argia.eus
INPRIMATU
Tickets, in Basque
Irati Elorrieta 2016ko otsailaren 24a

I have decided to have an anecdote with a great risk of saying something that is obvious. Sometimes I have a complex of looking at the Basque Country from Mars, and I lose the ability to know what it is and what is not evidence. Just in case it goes there.

I have been in the Basque Country (1) and have had to go to the Health Center, to the pediatrician's consultation. They got me great. Spanish. Since we are not in the system, the reception has given me an appointment with the first pediatrician who had some time. As I entered the consultation, I activated my family sociologist. I have less than a second to make the diagnosis: she will not speak to me in Euskera, but, by age, the chances of knowing Euskera (my age environment) are greater than those of not knowing. So I'll do it. Asking if he knows Euskera. “Well, yes,” he replied. And he has cared for us in Euskera (also very well). I cannot know, but the pediatrician may have used Euskera for the first time in his work. Maybe -- and that hypothesis has made me think about the degree of evidence of some issues -- because no one has asked for that before. And when I've asked, I can tell you why not: cheer on it or give it a chance. I have not noticed in him any insecurity or embarrassment over the degree of language. I thank you (2). It is possible that even when we left the consultation, a sighting of the paediatrician may have been avoided because of the effort made. He may have felt proud. Maybe I've even felt an arousal. Sensations after a performance.

In my case, I have to acknowledge that the linguistic situation of the children has forced me, and in passing I was used to asking for the Basque language outside my closest environment: with very positive answers. I've never been lucky at the Bilbao Metro. But yes with the rescuers of the beach, with the doctors and nurses of the emergency room, with the staff of the parking lot, with the sellers of film cards...

The moment we are, a scene like the one we've told above should be repeating in a thousand corners of Euskal Herria every second. The linguistic policies of recent years have come to create the necessary scenarios for this (in the Basque Autonomous Community). It will have to be rethought, expanded, refined. There will be those who take care of that. But the protagonists of everyday life are us. Many people have learned Basque, and now it is the minority that we use to activate the majority that understands and knows better or worse. These kinds of scenes have to become viral. Similar to variations.

I don't come – from Mars – to say that with that everything would be solved. What I say is perhaps too obvious: to revolutionize the communication model, you have to click the inside of the head to be Basque who has conscience and will. (In CAV) you won't have to fight a lot, you won't have to live a lot of tension. A small click inside the head that activates the word “majority”. Out there, there are enough conditions to build scenarios everywhere. In order to be able to fill the big theaters, first, you have to get people to work in the theater.

1) Algorta. Therefore: Gran Bilbao, Bizkaia (CAPV).

2) In our case, moreover, if the pediatrician had not been able to work in Euskera, he would be speaking in a language that the child does not understand. That's what I've experienced as a child, when I still didn't know Spanish, when the pediatrician spoke in Spanish. But here's the thing: we're two different generations.