- Axier López, a journalist of ARGIA, has analyzed in his book Ot. heroiak, the presence of characters related to colonialism and slavery in the streets of Euskal Herria, moving the international debate on these symbols around the importance of Euskal Herria. The book is available at the ARGIA fair.
Next Thursday, 1 September, López will present the book around the round table that will take place in Getaria. Along with the ARGIA journalist, the historian of Getaria, Idoia Arrieta, and Luciana Alfaro, a member of the network of migrated and racist women in the Basque Country, moderated by journalist Gari Berasaluze, will speak. It will start at 19:00 in the afternoon at Plaza Verdura, next to the City Hall of Getaria.
“It’s not the skin of ourselves”
“Neither you nor I are colonialists, invaders, conquerors, nor slaves,” you can read in the back of the book, “Killing the wild indigenous at the other end of the world, “civilizing” others under the shadow of the cross of Christ, and plundering their lands and their goods is not something that is today something that can be claimed by oneself. No one endorses these barbarities made by many Basques for centuries (even). But if the conqueror becomes an explorer, colonizer, humanist and slave, businessman, then it's easier.
This is not the scalp. We weren't there. So we don't care. But when we celebrate here and now what happened in the past, when we justify, when we keep the protagonists in privileged places, in the names of the streets and in the sculptures of the squares, then yes, the responsibility is ours. Because we are here.”
Interview with the book
Issue number 2.787 of ARGIA was interviewed by Peru Iparragirre to Axier López on the occasion of the new book: "Speeches aimed at our navel have prevailed here when the debate on decolonality is in full swing."
Our heroes are available at the ARGIA fair.