“Thank you very much for being interested in the beauty of a sad story,” the quote Lanartea, representative of the Association of Professionals of the Basque Country, Garbiñe Ubeda, Amagoia Gurrutxaga and Miel A. Elustondo. Hundreds of members of the association – writers, musicians, actors, bertsolaris, illustrators, journalists, translators, dancers… – participated last Wednesday in the Basque Parliament.

The most versatile and specialized sector is that of creators, but they say that the problem is “overflowing”: “society does not see us as economic subjects, it has a romantic and somewhat bohemian image of us. Thinking that we live in clouds, applause and occasional awards satisfy us. We are not workers in the eyes of most of our listeners, readers and shoppers. And the administration does not give us the attention and respect that our professional activity needs. We have rights, but the system cannot shake hands.” In this report and in this one, on the book published by the latter, some of these and other issues were made known to ARGIA.

They stress that culture is “a deeper issue than a mere pleasure” to parliamentary groups, and that looking from left to right they do a political activity based on the “utilitarian theory” of culture: “The creator is rejected and the Industry, the Cultural Industry, is imposed”.

Linguistic variable

What is the Basque creator? The issue has been raised: “When we talk about Basque culture we should clarify what we are talking about. Erdal culture is increasingly called Basque culture, both in Spanish and in Basque”. In other words, is the creator who lives in Euskal Herria, or in the CAV, for living in it, Basque creator? Or do you have to create it in Basque?

Lanartea asks that the variable of doing in Basque be established as a “transversal line” in all statistics, data collection and studies on the sector, because “the muscle, the number of speakers and the legal support of the Basque cultural system are not the same size as Castilian”. In the opinion of Lanarte, they cannot be put on the same economic and social level. “But they stand, it happens, because the difference in roles and statements in praxis is a great chasm. Iduri would try to hide the culture created in Euskera, ignoring the situation of the diglosia in the shadow of the hegemonic culture”.

In short, they have stressed that "with recipes designed for a language with a community of millions of speakers, one cannot cure the cultural system of a community reduced to 809,000 few speakers".

Look inside the house

Cultural macro-projects and cultural expressions in Basque have no place, they have also put it on the table. “Start talking about the Guggenheim Urdaibai and pay a continuous tribute to the internationalization of our culture when we do not have circuits and fixed spaces to make our cultural works known at home.”

Politics is a recurring issue, for example, the presentation of cultural plans in which companies and institutions benefiting from artists’ work have far more weight than artists. The Kultura Strategic Plan 2028 has also been mentioned, highlighted and criticized.

The five basic requirements of Lanarte, as presented in Parliament:

1- To build the concept of culture from creativity and not from an industrial perspective of market and of infrastructure and giant events.

2- To establish the linguistic variable as a transversal line in all the studies conducted on the sector.

3- A rational tax policy that responds to the reality of artists and has transparent, correct and fair criteria in the imposition of practices.

4- Establish a minimum share of cultural proposal in Basque in public circuits and media (with special emphasis on EiTB).

5- Increase budgets to promote culture in Basque.