separatist Batasuna party, which is in the process of being banned for supporting Eta - agreed that a ceasefire would be necessary.
The poll was criticised by Mr Aznar's People's party, which has accused Mr Ibarretxe of bowing to Eta's demands for independence.
Following DNA's footprints makes for a fascinating journey
Racial purity gets little encouragement in a book that sees humanity for all its diversity, as deriving from a primordial Eve
By Bradley Winterton
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Sunday, Oct 27, 2002, Page 18
Written history relates exactly how people of European ancestry came to be living in Australia or North America. But how did the Chinese come to be in China, the Indians in India, and the Australian Aborigines in Australia? This fascinating book, by deducing ancient human migration patterns from a study of the DNA of present populations, offers new answers to these old questions.
For over century, ethnographers seeking to understand the histories of different human groups relied on the evidence of old bones and pottery, together with what was shown by language. But for the last 20 years a molecular study of living people has provided a different kind of evidence. Central to such research are what are called "markers" in the Y-chromosomes carried by all males. These are mutations that have occurred at a particular point in time in a single male individual, and are subsequently passed down from father to son. They have been numbered, and a discussion of the significance of the M45, the M175 and so on, all nowadays very extensive, is at the heart of this intriguing book.
It was demonstrated a decade ago by the same means that, astonishing as it may seem, all human beings descend from a single woman, a primordial "Eve," who lived in Africa around 150,000 years ago. Now it is possible to trace the histories of the various human subgroups, and so piece together an understanding of when they migrated from Africa to where their core populations are still found today.
This line of research demonstrates, for instance, that Australia's Aborigines arrived in Australia along a route following the coast of southern Asia 60,000 years ago, long before the present inhabitants of most of Asia got to where they are.
The population of modern Europe, too, can be shown to have arrived, not by a seemingly direct route from Africa via the Middle East, but from Central Asia, and at a comparatively recent date.
The Chinese are shown to have almost certainly arrived in China in two streams, one north of the Himalayas, the other south. Chromosome marker differences can still be detected that separate many inhabitants of northern China from their southern counterparts.
As for the Native American populations, north and south of the equator, it's likely these arrived, crossing from Siberia to Alaska, in two waves. The first penetrated to the south, while the second was content to remain in the north. But neither population is likely to have been in the Americas longer than 15,000 years. And it is quite possible they all descend from a few dozen, or at most one or two hundred, founding individuals.
Many other things are demonstrated by this research. The successful extraction in 1997 of DNA sequences from Neanderthal remains, for instance, proves beyond doubt that this was a separate species from modern man. The claim that Europeans evolved separately, from part-Neanderthal ancestors, is here finally put to rest.
With regard to Europeans, the key marker here is the M137, dated as originating around 30,000 years ago. It is found with exceptional frequency in modern Irish and Basque populations, suggesting the earliest migrants moved, or were later pushed, furthest west.
Nineteenth century studies in language confirm this. Basque, for example, is unrelated to any other European language.
Ideas of "racial purity" get no encouragement from this book. Our common origin is in fact one of its central themes. But such ideas have a long history, and the Nazis were not the only people to embrace them. There was a strong push in 20th century China, for example, both Republican and Communist, to claim a specific Chinese racial identity and history. Rather than descending from African forebears, the Chinese, it was argued, may have evolved on their own direct from Homo Erectus, an earlier hominid whose remains have been found not far from Beijing.
This claim is entirely dismissed by DNA research. The Chinese are no more descended from a regional forebearer than Europeans are descended from a Neanderthal one. We all derive from ancestors who left Africa 10, 20, 40 or 50 thousand years ago.
These minute DNA variations are of outstanding value in the search for mankind's origins, but they have a dark side too. They mean, at least in theory, that DNA-specific biological weapons could be developed, fine-tuned to affect only people of a specific ethnicity. There is some evidence that this terrifying prospect may be only just round the corner.
In one current conflict zone such a weapon would be difficult to perfect, however. The DNA patterns of Arabs and the majority of Israelis are so close that researchers, however fiendish, would be hard pressed to target the other grouping exclusively.
As usual, there are some things to be said on one side and some things on the other. The way many nations see ethnic diversity as an impediment to unity, for example, can be deplored. Villagers are relocated, the language of the majority becomes compulsory in schools, and before long the young from these minorities actually feel embarrassed to admit to their heritage. This is a route on which minority cultures die, and with them all identifiable traces of humanity's diverse origins.
On the other hand, the ethnic mix that is already a feature of urban centers, and that the modern ease of mobility is certain to make more common, rather than being seen as lamentable (as exponents of racial purity would have it) can be viewed as highly desirable. Biological weapons targeted at a specific racial group could only be feasible when the ethnic groupings are separate and distinct. Inter-breeding of ethnicities makes biological weapons aimed at specific groups outdated before they are even a reality.
Such areas of thought, however, are not this book's main preoccupation. Human brotherhood is what it primarily demonstrates. Racial hatred, let alone inter-racial war, is something a contemplation of its contents ought to consign to the garbage collector's wagon.
