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Anti-Democratic Campaign

This article was published at WW4 Report:

Spain escalates anti-democratic campaign in Basque Country

Submitted by WW4 Report

Having already barred two pro-independence parties (3DM and Askatasuna) from taking part in the Basque Country's regional parliamentary elections March 1, Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón last week went further and banned all their activities and ordered the closing of their offices and websites. Eight people remain in prison for trying to organize pro-independence election platforms.

Despite being barred from the elections and the continuous attacks against their activities, the pro-independence parties are carrying on with their campaigns. They have called on the Basque people to carry out a massive action of civil disobedience by voting for the "illegal" slates.

The repression has also prompted an armed response. In the early hours of Feb. 23, an ETA bomb destroyed the Socialist Party's offices in the Basque town of Lazkao. There were no casualties. ETA claimed responsibility in a phone call to the authorities before the blast. The Socialists, who rule nationally, stand a good chance of unseating the Basque Country's long-ruling moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) in the upcoming elections. (Euskal Herria News, Feb. 26; DPA, Feb. 23)

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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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Eusko Flickr : Leitza Herria

Leitza herria
Originally uploaded by palazio

Boycott Against Israeli Products

This article was published at the Worker's World page:

Movement grows to boycott israeli products

Published Feb 23, 2009 10:12 PM

Furious at Israel’s horrific siege of Gaza and inspired by the courageous people of Gaza, workers, students and progressive activists are organizing sit-ins, demonstrations and other acts of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Many groups are getting on board and endorsing the Palestinian-led call for an international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

From South Africa, where union dockworkers heroically refused to unload an Israeli ship, to Irish activists, Basque unionists and students in Britain and the United States, momentum is growing in the struggle to cut ties to Israel.

Students across Britain, including Palestinian and Arab youth, have taken direct action and occupied 21 campuses to protest Israel’s military assaults on Gaza and to demand their schools end links to the Zionist state and to the British weapons maker BAE Systems, which arms Israel.

In London, students held sit-ins at Goldsmith University and the London School of Economics, among others. Similar protests spread through England to Birmingham, Sussex, Norwich, Warwick, Oxford, Leeds, Cambridge and elsewhere. Some protests have won concessions from university officials.

At Manchester University, 1,000 students equated Israel with apartheid-era South Africa and called on the administration and student union to boycott Israeli companies and support Gaza and the BDS movement. The student union agreed.

Strong sit-ins have been held in Scotland at the universities of Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh and at Strathclyde.

Other solidarity actions continue. British MP George Galloway and 300 volunteers left Ramsgate Feb. 14 in a 110-vehicle caravan, whose vans, fire truck and ambulances were filled with community-donated food, medicine, clothes and toys to be donated in Gaza. Viva Palestine, Stop the War Coalition, Muslim groups and trade unions organized this 5,000-mile journey.

Irish organizations join BDS campaign

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, with 600,000 members in 55 unions, is prepared to start a boycott of Israeli goods. The Jan. 31 Irish Times carried a full-page ad, headlined “Irish Call for Justice for Palestine,” sponsored by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Its 350 signers called for the Irish government and people to boycott Israeli products and to support the BDS campaign.

When thousands of Irish marchers in Derry commemorated the 37th anniversary of Bloody Sunday—when British soldiers killed 14 unarmed people in 1972—they carried 1,000 Palestinian flags in tribute to the Palestinians killed by Israeli bombs in Gaza. The names of children killed were posted at the Children’s Wall. Sinn Fein’s banner read, “Solidarity with People of Gaza, Stop the Blockade.”

Welsh activists were arrested in Swansea at a Tesco’s grocery store after they seized produce grown on illegally occupied Palestinian land. The media reported their message calling on Wales’ people to support a countrywide boycott of Israeli goods.

Demonstrations in more than 30 cities in Basque Country, with 30,000 participants, have called for BDS and linked the Basque and Palestinian struggles. Trade unions joined a Bilbao demonstration calling for a boycott of Israel. Ten municipalities called for breaking ties to Israel.

