In language policy theory there are areas of use of language which, due to their broad and referential social character, are of strategic importance such as administration, teaching, the world of work and culture. These four functions have been interpreted by many experts as national functions of language, ensuring that if the use of language is not normalized, the linguistic community has a black future.

But, on the other hand, the same experts insist that the use and normalization of a minority language cannot be done by decree or by law. The Legal Framework has an obligation to guarantee the linguistic rights recognized to the community. But these linguistic rights are left to the citizens, who are entitled to exercise and acquire these rights.

And that is the debate that is taking place at the moment in the three administrative colleges that divide the Basque Country, with the characteristics of each.

In the field of education, for example, the obstacles imposed by the French State are clear. The attitude against immersion and the prohibition to study in Basque both in Breveta and in other studies are proof of this. In Navarre, the limitations imposed in the field of education are also visible. The Basques who want to educate their children in Basque are condemned to the policy of the zoning of apartheid. And from the new Law of Education being elaborated in the CAV, the concept of immersion has also been discarded, and nobody knows what will contribute in practice this “multilingual model whose axis is the Basque”. With the agreement between PNV, PSE and Podemos, there is no reason to have great uncertainties. And all this is happening, moreover, in the last 50 years, when the wager that most Basques and Basques have made for the “D” model is hegemonic, in favor of the three administrative divisions of Euskal Herria. In the strategic role of teaching, therefore, we lack a national legal framework to protect the educational rights of our people. In other words, we lack a legal framework that protects us from attacks on us. Do not forget that the presence of the 25% of the Spanish that Madrid has imposed against the model of immersion in Catalonia can also be applied here…

And in the field of administration the same thing happens. 49 municipalities in Ipar Euskal Herria have joined the Charter of Minority Languages of Europe to support the steps they wish to take in the administration. In fact, the French State denies the official status of the Basque Country in itself, annulling all the steps that can be taken in the administrative sphere. In Navarre, the apartheid of linguistic rights granted in the various administrative areas as a result of zoning is well known. To work in the administration in most areas of Navarra you do not have to know Basque and in the tests of access to it you do not even consider merit the Basque. And in the CAV, what is known among the staff as the New Decree on Linguistic Profiles, instead of moving forward in the regulation of use, will open up the possibility of taking a step backwards also in relation to linguistic profiles. And all of this, when we are in full legal involution of the administrative realm, as evidenced by the latest judicial decisions by Irun or Laudio. In the strategic role of the administration, therefore, we do not have a legal framework that offers us the appropriate national legal support. We are still within the limits imposed by the Spanish and French constitutions.

And, although very briefly, the Basque Government rejected the need to develop Euskera Plans for companies with more than 50 workers proposed by ELA and LAB in the world of work. Neither what to say in Navarre nor in Ipar Euskal Herria. And we could say the same thing about Basque culture. In the literature, in the audiovisual field, in the new technologies, in television and in the cinema, in the theatre… in all places, besides the fact that Castilian is a very majority, there is no national legal framework that effectively supports and enhances Basque production.

In short, despite the fact that in recent years, thanks to popular dynamics, we have made progress in these four strategic areas of language policy, in 2022 we still do not have a sufficient legal framework to protect and guarantee our linguistic rights from a national point of view. The guarantee of the Basque future lies elsewhere, in the will of the citizens.

As we lack a national legal framework that protects and guarantees our linguistic rights, and as attacks on the right to build an Euskal Herria Euskaldun will continue to occur, as in the future, constructive civil disobedience is the main means left to us.

We must overcome the legal vacuum we have in education, in administration, in the world of work and in the cultural sphere by means of civil disobedience. The motto I want to live in Euskera is a claim, we have to make it the axis of our daily practice, living in Euskera. And that brings us to disobedience irremediably. And from disobedience itself to constructive civil disobedience. Only living in Basque will we overcome the kingdom of the herd. The Korrika that begins, which is a unitary popular response throughout the Basque Country, because the Basque is the homeland of the Basques and the only free territory.

Joseba Alvarez

Member of the left Abertzale