The first doubt came to me with the presentation of my colleague Olatz Korta. 29. The ARGIA Prize has said so. “What Christ should I tell in this chronicle? These awards are older than me,” I thought. In these 29 years you will have counted a lot of the ARGIA Awards! So, reader, as you probably know better than I do how the entire protocol of these awards works, I will tell you simply what my eyes and ears have received.

Some tables seem like the Basque Culture Summit, a space to talk about deep and important issues. I don't particularly like these kinds of sites, and fortunately for me, I've been touched by the only English that was in the entire palace. Basque English! And I talked to him very willingly. Those who work as professors of Euskera are interested in what motivated an English to learn our language, and we have talked about it; or also about the importance (or not) that the institutions give to Euskera, such as the Basque media.

The Anglo-Saxon Basque friend has given me the clue for the chronicle. Language unites us all the people we've come together in Atxega, and prizes and awards have that foundation. Not just this year; year after year, 29 years. And I've realized the different areas where Euskera can be based, and the different areas where these awards are given to friends. As a well-expressed phrase in his speech Estitxu Eizagirre says: knowing or not knowing, because it is not the same.

Congratulations to all the winners.

Value-based awards

The 2018 ARGIA Awards have been awarded for spreading Basque and Basque culture to the four winds (either through music or sport), for trying to achieve a more just society on equal terms, for respect, protection and information to the environment, and for putting color and smile on this world.

PRESS Magazine
“Harmail” Not
a year has passed since the Basque sports media in Harmail opened its doors in the network, and has already published its first journal in the written press. Quiet, it’s about making a sports press to read calmly, “Harmail’s goal is to get a little away from the news of everyday life and games and analyze sport,” says Eñaut Barandiaran, one of the three editors. Only in Basque. They have jumped into this project because they have seen the need for a support that brings together sport and Euskera.

Studying the sport calmly allows them to look with other eyes. They want to ask the grade to work the sport on an equal footing, that in addition to football or hand ball other sports should be made known. And as pointed out in the editorial of that first issue of paper, “sport is usually mixed with politics”, especially that there are very criticizable attitudes at the professional level, but they also want to show other values that sport has and that are useful to society.

RADIO
Ekosfera radio programme
8 years. 350 programmes. 500-700 guests. These are the data that Jokin Aldazabal has given us about the Ekosfera program of the Basque Country Irratia. “We are very pleased with the news of the prize; it is to be welcomed that programs as small and as modest as ours receive the ARGIA Prize,” said Aldazabal. “But the merit is also of many others, we have to thank a lot of people and I don’t want to forget Arantza Txintxurreta, Kristina Zuza and Josu López Gazpio,” he continued.

These sessions deal with issues such as renewable energy, mobility, waste, water, rivers, earthquakes or fast trains, issues that can often seem catastrophic in view of the damage that has occurred in the last century. “I want to be compassionate towards the human being, because genetically it behaves in a way guided by the emotions and sensations of the moment, and although it knows the consequences of its decisions well, it continues with the same decision. But we want to give some margin to those who have a better world in environmental and energy matters and are making an effort to leave it to posterity,” explains the award-winning.

INTERNET
Gabi de la Maza (txantxangorria.eus)
Take your hand on Youtube anyone who has never used a Basque song for karaoke of the Txantxangorri. We are going to find very few in our Basque world. He's written over 2,200 songs. But how do you start taking that job? De la Maza has been a professor for 37 years, now he has retired three or four months, and it is he who best counts the trajectory of the Txantxangorri: “The Department of Education began to organize Centers for Idiomatic Entrenchment in order to bring the adolescents of model B to Euskera informally. We were going to these one-week barnetegis with our students, and Basque music was one of my most important instruments. Before I created Youtube I started karaoke songs, but from 2008 I started to upload them to Youtube.”

Over these ten years he has put subtitles from historical songs of the Basque song to the latest news.

Gabi de la Maza did not think that, when she started creating this material to motivate the students, this was the channel that has been visited the most in Basque in 2017!

ETB
has welcomed with “Alegría” the ARGIA Prize
of Uxue Alberdi and Aitzol Barandiaran for their follow-up work to the Bertsolaris Championship of Euskal Herria. In a broad follow-up on public television, Barandiaran has acknowledged that it has been an “effort and effort”, as well as “taking risks”. “The weight or essence of the program has been borne by Uxue, I have assumed the role of guide for the session,” he acknowledges, and it is to be welcomed that he leaves the usual roles and offers the viewer an expert woman.

The performances have offered tools for the audiovisual with other eyes and ears, have given keys to valuing the work done, have explained the situation in which the artist was found and in what conditioned his creativity... The characteristics of each of them have been explained and defined to understand their work. “Uxue has been very wet and well, with respect, valuing each job sincerely. And on this vertiginous border he has made sincere criticisms,” Barandiaran stressed.

ARGIA has rewarded the work done by the two young people who have participated in the subject, far from performing a single action.

FOMENTO City
Hall of Pamplona, Area of Equality
“No to the sexist aggressions, Iruñea aske”. This has been the communication strategy of the City of Pamplona for the Sanfermines 2017 in collaboration with different social and collective feminist agents. And that's why we got the ARGIA Promotion Award.

Parties are to enjoy, to walk down the street, to meet new people, to bind, to dance. But half of society has to take steps to get no man to spoil the party. And we know what the Sanfermines of Pamplona are. In recent years the Navarre capital has gained a reputation during the festivities. “City without law.”

Social movements and feminist groups have been denouncing sexist aggressions for years, and in Pamplona/Iruña organizations have begun to work alongside the social movement. It has already begun to change the landscape, under the slogan “No to sexist aggressions!” the red hands have become popular in the streets, bars and txosnas, and it is not so easy to say that it is a city without laws. Although there is a lot of work to be done, every step is important.

Pirritx,
Porrotx eta Marimotots is a
group of clowns created around the Basque association ‘Lasarte-Oria berreuskaldundu dezagun’. “There was little poetry and much action then, the name itself expresses it well,” explains Joxe Mari Agirretxe ‘Porrotx’. This group, which was launched in 1987 on the subject of Basque cultural activity, was 30 years old last December and has received a well-deserved prize. “We got goosebumps when we knew the prize. ARGIA is a reference for the Basques and we are very sorry. We both work in popular construction, and Euskera is the tool for transmitting values. A prize that also means empathy and collaboration among the youngest,” he said.

“We were born in classical payasism, but gradually we created it looking at the construction of a country, at social issues. Our goal is to give a little color and maintain values to a world that goes too fast,” said Agirretxe. And he hasn't wanted to forget all the collaborators, musicians, singers and friends who have worked with them over the years.

MERITORIO Artisans of Peace
In
2017 it has been a great achievement of this people, disarmament. Although disarmament was sabotaged by both states, the citizens became Artisans of Peace and managed to destroy the first weapons through civil disobedience. At the ARGIA Awards, we reward the work of communication, and has communication not been one of the keys to disarmament? The Artisans of Peace, prior to the arrest of the police in Luhuso, informed the public of the action and objective being pursued in favour of peace. The message was well understood by the citizens, and the French media also disseminated other views on the subject. The Artisans of Peace achieved total legitimacy and thus freedom through this communication. After that, was it not key to work on communication with discretion and confidence between radically different political families in France so that the French State could achieve a change of attitude? In other words, with Baiona as the axis to ensure that the citizens do not receive the state’s repression when they disarmed in public and in the light of the day?

In this link you can find the introductory talk of ARGIA members at the Argia Awards.