The book is magnificently illustrated with photographs by Mark Read. What makes his pictures so special is that, rather than being of "tribal" peoples in the way we have become accustomed to in works of ethnography, they are of modern men -- in baseball caps worn back-to-front, broad-brimmed outback hats, or knitted rasta scull-caps. This makes the book's central statements as to who we are and where we came from even more relevant than, to anyone who thinks about it, they are already.
Catalonia echoes Basque call for autonomy
Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Wednesday October 23, 2002
The Guardian
Spain entered a new and potentially critical phase of tension yesterday as Catalonia added its voice to demands from the Basque country for a fresh round of regional referendums over greater autonomy from Madrid.
The demands made in a historic speech by the new leader of Catalonia's ruling nationalists, Artur Mas, added pressure for an extensive rewrite of the rules that have governed Spain since the transition to democracy 25 years ago.
Mr Mas, who succeeds the Catalan regional premier Jordi Pujol as head of the nationalist Convergence and Union coalition, echoed demands from the Basque regional premier, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, when he called for "shared sovereignty" in Catalonia.
His proposals, which will form the backbone of the coalition's manifesto in regional polls next year, were a departure for the dominant party in Catalonia, going far beyond the sort of devolution experienced by Scotland and Wales.
Mr Mas called for a "single administration" in a Catalonia controlled by a regional government that would send its own representatives to the EU and other international bodies and would have the final word on the region's public finances.
Catalonia would also have to be formally recognised by the rest of Spain as "a nation", he said.
The demands were immediately criticised by the centre-right People's party government of prime minister Jose Maria Aznar.
"This is not a priority for Catalonia or for any other part of Spain," the deputy prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, said yesterday.
Mr Aznar's government, which has mounted a vigorous campaign against the Basque proposals for a referendum on self-determination, has suddenly found itself forced to fight on several fronts to maintain its centrist vision of Spain.
Mr Ibarretxe, meanwhile, held a long meeting with Arnaldo Otegi, head of the radical Basque separatist party Batasuna, a political ally of the armed separatist group Eta.
Although Batasuna has had its offices closed and bank accounts frozen while it is investigated for alleged collaboration with Eta - and while Mr Aznar's government prepares a separate court prosecution designed to ban it definitively - Mr Ibarretxe spent three hours discussing his controversial plan with Mr Otegi. These were deemed insufficient by Mr Otegi - once called "the Basque Gerry Adams".
"They are not enough to resolve the conflict," he said after the meeting.
Mr Ibarretxe has said that he would not call a referendum on the future of the Basque country unless Eta first gave up a 30-year campaign of violence - which has claimed 800 lives. Opponents call his proposals anti-constitutional.
Mr Mas' proposals were not quite as radical as those of Mr Ibarretxe and his non-violent Basque Nationalist party.
He called on the People's party and the opposition Socialists to negotiate with him a new statute that would replace the one which gave Catalonia semi-autonomy in 1979.
He held out the promise that, if Catalonia was given far greater autonomy then Convergence would also take up an invitation from Mr Aznar to join his central Spanish government in Madrid. But he also warned that his party would make life difficult for Mr Aznar if he did not play ball.
Catalonia's regional government already controls vast swathes of public administration, including education, health, culture and much policing.
Convergence and Union has won every Catalan election since 1980, allowing Mr Pujol to run the region for the past 22 years.
But Mr Mas faces a difficult battle against Barcelona's former Socialist mayor, Pascual Maragall, in the next regional elections - the first in which Mr Pujol will not stand.
Basque ups and downs
By Phil Ball
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Interesting to see Real Sociedad back at the top of the Spanish First Division after three angst-ridden seasons in its nether regions.
No-one was expecting this sudden turn-about of fortunes, least of all the club itself, accused a couple of years ago by ex-national manager Javier Clemente as 'lacking guts' and being 'natural pessimists'.
Clemente, now spending his days on the golf course, was controversially employed by the club three seasons ago when they sacked the German Bernd Krauss. Clemente made his name first as player and then as manager of Basque cousins Athletic Bilbao in the 1980s, and steered them to their last league title in 1984 - the last time that a Basque side won the Spanish championship.
Bilbao is the largest and most industrialised of the Basque cities and is in the Vizcayan region, whereas Real Sociedad hail from the more service-oriented region of Gipuzcoa. When Clemente was handed a contract by Real Sociedad, there was much muttering abroad, most of it concerning the signing of 'an enemy'.
The facile idea that the Basque Country is some sort of culturally homogenous homeland was nicely exposed by the suspicion of Sociedad's supporters towards the pugnacious little Clemente, and he only lasted just over a season. His cat-and-dog relationship with the Gipuzcoan press culminated in his accusation that the region was 'pessimistic' and cynical, whereas Vizcaya was more 'alegre' (happy) and forward-looking.
Fast forward to October 2002 and the nail-biting has shifted firmly from San Sebastian to Bilbao. Athletic, so keen on promoting themselves as the region's major club, find themselves down near the bottom of the table, surrounded by cousins Alavés and Osasuna, with Sociedad threatening to disappear over the horizon.
