Ruper Ordorika sang: “no one told me how difficult it is to be Basque.” I do not know if it is as difficult as it is difficult, because the Basques have a close relationship with complexity. Our music, our customs, our language, our geography and our sociology are often problematic.

The first example I came up with was the alboka. Traditional instrument of wind only in the Basque Country. To extract the sound you have to use the circular respiration, to continuously blow with your fingers while melodies are produced. Also, bertsolaris who witness our culture rarely have to invent stories and games of unusual words of a mile and a thousandth of a second. As if you had to repair the motor while driving. Only the nicest bertsos, the deepest, the funniest and the most exciting will take the txapela.

Apart from the current examples, throughout history we have travelled the wild side of life. Basque hooligans were famous hunting whales. Even though the biggest and most dangerous animal was hunger, need and instinct to complicate life, they were the ones who led them to fish. On land, things weren't very different. We developed the habit of plugging in mines, using chisel, hammer and kirrixkileta to extract the ore.

Just as the history of the Basques is linked to complexity, our language has spoken of difficulty. The Basque language is genetically isolated, there is no known language with which to share its origins. However, it is as changing as the old one, where expressions, the meaning of words and spelling rules change each year. It is a sign of vitality. Twenty years ago, for example, the moon was written in hatxe. On the other hand, our morphology tends to produce rather long words. Let’s put the word “of the most important”, twenty-two letters, ten syllables.

I came up with a thousand more examples. Athletic remains at the top of the first Spanish division plagued by stars without foreigners (regulations do not require it in any case). When we pronounce our name and surname, the outsiders see them red, like Aritzeder Gerrikaetxebarria Agirregomezkorta. The climate does not make life easier for us, especially in summer, as the sunniest day of August can bring saucers. Rural sport, crews system, orography, relationship with neighbouring states, etc. The list is too long to ignore the pattern you notice.

All of this has given me great thoughts in the last few days, if we've developed a inferiority complex. Maybe we feel empty as a people, and we've begun to take on the biggest and most difficult concerns for others to see our potential. A population of three million and a peak of inhabitants, who constantly seeks and publishes reasons to gain a dignified space in a globalized world. In the political sphere, in the field of linguistic rights or in the cultural sphere, among others.

We have been juggling in front of everyone for years. Playing strange instruments of wind, improvising poetry, hunting whales, digging mountains, speaking lonely languages. Trying to show others, or ourselves, that we deserve what we are asking for.

Since the outcry of the late Etxepare, evil vices take over him.