argia.eus
INPRIMATU
Normalization of the Basque Country in the hope of sound policies
Idurre Eskisabel @@idurreski Erria 2024ko maiatzaren 29a
Argazkia. 2024-03-20, Mutriku. Korrika. FOKU

Counted by a friend: His 14-year-old son tells him that the last Korrika made him live in another way the Basque. For example, it has served to ‘get out of the closet’ some colleagues who, like him, focus on Euskaldunity. They say it has served them to see that the Basque community is abundant, strong and broad. It makes you feel like you're not alone, that you're part of something big and important. He has encouraged him to express himself proudly in Basque.

For a few days. In the house of the impoverished the joys are usually short, and this is also the case for the Basques and Euskaltzales of this adolescent. And that is that, along with joy, he has expressed to his mother his regret: “It was like having a jug drilled into your hands, I thought it was full, but it was emptied immediately.” The mother can tell her that you do not lose that water, that each of the drops that filled the boat during the Korrika is now somewhere else, even individually. She doesn't know if she's convinced her son. He doesn't know if he talks about conviction...

In fact, the Basque language is not in vain a minority language, that is, the result of a history of domination – and still being carried out – carried out in various forms of underestimation and punishment. Or rather: the community of minority speakers is not useless, as the worst and the penalties are against the speakers, the speakers suffer from linguistic domination. Consequently, there are many additional burdens attached to the existence of a community of minority speakers, many of them complex. One of the most representative is the weak individual and collective perception of ourselves. We ourselves underestimate our importance, our power of influence.

"The Basque language is not in vain a minority language; that is, the result of a history of domination – and is still being carried out – in various forms of underestimation and punishment"

The truth is that I get closer to the experience of the 14-year-old, the doubt of his mother... I'm like that too... I was convinced that the question of language was going to have a prominent presence, for example in the electoral campaign to the Basque Parliament. Considering the size of the challenges facing the future, I thought that the normalization of the Basque country would be present in the lines of proposal of the axis of the parties that are situated in the vague. Moreover, in view of the fact that the Korrika has demonstrated a proud country and a broad social consensus. That was not the case. Unfortunately, it seems that in the crossroads of proposals and debates to form the next government the normalization and regeneration of the Basque Country is not a axis, not a red line. And we could expand the picture to the Northern Basque Country and Navarre. In this we are a nation.

It is not easy to understand because the parties are telling us that they have recognised issues that are directly related to the welfare of citizens. Therefore, it seems that the guarantee of linguistic rights or the possibility and freedom to live in Basque are outside the parameters of well-being... It is not easy to understand because, in addition to the varied and extensive Basque cultural activity, socio-linguistic research and the most prominent experts are telling us that the recovery of the Basque country is in doubt, because the agents of the Northern Basque Country have taken the alarm of linguistic emergency...

If understood, the key also to this need to find in the burdens and complexes added by the minority: it seems that to the aspects that are situated in the vasquity it is difficult to believe in the strength and agreement that society has expressed in favor of the Basque Country; even in the benefit that the vasquity brings to society, in the welfare. Without realizing that progress in the normalization of the Basque Country is to make progress in guaranteeing the fundamental rights of all citizens, to deepen social justice, social cohesion, freedom, coexistence and democracy. That we talk about the basis of well-being when we talk about the normalization of the Basque country.

"Because the parties are telling us that they have recognised issues that are directly related to the welfare of citizens. Thus, it seems that the guarantee of linguistic rights or the possibility and freedom to live in Basque are beyond the parameters of well-being..."

It is urgent to address the issue. In fact, the echo of the emergency comes not only from the Northern Basque Country, but also from Catalonia, which we have admired as a model for linguistic revitalization, is spreading the diagnosis of the linguistic emergency. Not in vain. We are seeing that the linguistic supremacy of states is booming. And, at the same time, demonstrate how the current variant of globalization is a gigantic machinery for carrying out cultural homogenization; an apparently unfundable instrument for strengthening hegemonic languages and further weakening minorities.

In any case, the fact that minorities do not lead us into the added complexes and spiral despair. We have ways of dealing with the diminishing situation. And one of them is citizen activation, the influence of muscular society. Strong and indispensable. Proof of this has been the Korrika, which will be a sample in the spring of 2025. Proof of this is the daily lives of thousands of citizens. Essential, but insufficient. The citizens' drive must become a solid language policy to ensure the normalization and revitalization of Euskera: effective, strong and, above all, uncomplicated public policies, both in the normative and in the resources devoted to it. In other words, action must be taken in the same way as in other areas considered to be priority and strategic for the urban sector.

There's citizen momentum... It will now be mirrored in the elections and priorities of the political players... We shake and we create complexes: the world is against minority linguistic communities, but we have ourselves and our languages for the world.