Of course, it's early days yet, and Raynald Denoueix's team will have to tighten up at the back if they seriously wish to aspire for the title, but it's strange the difference that a few summer months can make.
Three weeks ago, Jupp Heynckes, Bilbao's German manager in his second spell with the club, lost his temper with the local press after they complained of his tactical 'anarchy', responding with the unfortunate claim that he was a 'luxury' for the club, adding that they should appreciate the fact that they had such a distinguished manager at the helm.
He was forced to apologise three days later after the furore that his words caused, and he may yet live to regret his faux pas if the results continue to be poor.
Folks from Bilbao are famous for their special sense of identity and their often misplaced and overweening self-confidence - but the rest of Spain has a grudging sort of affection for them, especially Spanish football historians who know that the club was the country's dominant force up the Civil War in 1936.
Times have changed, but the club still regard themselves as special. The fact that Heynckes won a European Cup as manager of Real Madrid did not give him the right to patronise such an historically great club, and there remains a feeling that he will never be forgiven for his misjudgement.
The whole scene in the Basque Country is as fascinating as it is complex, and woe betide the visiting journalist who thinks he or she can get a quick-fix conclusion from a few day's analysis.
This season's major theme so far, apart from Sociedad's great start and Bilbao's internal doldrums, was the signing by the current leaders of Boris, a young Spanish defender from Oviedo.
Sociedad broke ranks with Bilbao back in the late 1980's when they signed John Aldridge from Liverpool, effectively closing the door on their own Basque-only policy. Since then, foreign players have arrived (and left) in cartloads, whilst Athletic Bilbao have doggedly pursued their century-old practice of only employing the sons of the region's fertile soil.
But the signing of Boris by Real is the first time that they have taken on a 'Spanish' player - foreign signings having been previously regarded as less politically awkward. A straw-poll amongst supporters last week revealed that only 7 per cent of the club's supporters were 'preoccupied' by the signing, but when you're top of Europe's best league, you can afford to be a bit more tolerant.
Boris made his debut as a first-choice defender in this weekend's 2-2 draw in the derby with Alavés, and the event seemed to pass by almost unnoticed. This comes as something of a relief, since the club's policy in the past has smacked of xenophobia towards Spain, as if the country's players were somehow racially and culturally unworthy of representing a Basque institution.
It's an awkward little issue, and one that has attracted occasional sideways glances at Bilbao's exclusionary policy which at first sight looks even more radical. Foreign managers like Heynckes and Howard Kendall have always been part of the scene, but the players have been Basque since time immemorial.
It looks like a cute piece of cultural heroism, standing firm and alone as the howling winds of European federalism and multi-ethnicity blow all around, but it rather depends which side of the fence you're standing.
And when things start to go wrong at the 'Cathedral' - as Athletic's San Mamés ground has always been nicknamed, the club always seem to want to have it both ways.
Heynckes, a few days before his infamous 'luxury' speech, claimed that the team's bad start was a reflection of the fact that the club had an inadequate playing staff, limited as it was by the Basque-only policy. 'If Barcelona only had Catalans playing, ask yourself where they would be in the league' he protested.
This was a fair point, but ultimately an irrelevant one. Barcelona's claim to being the flagship of Catalan culture has a slightly hollow ring to it nowadays, but Athletic cannot slap themselves on the back when times are good, then complain about the slings and arrows when things go awry.
Their own often patronising attitude towards Real Sociedad's signing of foreigners ignores the fact that it was their own poaching of the all the best Basque talent that forced their cousins to open up the ethnic doors in the first place.
Complicated indeed - but to return to a purely football-based observation, Athletic's permanent presence in the top flight since La Liga was inaugurated in 1929 is nothing short of a miracle, and political correctness should never be allowed to detract from this fact.
Real Sociedad's great start has also had the papers singing their praises, several of them pointing to the fact that it is 21 years since they led the league table by one point or more - the very season (1981-82) when they won their second consecutive title.
They've scored 17 goals in 6 games, and seem to have discovered a new star in the speedy little Turkish forward Nihat, a player whom Toshack brought over from Besiktas last season. The Welshman was sacked soon after, but his eye for a player has proved as unerring as ever, and the Turk is attracting all sorts of plaudits.
# Elsewhere, the big boys were falling like flies. Barcelona, Celta, Deportivo and Real Madrid all lost games that they were expected to win - if such a phrase is really valid these days, and Madrid's defeat at Santander was particularly interesting, given that the home side's second goal was scored by local hero Pedro Munitis, currently loaned out by the team that he sunk.
Not only is he on loan from Madrid but they are also stumping up 70 per cent of his wages. There was some controversy during the week prior to the game, since there was no written agreement that Munitis would not turn out against his official employers - a legal loophole that Santander decided to exploit.
Madrid, as far as is known, did not object, and since Munitis was up for it (he claims that he was cold-shouldered by the club last season) they wrote him onto the teamsheet. Inevitably, he scored, and should Madrid lose the title by three points this season, little Munitis is unlikely to be returning to the capital in a hurry.