In Catalonia, protesters leapt onto a basketball court to disrupt a Barcelona-Maccabi (Tel Aviv) game, waving Palestinian flags and signs saying “Boycott Israel.”

Professors and university employees in Quebec also endorsed the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees’ call to boycott Israel.

The BDS campaign is growing in the U.S. As Hampshire College students successfully campaigned for school divestment from Israel, a University of Rochester sit-in was organized by Students for a Democratic Society. They demanded no school ties to U.S. and Israeli militarism in the Middle East and aid for Gaza schools. Iraq Veterans against the War and Rochester Against War took part.

Macalester College students occupied the Minnesota Trade Office in St. Paul last month, then picketed there on Feb. 6, demanding that the state end all trade with Israel.

And New York University students began a divestment campaign at their school.

A 24-hour demonstration outside the World Zionist Organization’s New York office, from Feb. 12-13, drew 900 Jewish activists. Jews Say No targeted Israel’s blockade of Gaza and the ongoing occupation and demanded justice for the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, thousands of e-mail endorsements from the U.S., Canada and worldwide have poured in to the Jews in Solidarity with Palestine campaign. (See IACenter.org)

A cultural boycott is also underway. Chicago protesters wearing bandages stained with red paint, symbolizing Palestinian casualties, recently picketed the Israeli Batsheva Dance Company. The International Solidarity Movement and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel plan protests wherever the dance company performs.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee has issued an international call for a Global Day of Action in Solidarity with the Palestinian people and for concrete and bold BDS actions on March 30 to make this mobilization “a historic step forward in the new movement.”

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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Eusko Flicker : KAUTA-Hatortxurock 9,5

KAUTA-hatortxurock 9,5
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Basque Language Revival

The article that you're about to read was posted at McClatchy's page:

As the world's languages disappear, Basque revives

By Julie Sell | McClatchy Newspapers

ST. JEAN DE LUZ, France — The world is losing languages at an alarming rate, a United Nations agency reported Thursday, with thousands of tongues expected to disappear by the end of this century.

Yet amid the losses, one community — the Basque people, who live in the mountainous region of southern France and northern Spain — is reviving a language that many once feared would die out.

In St. Jean de Luz, a seaside town near the Spanish border at the western edge of the Pyrenees, efforts are under way to revitalize the Basque language, which 30 years ago was rarely heard outside mountain villages. Among a population of about 3 million in the Basque region, which comprises seven provinces in Spain and France, an estimated 700,000 people speak Basque today.

Bilingual signs dot the roads and mark storefronts, and an annual festival celebrates the Basque language, music and culture. Public and private schools full of children and adults learn Basque.

Every Sunday, a mass is celebrated entirely in Basque — complete with Basque music — at the local church, Eglise Saint Jean Baptiste.

At the week's major food market here, Bixente, a 32-year-old man in jeans, tennis shoes and a tight wool cap, was selling such regional specialties as ewe's milk cheese, black cherry jam and spicy pimento powder from his stand to a steady stream of customers in the early morning chill.

"I grew up speaking Basque, and did all my baccalaureate exams, even biology and philosophy, in Basque," said Bixente, who hails from Bayonne and declined to identify himself further. "My parents' generation built private Basque schools in the 1980s. They gave their money, their energy, their efforts to make it happen."

In contrast, he said, when his mother was young, she "was punished at school for speaking Basque."

Fabienne Perrin, a 37-year-old woman employed by the local tourism office, grew up speaking Basque in a small mountain town a half-hour's drive from St. Jean de Luz. She recalled that her grandfather spoke only Basque, never French. Now, though, "the generation that spoke only Basque is gone," she said. "To work, you have to speak French."

France recognizes Basque as a distinct regional language — the departmental government has an office dedicated to the Basque language — but Basque doesn't have official status in France, meaning that it can't be used in a court of law, for instance. On the Spanish side of the border, Basque has been one of two official languages in the Basque autonomous region since 1979.

Many locals acknowledge that foreigners mistakenly associate all Basques with the extremist group ETA, whose members are known to slip back and forth across the rugged mountain border.

"There are lots of cliches," Perrin said. "But when people get here, they find we're really interested in something authentic. This isn't just folklore."

As successful as this region has been in preserving its unique language, however, others aren't as lucky.

The language report, released by UNESCO, the U.N. agency based in Paris, provides vivid detail of the linguistic diversity that still exists in the world — more than 6,000 languages are spoken on the planet — and the threats that it faces.

India, the United States, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico have the greatest linguistic diversity, it says, but also the greatest number of languages at risk.

Among 2,500 endangered languages in the agency's online atlas, 538 are classified as "critically endangered." Seventy-five of these are in the United States, many of them obscure American Indian tongues found in the Western states. They include Tubatulabal, spoken by just three elders in California's Kern River Valley in the southern Sierra Nevada, and Lushootseed, spoken by fewer than five people on reservations in Washington state.

Beyond Basque, which UNESCO labeled "unsafe," the agency notes that some endangered languages can be saved through a combination of government intervention and community will.

Welsh, for instance, has made a comeback in the past few decades after nearly dying out when Wales was exclusively under English rule.

UNESCO's most recent estimate of Welsh speakers: 750,000.

(Sell is a McClatchy special correspondent.)

ON THE WEB
UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

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Eusko Flickr : Goizuetako Etxeak

Goizuetako etxeak
Originally uploaded by Orreaga

Bilingual Education in Navarre

This essay was published at Basque Research:

Study on attitudes of students at the Public University of Navarre to bilingual education

The Public University of Navarre (UPNA) has presented the book, “Attitudes and beliefs of students of the UPNA to bilingualism and bilingual education”, a report on the research work undertaken by the University teachers Mr Pablo Sotés, Ms Nekane Oroz and Mr Carlos Vilches. The work, 1,000 copies of which have been published at a selling price of 12 euros, was financed by the Government of Navarre.

In order to gather information, the authors carried out interviews with 2,048 students - out of a total of 7,410 – over the 2005-2006 academic year and, moreover, used the technique of group discussion. The level of reliability of the study is 95.5%.

The principal aim of the work was to find out the linguistic skills of the student body at the Public University of Navarre and analyse the attitudes to bilingualism and bilingual education in the educational system of the Autonomous Community of Navarre. The results provide a linguistic map of the student body which should contribute to the task of linguistic planning within the various strategic plans of the University.

Linguistic profile of student body

According to the research results, 84% of students interviewed have Castilian (Spanish) as their mother tongue while 14% have Euskara (the Basque language) or both simultaneously, and the remaining 2% have a mother tongue other than Basque or Spanish. As regards linguistic skills, nearly 40% state that they have knowledge of Basque to a greater or lesser extent, comprehension skills being rated higher than those of oral and written expression. A similar percentage of students (40%) have knowledge of French, although here the percentage of those stating they have difficulties is greater than with Basque.

Linguistic skills in English present special characteristics, according to the study. In general, it can be said that the immense majority of students at the UPNA has a high or intermediate knowledge of the English language, scoring over 90% in each of the four linguistic skills (aural comprehension, reading writing and speaking). The highest scoring, nevertheless, is in written and oral comprehension and the lowest in oral expression. Of the five modern European languages, German is, on the other hand, the language with the least presence amongst the students (less than 10%).

About 20% of students have an elementary or higher qualification in Basque and more than 40% have a certificate in English. About 15% of students have qualifications in French and less than 2% in German.

Taking different languages into account

English is the language deemed by most students as the most appropriate for scientific and educational communication, followed by Spanish, German, French and Basque in that order of importance. This order changes when sociocultural transmission is involved (Spanish, English, Basque, French and German) or which are considered socially the best (Spanish, English, Basque, German and French).

Also, more than 90% of those surveyed consider that the knowledge of a second language facilitates the learning of a third. And to the question as to what linguistic model (in the Basque-Spanish bilingual educational system) they would choose for their primary/secondary school studies if they were making the choice now, women opt primarily for model D (Basque), followed by A (Spanish with Basque as a subject) and G (Spanish) and models in English or in French, in that order. In the case of men, however, the order varies, being model G the most popular choice, followed by D, A and then models in English or in French.

As regards legal aspects there exists a great lacuna in knowledge about linguistic zoning, established by the Navarre Autonomous Community Law on the Basque language. Nevertheless, 43% consider that Basque should have a new deal for the future regulated by Law, which would enable greater rights in the use and the teaching of this language. 14%, however, defend the validity of zoning.

Languages in the educational system

The study also reveals the opinions of students about the treatment of languages in the educational system. 60% of those surveyed consider that Basque is still not normalised nor has it been spread throughout the educational system as it should. More than 35% believe, however, that this language does not need any treatment differentiated from the other languages, given that they believe it to be fully normalised.

With respect to the linguistic models (see above) in the educational system, the majority of those surveyed who come from model A believe this model does not guarantee the achievement of obtaining the linguistic skills sufficient for undertaking university studies in Basque. In the case of model D, the majority who have been through this educational linguistic model hold that this immersion model in Basque enables them to carry out their university studies in either Spanish or Basque. However, ex-model G students believe this model does not guarantee a sufficient level in Spanish.

Regarding the EC languages, students justify the predominance of English as a majority foreign language in the non-university educational system of Navarre, linking fluency in this language with access to high socio-economic status.

As regards French, almost 50% of those surveyed believe it will continue to be taught as up to now, although 25% do not augur a good future for the tongue and consider that its teaching will gradually disappear. On the other hand, most students state that German will grow in the educational system of Navarre.

Languages in the University

The research revealed that students consider knowledge of English fundamental to starting their university studies (88%), followed at a distance by Basque (36%). French and German score significantly low in this respect.

At the time of undertaking the survey, the professional teaching qualifications in Basque included the Teaching Certificate in Infant Education and the Teaching Certificate in Primary Education and certain subjects in other qualifications. Students enrolled in subjects in the Basque language came to 10% of the total, most of which are women who study at the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, have Basque as their mother tongue and have been through model D schooling and this, to a great extent, in the Basque Autonomous Community (Euskadi).

Students not enrolled for subjects through this language state the reasons as being the lack of opportunity to learn the language or lack of linguistic skills therein, incompatibility with timetables, misleading information, preference for Spanish, etcetera. The percentage of ex-model A students opting for subjects through Basque does not come to 4%.

The study indicates that the provision of subjects/courses in Basque is classified as “insufficient” by more than half of the students. In this sense, 76.5% are in favour of including some subjects in Basque within a degree course; 30% prefer the provision of a complete degree course in Basque, together with the existing provision in Spanish and 15.7% would not offer any subject in Basque on a degree course.

Regarding EC languages, the University prioritises the linguistic training of the students - in the academic year in which the survey was undertaken, subjects were offered in English and in French, above all in the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences.

Given this situation, the survey indicates that English is the foreign language most required by students as a language of instruction. 79.2% of those surveyed believe it a good thing to provide subjects in this language, compared to 13.8% who opt for French and 12% for German. Nevertheless, only 19.40% would offer a whole degree course through English. The majority prefer this language to be offered in the following: a selection of subjects; optional subjects; certain core and obligatory subjects, free choice subjects - in that order. The demand for French and German in this respect is much less significant.

Finally, the research measured the level of satisfaction expressed by students at UPNA with how the University treats languages: poorly in the case of Basque and very poorly in the cases of French and German; and medium-high with respect to English.

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